Canada’s Competition Bureau is investigating Lululemon over concerns the company is misleading consumers about its environmental impacts, after an advocacy group filed a complaint with the federal watchdog alleging “greenwashing.”
In a statement to Global News, a Competition Bureau spokesperson confirmed the Bureau “has commenced an investigation under the Competition Act into the alleged deceptive marketing practices.”
Marianne Blondin noted “There is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time.”
Stand.earth released a letter dated April 26, 2024, from the Competition Bureau in which the Bureau says it launched an inquiry into whether Lululemon’s marketing includes untrue claims about the company’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
Stand.earth asked the bureau to investigate earlier this year, alleging some of the company’s advertising is “false and misleading.”
Lululemon did not respond when asked about the allegations on Monday by deadline.
Stand.earth’s complaint pointed to Lululemon’s 2020 “Be Planet” campaign, in which the company claims “our products and actions avoid environmental harm and contribute to restoring a healthy planet.”
“What we’ve learned over the last two years really, is that that kind of image is not much more than a façade,” Stand.earth climate campaigner Rachel Kitchin told Global News.
Kitchin said Lululemon’s marketing in the campaign amounts to “greenwashing,” which she defines as when “a company or a business uses the messaging of the environment in order to mislead customers or mislead people about the environmental impact of their products.”
She said the Competition Bureau accepting Stand.earth’s request to investigate “should serve as a real kind of warning not just to Lululemon but to all of the other fashion companies and other companies out there that are using this kind of vague, positive, greenwashing language.”
Stand.earth’s request calls for the bureau to seek a judicial order forcing Lululemon to remove the Be Planet campaign, apologize to all Canadian customers and pay a fine of up to three per cent of its worldwide gross revenues to the Environmental Damages Fund, a Canadian government fund, to help mitigate climate change.
According to Lululemon’s 2022 annual impact report, more than 60 per cent of its clothes are made from polyester and nylon, which are made from fossil fuels.
The reports from 2022, 2021 and 2020 also show that Lululemon claims to have decreased GHGs produced at facilities it owns and operates by 78 per cent between 2015 and 2022.
The Stand.earth complaint pointed to data in that report that indicates the GHGs created from upstream and downstream production doubled to 1,691,009 tonnes in 2022 of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions from 829,456 tonnes in 2020.
Lululemon does not include its worldwide gross revenues in its quarterly updates but its net revenue after expenses was nearly $10 billion in 2023, according to its 2023 year-end report.
The Bureau spokesperson said it would be inappropriate to speculate when it would complete its investigation.