Lululemon's Downward Dog
The athleisure brand stands accused of abject greenwashing. What can you do?
It was Earth Day yesterday and you may have felt the malaise. (Or was that just VB’s 50th stealing the limelight?). The complaints started weeks ago: Earth Day has become an opportunity for fashion companies to flog more product - only this time it’s ‘conscious’ and ‘with the earth in mind’.
But if you really want a celebration of Earth Day, then the pressure group Actions Speak Louder (ASL) served it up. They dropped a stinging report on Lululemon, casting a sharp light on the gap between what companies are saying they are doing - and what is really going on.
ASL have had Lululemon under investigation for months, and the results of their findings prompted this conclusion: “Lululemon claims to contribute to restoring a healthy environment and promoting community wellbeing through its products and actions. However, the results of a 6-month investigation into the company’s textile supply chain reveal a pattern of failure to prevent adverse environmental impacts including air pollution, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and significant dependence on fossil fuels, including coal.”
Substack has become a shelter for independent journalism, as important today as it has always been. Please do support those you respect with a small subscription. It really does help keep us going.
One of the authors of the report is fellow Substacker
(her Stack Threadbare is a strong recommend). “Lululemon is one of the biggest fashion retailers in the world - $10bn in revenue last year, with plans to double that by 2026, so they have plenty of money to invest in green transition,” Ruth told me on Friday. What’s more, it’s marketing focuses relentlessly on health, wellbeing and sustainability. ASL took a hard look, tracing the company supply chains back to discover a very different story. By measuring the impact of Lululemon’s key suppliers, they made the following discoveries:Where Lululemon’s suppliers have set climate targets, most are not on track to meet them. Greenhouse gas emissions are rising, coal and other fossil fuel consumption remain high, and renewable energy represents a tiny proportion of energy use.
There are multiple penalties issued against environmental regulations throughout Lululemon’s supply chain, including air pollution, water pollution, and waste treatment violations.
At several of Lululemon’s supplier sites, air and water pollution negatively impact nature and communities, as revealed in interviews with local residents, water pollution test results, and photo and video evidence.
Most of this impact is happening in Scope 3 of the Lululemon supply chain. This is the manufacturing end, and a notoriously tricky bit of the chain to navigate. Big brands like Lululemon that need high volumes of products at competitive prices inevitably manufacture in territories where reliance on fossil fuel is greater and labour is cheaper. These manufacturers are not owned by the brand - brands just dish out contracts for order quantities at certain budgets, and if the manufacturers can’t deliver the product at the right price, they lose the business. The manufacturer margins are small, leaving little wiggle room for their factories to transition to renewable energy and closed loop processes (where water and chemicals are recycled) - unless their buyers enable them to do so. In short, it’s easy to turn the lights off in your Vancouver HQ, more of a commitment to install a solar system on an outsourced factory in Bangladesh.
Lululemon built its brand on sexy yoga pants. It commandeered the rise of ‘spiritual fitness’ and commodified it into an athleisure uniform. They were the first to convince the western world that $100 leggings were a thing - and they did that by staging mass yoga classes, memorably in Hyde Park when they first landed in London. It was like Sunday Service and we all bought in. Those pants are good. Through lockdown “Ali from Lululemon” took me through a 20minute routine on Youtube every morning, and I’m very grateful. Ever since a friend told me the HQ wifi password was runyogavodka, I’ve been a fan.
But. Their founder Chip Wilson is problematic. Most recently he popped up saying that fat girls shouldn’t wear his pants. He’s an embarrassment they try and bury, which means their only PR outfit is the corporate crisis managers Edelman. When I was researching a piece for the Financial Times on plastic free performance wear, I reached out to see if they had anything to share. Eventually they rustled up a release about a plant based nylon they were trialling, with a single t shirt. The questions I had regarding this new fabric were:
1. Does it shed microfibres? How will those fibres break down in the environment, do they require specific temperatures to biodegrade?
2. What finishes does the fabric have - for example sweat wicking? Water repellency?
3. What dyeing techniques are used? Any use of green chemistry?
4. What are the advantages of this plant based nylon over a natural fabric like cotton?
No one was able to respond. I bet they are in overdrive now. As Ruth’s very public campaign shows, (and do check out the report in full), and the petition ASL have been pushing (you can sign it here), the brand is finally being held to account. “We are pushing Lululemon to be the climate leader they say they are,” says Ruth. “We hope they take the recommendations of the report seriously. We don’t have strong enough regulation yet to hold companies accountable, which is why these campaigns are so important. Greenwashing investigations and prosecutions take a long time. In the meantime we see our responsibility to be calling out damage being done, in the hope it will cause enough alarm amongst its executives to make change.”
A yoga community is one that prides itself on mindful action, intention and understanding your place in the world. If teachers and students can’t get behind one of yoga’s most prominent brands to ask for change, who can? But as Ruth points out, “This is an industry wide problem. Lots of brands share the same suppliers, whether they are in fast fashion, luxury or the sportswear industries. Countries with weaker environmental regulations and cheap labour are lagging behind in terms of clean, alternative energy. It’s up to the brands to financially support suppliers in that transition.”
Can this investigation shift such the dial? There are many examples of small wins, insists Ruth. KPop4Planet mobilised K Pop fans to push Chanel into updating their climate targets. The group demanded Chanel set an absolute emissions reduction target aligned with climate science - which is what they eventually did, just a few weeks ago. The Detox My Fashion campaign from Greenpeace has been equally impactful in demanding a reduction in toxic chemical waste from factories.
“It’s a long slog, there are no quick wins,” says Ruth. But the dogged determination of activist organisations like ASL really hold companies to account. So what can we do? “Sign the petition, send an email, comment on social media,” says Ruth. She points out that this summer the Team Canada Olympic kit will be designed by Lululemon, who are the principal sponsor of their country’s team. ASL will “have some exciting actions people can get involved in at this high profile time. We want to make sure the Lululemon messaging - and that of other sponsors - isn’t using sportswashing to hide what’s really going on in supply chains.”
Should we stop buying Lulelemon’s famous yoga pants? “We’re not calling for boycotts. You don’t have to spend any money or buy any less (although that would be great),” continues Ruth. “Just use your voice - you have a lot of say in telling the brand what matters to you.”
It’s hard to find a better fitting, more comfortable yoga pant that Lululemon’s. As the brand sets its ambition for fashion (and some high profile fashion designers have been recruited), we, the customers, can ask for change.
Happy Earth Day, Lululemon. Today and every day.
Wow, Lululemon exposed! Disappointing to hear about the gap between their marketing and reality. Thanks for sharing the ASL report - seems like signing the petition and holding them accountable through social media are the ways to go. Maybe someday those high-priced yoga pants can truly live up to the eco-friendly image.
Excellent piece. Many companies do the same - pay lip service to change whilst actually doing less than they imply. As ever, the problem is cost. It costs, as the article says, to implement change, and with wafer thin margins, outsourced manufacturers can’t justify it. The answer, of course, is to return to brands owning their full supply chains, paying proper wages, in good conditions, using ethically sourced products. But they’ll push prices up, and in the end, despite their own lip service to change, few consumers will pay more.
So, the outcome is - mass brands, unethical, cheaper
Niche brands, ethical, expensive.
Or massive commitment!!
Decades ago, I knew a buyer at M&S, in the days before mass production in Asia. They used to inspect their manufacturers factories, including, I recall, taking a trip to the loo. If that wasn’t up to scratch, it could lose the deal. That’s the attention now required.