The bamboo toothbrush problem
You've seen the bamboo toothbrush. You've seen the recycled polyester tote, the candle in the apothecary jar, the moisturiser in the kraft-paper box with a leaf on it. You've probably bought a few. The trouble is, most of us have no real way of knowing whether any of these things are actually better for the planet — or just better at looking like they are. Greenwashing has become a design language, and a brand can speak it fluently without doing a single substantive thing differently. So how do you tell the difference between a brand that genuinely cares and one that's just learned the vocabulary? Here's what to actually look for.
Specifics, not adjectives
The single fastest greenwashing test is this: read the brand's sustainability page and count the adjectives. "Eco-friendly," "natural," "conscious," "clean," "responsible," "mindful." None of these words mean anything. They aren't legally defined, they aren't audited, and they don't commit the brand to anything you could check.
Now look for specifics. A genuine brand will tell you what percentage of a product is recycled material, by weight. They'll tell you which factory made it, in which country, and ideally which audit standard that factory meets. They'll quantify their emissions reductions against a baseline year. They'll publish the actual fibre composition rather than the word "natural."
If a brand can't tell you a number, they probably don't have one. And if they don't have a number, they don't have a programme — they have a marketing campaign.
Third-party certification (and the ones that actually matter)
Certifications are the closest thing the consumer has to a referee. They're not perfect, but they involve an independent body checking claims against a published standard, which is more than most self-declared "green" brands offer.
A few worth knowing:
- B Corp — assesses a company's whole operation: governance, workers, community, environment, customers. It's not a product label; it's a company-wide audit, and it has to be re-certified every three years.
- GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) — the gold standard for organic textiles, covering both fibre and the chemicals used in dyeing and finishing.
- Fairtrade — focused on producer pay and working conditions in the global south.
- FSC — for paper and wood products, traces material back to responsibly managed forests.
- Cradle to Cradle — assesses material health, recyclability, and manufacturing across multiple criteria.
- OEKO-TEX — confirms textiles are free from a long list of harmful substances.
Be sceptical of certifications you've never heard of, particularly ones that look suspiciously like a brand designed them themselves. If the logo links back to the brand's own website rather than an independent certifying body, it isn't a certification — it's a graphic.
Look at the whole company, not just one product
A fast-fashion giant launching a "conscious collection" of recycled-polyester t-shirts while still producing millions of items a week is not a sustainable brand. They're a brand selling one sustainable product line, which is a different thing.
The question to ask is: what is the company's main business, and is the main business getting better, or is the company just bolting a green capsule onto a problem they otherwise refuse to address?
Smaller brands are often easier to read here, because the whole company tends to operate on the same principles. With larger brands, look at total volume of production, total emissions, total waste — and check whether those numbers are going up or down year on year. A brand can launch a hundred eco-collections and still have a worsening overall footprint.
Materials and the supply chain
Material sourcing is where most of a product's environmental impact actually lives. A brand serious about sustainability will be unusually transparent about where their stuff comes from.
Things to look for:
- Named suppliers and factories. The very best brands publish their full supplier list, often with addresses. This is a strong signal because it makes them accountable — anyone can go and check.
- Material origin. Where was the cotton grown? Where was the leather tanned? Where was the metal mined? "Made in [country]" only tells you where the final assembly happened.
- Recycled vs virgin content. Recycled is almost always better, but check what percentage. "Contains recycled materials" can mean 2%.
- Avoidance of the worst offenders. Conventional cotton, virgin polyester, PVC, and certain leathers carry heavy footprints. Brands that have moved away from these materials usually say so loudly.
If a brand's "sustainability" page talks about packaging but not materials, that's a tell. Packaging is often less than ten percent of a product's total footprint. Brands that focus on it disproportionately are usually avoiding the harder conversation about what the actual product is made of.
Workers are part of sustainability
An often-overlooked point: a brand that treats the planet well but pays its garment workers poverty wages is not a sustainable brand. The two issues are inseparable, and any framework worth its salt — B Corp, Fairtrade, GOTS in its social criteria — treats them as such.
Look for:
- A code of conduct applied to suppliers, with named auditing bodies.
- Living-wage commitments — note the word living, which is a higher bar than minimum.
- Transparency about where workers are based and under what conditions.
- An actual modern-slavery statement, with specifics, not boilerplate.
"We work with trusted partners" is not a labour policy. It's a sentence.
The carbon question
Climate claims are where greenwashing gets most technical and therefore most hide-able. A few things to check:
Is the brand reducing emissions, or only offsetting them? Offsets have a place, but they should be the cherry on top of a serious reduction strategy, not a substitute for one. A brand whose only climate action is buying offsets has not, in any meaningful sense, decarbonised.
Do they measure Scope 3? Scopes 1 and 2 cover a brand's own operations and energy use. Scope 3 covers the supply chain and the use of the product — which, for almost every consumer goods brand, is where the vast majority of emissions actually live. A brand reporting only on Scopes 1 and 2 is reporting on the easy part.
Are their targets validated? The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) reviews whether company climate targets are actually consistent with the Paris Agreement. A brand whose targets are SBTi-validated has had its homework checked. A brand that has set its own targets, with no external review, is grading its own paper.
If they offset, what kind? Old-style cheap offsets — particularly avoided-deforestation credits with weak verification — have had a rough few years for good reason. Look for projects that are independently verified, ideally with on-chain or otherwise public traceability, and that involve permanent removal or strong additionality, not just a promise that something bad would have happened.
A practical checklist
When you're standing in a shop, or hovering over an "add to basket" button, you don't have time for a research project. Here's a fast version you can actually use:
- Can I name the material? Not just "natural" — the actual fibre, wood, metal, ingredient.
- Is there a real certification on it? One I recognise, with an independent issuing body.
- Does the brand publish a supplier list, or at least supplier countries?
- Can I find a number? Recycled content percentage, emissions data, water use — anything quantified.
- Does the brand acknowledge what it hasn't fixed yet? This sounds counter-intuitive, but honesty about gaps is one of the best signals. Brands that pretend to be perfect usually aren't.
- Would the product still exist if it weren't being sold to me? The most sustainable purchase is often the one you don't make. A brand worth buying from will sometimes nudge you towards repair, refill, or buying less.
Pass three or four of these and you're probably looking at a real one. Pass one or two, and you're looking at a brand that's hoping you don't read carefully.
What this looks like in practice
The pattern across all of the above is that genuine sustainability is specific, verifiable, and admits its limits. Greenwashing is vague, self-certified, and acts like the brand has the whole thing solved. Once you've got the eye for it, the difference becomes obvious — to the point where reading a brand's about-page can feel like watching a magic trick after you've been told how it's done.
None of this means you have to be perfect, either. Buying better is a long, imperfect, ongoing project, and beating yourself up about a single purchase isn't the point. The point is shifting your default — knowing what to ask, what to ignore, and where to spend your attention.
That's part of why we built the IMPT shop the way we did: a curated set of brands that have done at least some of this work already, so the homework is lighter on you. Every booking on the IMPT hotel side offsets a tonne of CO₂, paid from our commission rather than tacked onto your bill, and the IMPT Card and Token are designed to reward the everyday choices — a stay, a swap, a smaller purchase — that add up over a year. The questions in this piece work whether you're shopping with us or anywhere else. Use them. The brands worth your money will pass them comfortably.