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As a conscious consumer and writer, I tend to gravitate toward the sustainable certifications section of any brand’s website. When I see B-Corp, certified Fair Trade, bluesign, I instantly feel better about that brand.
Lately some people within the sustainable/ethical fashion world have been thinking more critically about certifications. Often we look toward certifications and stop there. This sort of black and white thinking can be dangerous. It can stop us from thinking more deeply about the companies we’re supporting with our money.
Naturally, I’d like to give my take on the issue. I always recommend looking for certifications in my articles and I often talk about the benefits and drawbacks of certifications in relation to certain products or brands. But it’s high time I tackle the issue on its own. So let’s dive into the world of ethical and sustainable certifications.
Why do we need certifications?
As a consumer it might be hard to understand the need for a certification. You might ask yourself, “but aren’t businesses already regulated?” And in some areas you’d be right. For example, we know that businesses have to comply with standards at a federal or state level, as is the case with the minimum wage or rules about trading stock. With that said, only certain aspects of corporations are regulated.
As a conscious consumer, you may be interested in how your products were made, how employees were treated, what materials were used, etc. These consumer issues are not so widely regulated in all industries. In some cases, these issues are regulated at a relatively low standard and in others, they’re not regulated at all.
The fashion industry happens to be notorious for a lack of regulation. And many experts believe that this is partially to blame for all of the problems with fashion. As we know, fashion is notorious for polluting our oceans with microplastics, emitting carbon, and unfair and unjust labor practices, like the use of child labor.
This is where certifications come in. Most Certifications stem from third parties (they’re not brands themselves nor are they government regulating bodies). Their goal is provide businesses a way to show that they go beyond the low standards of state and federal law to achieve a better product, whether it’s more ethical, sustainable, or even simply that it works at all.
Common sustainable and ethical certifications
Within the world of sustainable and ethical fashion there are several key certifications. Perhaps the most famous one is the B-Corp certification. B-Corps must meet strict standards in a variety of impact factors drawing from day-to-day operations, as well as the business’ supply chain and business model. The process is meant to question essentially every aspect of a business and make sure that it’s operating as responsibly as possible. Within the sustainable and ethical business world, we generally think of B-Corps as the pinnacle of Good Businesses.
The B-Corp certification is one of the only all-encompassing certifications out there. (One other well-known one would be bluesign). Other certifying bodies focus on certain impact factors, like the Climate Neutral certification, which focuses on carbon emissions. These types of certification bodies generally help companies implement plans to meet particular goals and monitor a variety of operations.
Additionally, some certifying bodies focus on particular products instead of whole brands. You’ll see Oeko-Tex and Global Organic Textile Standard certificates for products made of cotton, wool, hemp, and a variety of other textiles, focusing mainly on sustainable sourcing and processing. Another common and well-known certification is Fair Trade, which focuses more on ethical labor practices. But once again, these certifications work on a product-by-product basis and do not serve to evaluate an entire business.
When do certifications become confusing/tricky/misleading?
As you can see, we can think of certifications in two tiers. There are certifications that focus on a whole company holistically and there are certifications that focus on individual products. This distinction is really important.
Additionally, all certifications are limited. In the case of USDA organic products, their label was designed for food and agricultural products. Because of this, there aren’t the same kinds of processing requirements that you would want to see for a garment. Rather, it just claims that a particular product contains a certain amount of organic content. And this is great but if the product has been dyed, what about water usage? If the garment only has the USDA certification, you won’t necessarily know about other human or environmental impact factors from looking at the label. (You can read an explainer I wrote on organic clothing and labeling here).
Unfortunately, because certifications can be so tricky to understand, it’s very easy for this to lead to misinformation. Whether this is intentional or not is a different issue. But the long and short of it is that it’s very easy to see a certification and assume that a brand is all good. But once again, it’s extremely important to look into what each certification claims to guarantee.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that certification is, in a sense, time-stamped. It claims that a product or company has met a set of standards at one point in time. There may be continual check-ups on those standards, but that varies from certification to certification. Plus, certifications don’t necessarily guarantee that a brand won’t slip up in the future.
Generally speaking, certifications don’t prevent companies from taking ethical missteps either. Take a look at the former B-Corp Reformation, which was exposed for its toxic work environment and institutional racism back in 2020. The case of Reformation speaks to the fact that certifications are, once again, limited. They guarantee certain aspects of a business’s practices or a product’s origin or processing, but no singular certification is robust enough to guarantee top-to-bottom sustainability or ethics. Not to mention the fact that these certifications can’t eliminate workplace harassment or prevent toxicity.
So while certifications can provide consumers with great information, they’re not the perfect solution. And I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t trust the certifying bodies I’ve mentioned here, or any others for that matter. Rather, I want you to be mindful about how much information these certifications actually give you as a consumer.
So… what is the ‘perfect solution?’
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits all way to ensure that what you’re buying has been made sustainably, ethically, and in an equitable, fair, and non-toxic environment. There are so many variables at play and various ways of even thinking about sustainability and ethics.
For example, you might be okay with buying leather goods made by a social enterprise that benefits women’s health; someone else might think leather is never okay. So a certification guaranteeing that this leather was made ‘ethically’ might hold different weight for you and for another person.
But what can you do? You can always keep an eye on certifications anyway. But rather than just clocking them, you can try to actually read them. The wording can be confusing, so please, feel free to see if we’ve written about them or reach out to us. We love to dive deeper into these kinds of things at the Wellness Feed.
If you want to go even further, you can check out a brand’s social media presence. Are they sharing resources about anti-racism? Are they consistently transparent about their workplace and business practices? Do they publish information about their wages and factories? Do they have a plan to cut their carbon emissions? Are they involved in social justice movements? These are all ways to see if a business is in line with your views that go beyond checking out their certifications.
Once again, I want to say that you shouldn’t give up on certifications. They matter, I promise. But they’re not everything. And that’s okay. There really is no perfect way of shopping; there are just better ways than buying from unethical, unsustainable brands. So take this information, dive a little deeper, and buy better.