Background
This ruling forms part of a wider piece of work investigating environmental claims in the retail fashion sector. The ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathering by our Active Ad Monitoring system which uses AI to proactively survey ads in specific sectors. See also related rulings published on 3 December 2025.
Ad description
A paid-for Google ad for Lacoste, a clothing retailer, seen on 24 June 2025, stated “Lacoste Kids – Sustainable […] clothing”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the claim “sustainable clothing” was misleading.
Response
Lacoste E-commerce t/a Lacoste said they had been working for several years to reduce the carbon footprint of their entire product value chain in order to achieve their ambitious targets, as validated by the Science Based Targets initiative: by using committed raw materials; extending the lifespan of their products; reducing water usage; preserving biodiversity; and giving textile waste a second life by reintegrating it into the production cycle. Since 2022, they had placed an emphasis on making their Lacoste Kids clothing range more sustainable by using more certified fabrics: Global Organic Textile Standard cotton; Global Recycled Standard polyamide (nylon) and polyester; and Responsible Wool Standard wool. At the time of the ad, approximately 78% of the online Lacoste Kids clothing products were composed of certified fabrics.
Lacoste explained the ad likely linked to the children’s category page on their website. Their claims were based on life cycle analyses conducted on all products in the Lacoste Kids collection. Each product was individually assessed using a consistent impact calculation method (in accordance with ISO 14040 and 14044 standards) – each product score was then combined each season to evaluate the average environmental performance of the entire Lacoste Kids collection season by season. Based on that, Lacoste compared the environmental footprint by life cycle analysis of the Spring Summer 2025 (SS25) Kids collection with that of the Spring Summer 2022 (SS22) Kids collection. They explained that the SS22 season was chosen as the reference base as it marked the launch of Lacoste's 'Durable Elegance' strategy which aimed to prioritize alternative materials (organic or recycled) to conventional ones and simultaneously to reduce fossil energy consumption across the whole life cycle of a product.
Lacoste provided analysis that showed a reduction in the environmental footprint across all of the main life cycle stages (raw materials, packaging, manufacturing, distribution, use phase and end-of-life) for the SS25 Kids collection as compared to the SS22 Kids collection. That included a 19% reduction in the environmental footprint of the raw materials used in 2025 versus those used in 2022, and a 17% reduction for manufacturing. That analysis formed the basis for the “sustainable” claim made in the ad as it demonstrated that the SS25 Kids collection was more sustainable than the SS22 Kids collection.
Lacoste acknowledged that claims such as “green”, “sustainable” and “eco-friendly” were very difficult to substantiate. They told us that the ad was removed as soon as the complaint was received and gave an assurance that they would not repeat the claim in the form made in the ad in the future.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code required that the basis of environmental claims must be clear, the meaning of all terms must be clear, and that absolute environmental claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. Claims must be based on the full life cycle of the advertised product, unless the ad stated otherwise.
The Competition and Markets Authority guidance ‘Complying with consumer law when making environmental claims in the fashion retail sector’ (the CMA Guidance) stated that broader, general or absolute claims such as “sustainable” were likely to mislead consumers, and that their meaning was unclear. It further stated that consumers were likely to assume from the use of the term that the product about which it was used as a whole had a positive environmental impact, or at least no adverse impact. The ASA had regard to the guidance in assessing whether the ad had complied with the CAP Code.
The ad stated, “Lacoste Kids – Sustainable […] clothing” and did not include qualifying information explaining the basis of the term “sustainable”. We considered that without qualification the claim “sustainable” was ambiguous and unclear. The claim was absolute and therefore a high level of substantiation in support needed to be produced.
While ambiguous, we considered the term “sustainable”, in the context of the ad, was likely to be understood as meaning that all Lacoste Kids clothes, across their entire life cycle, would at the very least have no detrimental impact on the environment. There had been an overall reduction in the environmental footprint of the SS25 Kids collection as compared to the SS22 Kids collection. However, Lacoste had not provided evidence to demonstrate that their products had no detrimental effect on the environment, taking into account their entire life cycle.
The basis and meaning of the claim “sustainable clothing” had not been made clear, and we had not seen evidence to support it. We therefore concluded the ad was likely to mislead. We welcomed Lacoste’s decision to remove the ad.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation), 11.1, 11.2, 11.3 and 11.4 (Environmental claims).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form investigated. We told Lacoste E-commerce t/a Lacoste to ensure that the basis of future environmental claims, and their meaning, was made clear and that a high level of substantiation was held in support.
