Lululemon undergoes investigation after alleged greenwashing claims
The Wilson School of Design has received donations from the retailer since its inauguration in 2018
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson and his wife Shannon donated $8 million to help establish KPU's Wilson School of Design. (Flickr/Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
Earlier last month, the independent law enforcement agency Competition Bureau Canada launched an investigation into the athletic apparel retailer, Lululemon. As a part of their “Be Planet” campaign, the company allegedly overemphasized their climate action claims and engaged in greenwashing.
The investigation was initiated after the environmental activist group Stand.earth lodged a complaint against Lululemon for their “deceptive marketing practices,” adding that their greenhouse emissions doubled since the campaign’s launch, as suggested by their 2022 Impact Report.
The athletic giant launched the campaign in 2020, in which they claimed to develop sustainable materials to reduce environmental harm.
The United Nations defines greenwashing as “misleading the public to believe that a company or other entity is doing more to protect the environment than it is.”
Greenwashing takes place in several ways, including claiming to be on track to reduce emissions, being ambiguous about materials used during production, using misleading labels such as “green” or “eco-friendly,” or focusing on a singular environmental attribute while ignoring others.
Founded by Canadian businessman Chip Wilson in 1998, the Vancouver-based company opened their first retail space in a yoga studio in Kitsilano and has now expanded to more than 710 stores worldwide.
In 2018, Wilson inaugurated the opening of the Wilson School of Design at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Richmond campus. Wilson and his wife Shannon donated $8 million to the project, alongside $28 million from the province, KPU, and other donors.
The school receives material such as fabrics and machinery, which include laser cutters and 3D printers, from the retailer. After its inauguration, the school also began to offer product and technical apparel design programs after Wilson noticed “designers coming into Lululemon from school had no idea how to design and build technical apparel.”
“The university is conscious of the fashion industry’s environmental impact, and challenges students to critically assess their work and think about sustainable practices,” Andhra Goundrey, dean of the Wilson School of Design, wrote in an email statement to The Runner.
“One activity that does that is the annual Our Social Fabric Competition, which invites design students to use their creativity to upcycle fashion materials — that is recycle them into something more valuable than they originally were and to address strategies to redirect materials from the landfill.”
Destiny Lang, a third-year fashion design and technology student at the Wilson School of Design, says they understand the importance of instilling industry connections but believe that, as an institution, KPU should collaborate with brands that commit themselves to sustainability and encourage students to “change the world for the better.”
“I think we as students [and] … faculty members do have the agency and power to tell industry partners [that] we want to partner with companies that are not performative,” Lang says.
As part of KPU’s participation in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), researchers at the university are “working to find sustainable alternatives to synthetic fabrics used in the industry,” Goundrey wrote.
Accountability and responsibility on the government’s part for engaging in greenwashing practices and regulations will help raise awareness about climate and environmental justice, Lang says.
“I don’t like how some companies test you, like [they treat] social justice issues as an opportunity to boost sales and marketing and [make] profit instead of actually helping people,” they say.
As a student, Lang says they have the right to disagree with how companies approach sustainability, while also acknowledging Lululemon’s enormous contributions to the Wilson School of Design.
“As a young person, I don’t want to grow old or bring children into a world where it’s going to be a climate disaster, because we’ve been extracting so much from the Earth.”
