The notion of introducing a limited run of an innovative product is nothing new, and in the fashion industry, these introductions often take the form of capsule collections—small introductions of a novel sort of design, intended to test out whether consumers will buy. A notable proportion of recently introduced capsule collections have a specific novelty: They claim greater sustainability in their production processes, even as the rest of the brand’s offerings rely on conventional production processes.
At H&M, the sustainable capsule offering is designated as its Conscious line of clothing. Such a collection is especially notable for this fast fashion brand, which frequently has evoked criticisms in the past for being unsustainable by design. That is, its business model encourages consumers to purchase and dispose of clothes regularly, ignoring or directly contradicting sustainable efforts to reuse and recycle items over time. To be assigned to the Conscious line, clothing must be produced with at least 50 percent sustainable materials, which might be recycled or organic in origin.
Other companies use different standards to define their green offerings. Levi’s introduced a line of jeans made from hemp, noting that growing hemp creates a smaller carbon footprint than cotton, as well as a line developed with technology that drastically cuts down on the amount of water used in the production process.
Such experiments allow the brands to test out if the processes will work and whether the finished products will appeal to consumers. But they also impose new costs. In most cases, sustainable production methods are more expensive than conventional ones, especially if the brand accounts for indirect costs. For example, responsible brands might recognize the ways their production processes add to levels of air or water pollution and invest in tactics to mitigate those effects. Such indirect costs in turn tend to lead to higher prices for the finished products. By experimenting with capsule collections, the manufacturers thus can gain another piece of valuable information, namely, whether consumers will agree to pay more to obtain more sustainable clothing.
Despite these meaningful tests and insights, critics allege that some brands are using capsule collections and claims of sustainability in less sincere ways, as greenwashing, to attract consumers without actually engaging in responsible production. If a brand never expands its sustainable experiments beyond a small capsule collection, then arguably it cannot claim to be truly sustainable, because the majority of its offerings do not meet this standard. Furthermore, especially among fast fashion retailers, the collections could serve like loss leaders: Even if they cost more, these brands sell the sustainable clothing at low prices, with the belief that they can get consumers to buy other, more profitable, less responsibly produced items at the same time.
It may be hard to recommend that companies stop trying to find more sustainable ways to produce clothing. But as one observer critically notes, even if the firms might be taking some positive steps, “the marketing of what they’re doing is far outpacing what they’re doing.”
Discussion Question:
- Where do you draw the line between greenwashing and introducing modestly more environmentally friendly products?
- Are you more likely to purchase products that claim to be environmentally friendly? Does your answer change if those products are more expensive than other products that don’t make that claim?
Source: Rachel Cernansky, “The Impact of Fashion’s ‘Sustainable’ Capsule Collections,” Vogue Business, March 12, 2020.