Evidence-based or not?

The idea of sustainable fashion is becoming increasingly popular within the fashion industry, whilst consumers are seeking information online about brands’ sustainability values and impact. This has made online sustainability communication a common practice among fashion brands. However, with the rise of sustainability communication, the risk of greenwashing increases. To tackle this issue, a new directive which is set to ban greenwashing was approved by the European Union in early 2024, creating a need to examine current sustainability communication practices of brands within the Union. Therefore, this thesis studies six Swedish fashion brands’ online sustainability communication practices by looking at how sustainability is presented via Instagram posts and websites’ sustainability-related pages, whilst further investigating how evidence-based these forms of sustainability communication appear to be. In turn this will help understand what brands should take into consideration to avoid greenwashing accusations. The brands included in the study are fast fashion brands Arket and Cos, premium fashion brands Filippa K and Tiger of Sweden, and sustainably-positioned fashion brands Asket and Nudie Jeans. To answer the research questions, a qualitative thematic analysis has been conducted on 180 sustainability-related Instagram posts, as well as 62 sustainability-related webpages sampled from the six Swedish fashion brands’ official Instagram accounts and websites. The analysis resulted in the discovery of the themes “the environmental impact of fashion”, “supply chain developments”, “sustainability through improved materials”, and “towards circular and slower fashion models”. These findings show that Swedish fashion brands present sustainability from a wide perspective covering aspects of environmental, social, and economic sustainability by sharing related efforts, whilst also taking an educational approach to encourage mindful consumption habits. Evidence is presented through explanations, definitions, statistics, time-based goals, and actionable plans, whilst third party confirmations provide the strongest proof. Webpages are noted as the more evidence-based channel, whilst Instagram is more surface-level. However, no brand practices perfect evidence-based sustainability communication as various types of sustainability claims that are either vague, lack proof, or clear substance, in addition to misleading visual elements, are identified as tactics to enhance sustainability on a surface-level. Moreover, evidence is occasionally used to highlight certain accomplishments to avoid showing the full picture. To conclude, this study encourages Swedish fashion brands to review current communicational practices, so that sustainability claims are clearly supported by evidence and appear coherent across online communication channels.