Collective Fashion Justice’s CIRCUMFAUNA project researched 50 brands who use green-washing terms for wool products; who rank highly in searches about ‘sustainable knitwear’, and ‘sustainable wool’; who feature in fashion publication listicles about these; who are stocked in sustainable fashion boutiques; who are supported by Woolmark or who are in the Fashion United top 100 list.

Of the 50 recorded brands making green-washed claims, only 28% of them backed up their claim with any kind of reference, regardless of the quality of that reference or if it provided genuine data to support the claim.

Multiple brands used the exact same phrases, such as wool being produced by sheep simply ‘consuming a simple blend of water, air, sunshine and grass’, and talk of wool ‘releasing valuable nutrients into the earth’ when discarded, because wool is ‘100% biodegradable, natural and renewable’. It was found that these statements are all originally published by Woolmark themselves.

Over half of the brands used the word ‘sustainable’, with only under 30% of those offering any supporting evidence, regardless of the quality of evidence. Other claims offered to consumers without support included ‘lowest possible environmental impact’, ‘easy on the earth’, ‘incredibly light footprint on the planet’, and ‘eco-wool’.