How to talk about sustainability without getting flagged for greenwashing

If you've read our piece on sustainability buzzwords, you already know that terms like "eco-friendly" and "responsibly made" don't have consistent definitions. The bigger shift happening now is that governments are starting to write those definitions into law, and brands that can't back up their claims are getting caught.

What Bill C-59 means for your business

Canada's Bill C-59 took effect on June 20, 2024, amending the Competition Act to explicitly target misleading environmental claims. As of last June, private parties can bring cases directly to the Competition Tribunal, meaning it's not just regulators watching anymore. The amendments place the burden of proving that environmental claims are based on adequate and proper testing directly on the brand making them, which is a meaningful shift from how things worked before.

In plain terms, if your hang tag says "sustainable materials," your website says "carbon neutral," or your packaging says "eco-friendly," you need documentation to back it up. A general commitment to doing better doesn't count.

Penalties for violations can reach up to $10 million for a first offense, or three times the benefit gained from the deceptive practice, or 3% of global annual revenues, whichever is greater. As of last year, private parties can also bring cases directly to the Competition Tribunal, which means it's not just regulators watching. Environmental groups and NGOs can now file complaints too.

The Competition Bureau has also signaled that forward-looking claims can be considered greenwashing if they represent little more than wishful thinking, and that brands need a concrete, realistic, and verifiable plan to support anything they say about their future environmental goals.

Why this matters outside of Canada

The EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT) applies from September 27, 2026. It bans generic claims like "eco-friendly" or "green" unless they're backed by recognized certification or clear verifiable evidence, and it prohibits carbon-neutral product claims based on offsets rather than actual emissions reductions. EU member states were required to write it into national law by March 27, 2026, so enforcement is weeks away.

The EU's Green Claims Directive, which would have added stricter pre-verification requirements on top of all that, was suspended in June 2025 and isn't expected to move forward anytime soon. But the ECGT stands on its own and kicks in this fall.

In the US, the FTC's Green Guides set expectations for how environmental claims should be worded and supported, and state attorneys general have used them as a basis for their own enforcement actions.

The direction across all three markets is the same: vague claims are being phased out, and documented, specific claims are what hold up going forward.

The gap most brands haven’t closed yet

Most apparel brands have sustainability language somewhere. A lot of it isn't tied to any specific data.

"Recycled content" doesn't say how much or what kind. A garment described as "made with recycled materials" might contain 20% recycled polyester blended with virgin fiber.

"Responsibly sourced" doesn't name the suppliers, the standards, or who verified anything.

"Recyclable packaging" on a mixed-material polybag with no verified recycling pathway is exactly the kind of claim C-59 was written to address, because the product technically could be recycled somewhere, but in practice almost never is.

How traceability data closes the gap

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a digital record attached to a specific garment that holds material composition, supplier information, recycled content percentages, country of origin, care instructions, and end-of-life guidance. When that data is linked to a physical label through a QR code or RFID chip, it's tied to that specific product.

That's the difference between "made with recycled materials" and being able to show exactly what percentage of recycled content is in the garment, from which certified supplier, verified by which third party, and updated to reflect the current production run. When your sustainability language is built on DPP data, it holds up because it's specific and it's attached to something a regulator or retail partner can actually check.

There's also a practical side to this. When a retail partner asks for documentation to support your claims, or when a consumer scans the label and wants more information, it's already there. You're not pulling a response together after the fact.

Where to start

Go through your marketing, hang tags, and packaging and ask: if someone asked us to back this up, what would we show them?

Start with your broadest claims. Those are the most exposed under C-59 and the ECGT. Instead of "eco-friendly materials," say what the material is, where it came from, and what it was certified to.

Packaging is also worth reviewing separately from your marketing copy. It tends to be the first thing audited, and it's harder to update quickly once it's been produced.

From there, it's about connecting your product data to your labels. Charming's DPP solution, built with Tappr, attaches verified product information at the label level so your claims are backed by the product itself. If you want to talk through what that looks like for your line, reach out to your Charming Business Developer.