Stand.earth won’t stand down when it comes to Lululemon.
The environmental non-profit has filed a complaint with France‘s Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), accusing the athleisure company of greenwashing through its Be Planet campaign.
Rachel Kitchin, Stand’s senior corporate climate campaigner, said the fact that Lululemon is the official outfitter for Team Canada for the Paris Olympics, which kick off with an opening ceremony on July 26, makes now the right time to bring the complaint to France’s regulators.
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“Lululemon is out there representing Canadian athletes at the highest level, in Paris at the Olympic Games. Team Canada has strong climate goals, [and] Paris 2024 aims to be the greenest ever Olympics. Meanwhile, Lululemon’s emissions are still skyrocketing, and it has still not explained how it plans to live up to the Be Planet marketing. We want Lululemon to act with the integrity and climate focus our athletes deserve,” she said.
A spokesperson for Lululemon said that Be Planet is not a marketing campaign, but rather a pillar of the company’s strategy.
The complaint requests that the DGCCRF open an investigation into Lululemon’s environmental claims, noting that there is a “glaring” contradiction between its climate-focused messaging and its actions. This, the organization says, harms both consumers and the environment.
“Greenwashing delays environmental awareness and sows confusion in the public mind, preventing consumers from making informed choices and genuinely committed companies from differentiating themselves,” the complaint reads.
Earlier this month, a consumer filed a proposed class action accusing the company of greenwashing.
The complaint comes just days after a letter Olympians penned to Lululemon’s CEO last week, calling on him to make a solid commitment to clean energy, support suppliers transitioning to clean energy and disclose more information about the company’s supply chains. Stand backed that letter.
It also follows a similar complaint Stand filed with the Canadian Competition Bureau a few months ago. Canada’s government is now investigating the company because of the complaint, but Kitchin said Stand has not received any update on that investigation since it began in May.
Kitchin said, should the French government choose to open an investigation into Lululemon, Stand would likely have greater visibility into the process than it has in Canada. Ultimately, an investigation like that could lead to fines or other major punishments for the company, but Kitchin said that’s Stand’s desired outcome.
“We’re not looking for looking for fines or for punishment of the company. That’s been not what this is about. At the end of the day, what we want is Lululemon to make it green claims true. It would be wonderful if this was a company that actually contributed to restoring the health of our planet. It’s just not true at the moment…but we would love to see them make the kind of commitment that could make a claim like that more realistic,” Kitchin said.
While the apparel industry has a long way to go in terms of climate goals, Kitchin noted, some of Lululemon’s competitors—including some brands also outfitting Olympians—have made much steadier progress.
“We did an analysis and compared [Lululemon to] Puma, Adidas, Nike and a few other brands that are sponsoring other Olympic teams, and their emissions are dropping. Many have invested significantly in renewable energy in their supply chains and have strong absolute emissions targets,” Kitchin told Sourcing Journal. “So it is possible, and there are very clear paths out there for Lululemon to follow. Its continued choice not to do so is such a strong indicator of its ongoing greenwashing.”
She noted that Stand’s primary ask of Lululemon is to decrease its emissions and its reliance on fossil fuels. According to Stand’s complaint, which pulled data from the company’s impact reports, Lululemon’s Scope 3 emissions doubled between 2020, the year it launched Be Planet, and 2022.
The Lululemon spokesperson said the company understands it has room for improvement on Scope 3 emissions.
“We have achieved a 60 percent absolute reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in our owned and operated facilities but recognize most of our climate impact comes from emissions of our broader supply chain,” the spokesperson told Sourcing Journal via email. “We are taking direct action and are committed to collaborating with industry partners to help address supply chain impacts on climate change.”
But Stand said that, though Lululemon has made some progress, its main gripe is that the company’s public claims about being environmentally positive don’t align with what it has yet to progress on.
In January, the European Union approved a greenwashing directive, which is meant to help decrease the frequency of unsubstantiated claims made by companies and other entities. According to the EU, the directive will specifically target “generic environmental claims on products without proof; claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment because the producer is offsetting emissions and sustainability labels that are not based on approved certification schemes or established by public authorities.”
EU countries have until 2026 to update their respective national laws to reflect the rules outlined by the directive, but Stand said this could be a good way for the DGCCRF to show its chops.
Todd Paglia, Stand’s executive director, said, “A crackdown is beginning to happen from Europe to North America.”
Stand’s complaint contends that Lululemon makes marketing and advertising claims that relate to minor benefits and, thus, are misleading; that it makes vague or ambiguous assertions and that it intentionally omits essential information and makes false claims.
But, Kitchin said, by committing to more robust sustainability goals—and working diligently to carry them out—Lululemon still has a chance to contribute
“There is still a chance for them to turn this around. Seeing Lululemon’s emissions doubling since 2020 is completely at odds with the message that it’s putting out…so we would love to see them make a strong commitment to real climate action in the supply chain in a way that speaks to and protects the climate vulnerable communities [throughout] the supply chain,” she said. “At the end of the day, we’re not just talking about customers and people in the Global North; the people working in the factories and living around the factories are in some of the most climate-vulnerable places on Earth and are already dealing with the consequences… It’s time for Lululemon to step up.”
