Canada’s Competitors Bureau is opening a proper investigation into Lululemon’s environmental practices, in keeping with a non-profit group that filed in opposition to the B.C. athleisure large that accused it of greenwashing.
“Stand.earth representatives had been notified late final week by Competitors Bureau Canada that it has formally opened an inquiry into Lululemon, following a grievance filed by the environmental advocacy group that alleges the attire firm misleads prospects about its environmental influence,” the Vancouver-based group mentioned in a press release to CBC Information.
CBC Information has reached out to the Competitors Bureau for remark.
Stand.earth’s grievance, which the non-profit mentioned was filed in February, says Lululemon’s Be Planet sustainability marketing campaign from 2020 — wherein the corporate mentioned it might work to cut back its greenhouse fuel emissions — is contradicted by a 2022 influence report that outlined Lululemon’s progress in reaching its local weather objectives.
The influence report reveals the corporate’s Scope 3 greenhouse fuel emissions — oblique emissions that happen because of an organization’s actions, together with these produced by prospects utilizing its merchandise— elevated from about 471,100 tonnes in 2020 to 847,400 tonnes in 2022. Lululemon wrote in its report that this space “wants acceleration.”
The corporate additionally wrote in 2020 that it “leaned into investments and partnerships to develop sustainable supplies that reveal our management in product innovation and environmental hurt discount.”
Final 12 months, Lululemon partnered with a startup to create garments from recycled nylon and polyester. However the report from Stand.earth notes that most of the firm’s merchandise proceed to be made with polyester or nylon, each of that are supplies manufactured from fossil fuels.
“Lululemon’s prospects all over the world must know the actual impacts of their local weather air pollution, not the greenwashed model they promote their merchandise with,” Todd Paglia, government director at Stand.earth, mentioned within the firm’s assertion.
Paglia beforehand referred to as out Lululemon for greenwashing, a time period used to explain when firms, governments or people mislead others on their environmental practise or environmental advantages.
Do you ever see firms utilizing phrases like “sustainable” or “eco-friendly?” It could possibly be a clue that they’re doing one thing referred to as greenwashing.
A spokesperson for Lululemon beforehand instructed CBC Information the corporate is concentrated on serving to create an trade that’s “extra sustainable and addresses the intense impacts of local weather change.”
The corporate is dedicated to its decarbonization plan, the spokesperson added, with the purpose of assembly its 2030 local weather targets and attaining net-zero emissions by 2050.
“We acknowledge that almost all of influence comes from emissions inside the broader provide chain,” the spokesperson wrote, including that the corporate reported by itself emissions within the 2022 annual report.
