The Advertising Standard’s Authority (ASA) has banned ads from Calvin Klein, Uniqlo and Adidas for making misleading green claims.
The ads used the term ‘recycled’ to describe fabric composition but did not include any information to support the claim. The body highlighted that the advertisers were not able to provide evidence to support their statements.
It identified the works through its AI-based Active Ad Monitoring Systems and the rulings form part of a wider project investigating greenwashing and environmental retail fashion sector.
The rulings follow action the regulator took in December 2025 which banned adverts by Nike, Superdry and Lacoste for making misleading environmental claims.
According to the watchdog, when ads “exaggerate” the environmental benefits of a product they increase the possibility of misleading people who want to be more sustainable.
Miles Lockwood, director of complaints and investigations at the ASA, said: “It’s important that people can trust the environmental claims they see in ads. When absolute terms like ‘recycled’ are used, the basis of those claims should be clearly explained and properly supported by evidence.
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“Without that, there’s a risk that people could be misled. We’ll be continuing to monitor ads making green claims, taking action where we do see ads breaking the rules, whilst also supporting advertisers with advice and guidance to help them get it right.”
The ASA has also published a new study on how environmental claims are used in online advertising. It used AI to analyse over seven million ads and found only 1 per cent of ads included an environmental claim and when they did appear it was often in broad or absolute terms.
The regulator highlighted that these were often hard to prove and needed strong evidence to support the claim.
However, the body found businesses in the transport and utilities sector often presented environmental claims in more conditional or comparative terms.
Off the back of this research, the watchdog will be publishing new guidance to assist advertisers in making evidence based environmental claims.
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