What is "Green Label" Merch (and How to Know if It's Real)

A label you might see more and more throughout the clothing industry (or the broader fashion industry) is the green label. If you're assuming that the green label means that the item is produced in a more environmentally sustainable – that is, "green" – manner, you might be right. Or you might not. Unfortunately, that distinction can be difficult to determine.

Why Are Green Labels Important?

Before we get into the weeds of what green labels are, let's talk about why they're important.

As you have probably guessed, the idea behind green labels is to identify products that have more of an emphasis than normal on eco-friendly creation, production, and fulfillment. Around the world, people are increasingly aware of the damage being done to the planet and to the people who live on it, and people are pushing back.

Various industries have faced this challenge, with differing levels of success. The fashion industry, in particular, has long been one of the most exploitative and damaging industries on the planet, so it makes sense that a lot of additional attention and pressure is paid to brands in that space.

Green Labels, ideally, provide a source of validation for the products made with more eco-friendly production methods. It serves as a way to track results, to reinforce successes, and even to reassure customers that they're putting their money into more sustainable options rather than not.

In an ideal world, this would become a self-reinforcing structure that pushes society towards greater standards of ethical treatment and eco-friendly production. Brands would benefit more from their green products and be encouraged to focus more on eco-friendly production, and eventually, those production methods would be the only ones left.

There's more to this story, but now let's talk a bit about what green labels are in practice rather than in theory.

What is Green Label?

Unfortunately, there are several different definitions, and they're somewhat difficult to differentiate.

#0: Products with Green Labels

We're putting this one right up at the top because it's easy to disregard. The term "green label" is generic enough that a lot of products are caught up in it despite having essentially nothing to do with it. A store with products that have a green version of their label can show up as "green label" products when they have nothing to do with Green Labeling, green production, or anything else in the ecosystem.

One example: a fiber-optic company has different classifications for fiber, fiber/copper, and copper telecommunications networks, and the all-fiber networks are green label. Is it sustainable? Is it ethically produced? Maybe, maybe not; it's irrelevant to the use of the label.

This one isn't really their fault, either. It's just a confluence of a generic term and the way search engines work these days. It does muddy the waters of the discussion a bit, but it can at least be ignored.

Sometimes, the "green label collection" from a company might actually be sustainable, if not actually a validated green label. We believe that a company should be all-or-nothing when it comes to sustainability, and that making one "ethical collection" implies a lot about the rest of the products not in that collection, but even so.

#1: Apparel by the Green Label Apparel Company

First up are companies like the Green Label Apparel Company. This is a small Shopify store, truthfully probably drop-shipping products from who knows where and using the name "green label" along with a single sentence in their footer to claim to be environmentally friendly.

Are they? We have no idea. The site offers essentially zero information or validation. The description for the products claims they're made of CVC fabric, which isn't the worst but definitely isn't the best. We're not going to claim they aren't ethically made, but the lack of evidence isn't helping their case.

They aren't the only brand to do something similar, either; they're just an easy example since the whole brand is named after the label. There are plenty of brands that have green label product lines meant to piggyback on the SEO value of the term or just confuse the issue and get sales from people who make assumptions but don't go digging.

#2: Green Label by Ralph Lauren

This one is actually a prime example of what we just mentioned, and since Ralph Lauren is such a large brand, they carry a lot of marketing weight.

Ralph Lauren is a massive fashion brand, and they have different lines of apparel. "Ralph Lauren" is on their higher end with a blue label, and other prestigious high-end lines are purple or black labels. Then you have the green label line, which is actually Lauren by Ralph Lauren. The green label doesn't even show up on their website; it's more of a lower-end version of the brand aimed at department store shelves and outlets.

Are the green-labeled Ralph Lauren products "green label" in the way we want to discuss? Probably not. Ralph Lauren, as a brand, has done some decent work at promoting sustainability and improving their brand's position, but they still are far from perfect, especially when it comes to the treatment of people and animals.

#3: General "Green" Labels on Products

Green labels for various products exist and offer some kind of certification process.

For example, the Carpet and Rug Institute has a Green Label Plus certification for carpet and carpeting products that meet standards for emissions that would otherwise damage indoor air quality. It meets EPA regulations and is federally recognized.

One that's a lot more relevant to the apparel industry is the OEKO-TEX green label. This is a specific textile label for products using their textiles and sets fairly high standards for the creation and use of the textiles in the final product.

When you get right down to it, there are a variety of labels that can be considered Green Labels that are world-recognized, like Fairtrade. We have a list we try to keep updated of the biggest and most important eco-friendly labels, which you can read here.

We're mostly just going to be focused on this last kind of green label since it's the one that suits the goals and ethics we discuss. However, it's important to know these other kinds of green labels exist.

The Dark Side to Green Labels

There are three major issues with green labels as they exist today.

The first is what we've already described above; many examples of green labels are just that: labels that are green. They have nothing to do with eco-friendly or sustainable creation or have any certification.

Sometimes, that's a coincidence, and sometimes, it's an intentional abuse of the conflation of terms, hoping to benefit by selling products that happen to be colored green rather than ethically green.

To further muddle the discussion, some actually ethical production and eco-friendly products aren't well-labeled or validated. Even when you browse our store, everything we offer is ethically produced, but you aren't going to find Fairtrade labels due to strict requirements for the actual certification. We're not unethical; we just don't meet their narrow definition. Feel free to reach out; we'll happily discuss anything you want to know about products in our store.

The second problem is that there are many brands that aren't afraid of lying about their production. The biggest brands get a lot of scrutiny and are typically more likely to play it straight, or maybe just exaggerate a little, and aren't likely to fabricate certifications out of whole cloth.

But even still, a lot of smaller brands have no qualms about simply lying. There are also occasional instances of entire false certifications being made and abused just to prey upon people who want to make ethical purchases but don't have the resources to dig into the labels they see.

The third problem is one we've talked about before on this site: greenwashing. Greenwashing is, broadly speaking, making claims or presenting yourself or your products as more green or more ethical than they actually are.

We have a deep dive into greenwashing (and related concepts like greenwishing and greenhushing) here. If you want a deeper discussion into these matters, check that post out.

Unfortunately, on top of all of this, there are distressingly few consequences for brands that abuse these techniques. In rare cases, some large organization or a class group might take legal action, at which point you have a years-long legal fight that costs an immense amount of money and, at the end of it, might do nothing more than make the company pay a pittance of a fine.

Sure, they can end up with a poor brand reputation, and they could lose some partnerships that were predicated on them having that ethical stance, but the tangible harm is often too little to work out to being a true punishment.

How to Validate a Legitimate Green Label

Despite the issues in even identifying if a company is creating green products, let alone using a green label, it's still worth knowing how to try to validate the label if you find one.

We've talked before about verifying product certifications. This works for products with high-end certifications. Certifications like Fairtrade, B Corp, or even the OEKO-TEX label offer label checks that can validate the certification.

That works for products with certifications that are reputable and can be validated. No one is going to doubt whether or not Fairtrade is a legitimate certification. But what about other green labels? How do you tell if a certification itself is valid, let alone if the issuance of the certification to the brand is valid?

• Check into the brand using third-party validation groups. Groups like Good On You offer brand ratings, where you can search for a brand and see how its reputation stacks up. Obviously, you have to trust their evaluations, but as long as it's transparent, you can make your own judgment.
• Look for sources and validation from the certifying body. There are numerous warning signs here. If the "certification" doesn't seem to have any web presence at all, or if it's very small and poorly discussed, it might not be reliable. You should also check to see if the people in control of the certification have a crossover with the company being certified. You don't want to trust the award handed out from the CEO to their own company, right?
• Evaluate the specifics. Green certifications should have specific details about what they focus on and how they check. That might be ethical treatment of people throughout the supply line, an evaluation of the environmental impact done to watersheds or forests, or it might be centered around emissions. It's up to you to evaluate how relevant these are to the product. Don't fall for misleading, irrelevant claims, like gluten-free table salt.

When it comes right down to it, there are enough big-name certifications like ISO certs, B Corp, Fairtrade, and the like that there's less and less reason to go with smaller niche certifications unless you're trying to hide something.

Make no mistake; it's a hard world out there. People often say we live in a "post-fact world" because of how easy it is to spin up misinformation these days. It's harder and harder to trust what we see at face value. That's why we all need to do what we can to be educated, to reinforce the valid certifications we know of, and to improve the world around us in whatever ways we can.

Here at Ethix, we do our best to do so through sourcing as many promotional products as we can with extremely high ethical standards. We want you to know that when you purchase through us, you're getting the best products for the price that you can, as far as eco-friendliness, ethical treatment, and sustainability are concerned. We're always open to discussions about what that means, complete with details and proof. You can shop with us with confidence, even when it's hard to do so anywhere else.