ASA rules against Superdry, Nike and Lacoste for their use of the term “sustainable” in adverts

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that paid-for Google and YouTube adverts from Superdry, Nike and Lacoste breached advertising standards over use of the terms “sustainable materials”, “sustainable style” and “sustainable clothing”.

The rulings were published on 3 December 2025 and reflect the ASA’s approach to businesses making broad claims to consumers as to the sustainability of products or business practices where evidence or information to substantiate those claims is not provided. 

Interestingly, these decisions all result from the ASA’s use of AI‑enabled Active Ad Monitoring programme. This is the use of search-tools and machine-learning to spot published adverts which may have compliance problems. This use of technology signals a shift from complaint‑led investigations by the ASA to proactive enforcement.

“Sustainable” Fashion – The Adverts

The adverts in question were published in June 2025 on Google and YouTube platforms when users searched for similar products. 

• Superdry featured the phrase “Sustainable style. Unlock a wardrobe that combines style and sustainability.”

• Nike featured the phrase: “Nike Tennis Polo Shirts – Serve An Ace With Nike […] Sustainable Materials.”

• Lacoste featured the phrase: “Lacoste Kids – Sustainable […] clothing.”

“Ambiguous and unclear” – ASA’s Ruling

The ASA challenged the claims made in these adverts to “sustainable” credentials on the basis that they were misleading. Under the CAP Code (rules which govern non-broadcast adverts in the UK) when making environmental claims the meaning of all terms must be clear, and “absolute” claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. An absolute claim in this context is a broad, unqualified statement which implies that a business or product does not have any negative impact on the environment.

Moreover, recent guidance from the CMA “Complying with consumer law when making environmental claims in the fashion retail sector” (see our article on this issue) reflects the same principle: broad claims such as “sustainable” are reasonably likely to be interpreted by consumers as absolute in nature. 

The brands responded to the allegations on the basis that, in particular:

• Superdry denied that the advert made an absolute claim to sustainability or suggested that all Superdry products were sustainable. In their submissions, Superdry argued that the purpose of the advert was to market a mixture of products available that were sustainable, stylish or both, so that consumers could build a wardrobe that had those attributes.

• Nike argued the reference to “sustainable materials” in the advert was intended to reflect the availability of products on Nike’s website that incorporated recycled materials. In Nike’s submissions, consumers would reasonably interpret a reference to products containing “sustainable materials” as to the fact that the product contained some sustainable materials, not that the product was wholly sustainable. They argued that the limited character count of the advert meant they could not provide further detail to substantiate these claims.

• Lacoste stated that the company had made substantial efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of its products, specifically its 2025 children’s clothing range. They had been monitoring the environmental impact of this range as compared to the 2022 range, and found that there was a 19% reduction in the environmental footprint of the raw materials used in the 2025 collection. This was the basis of their claim to the term “sustainable”.

The ASA decided that the use of the terms “sustainable style”, “sustainable clothing” and “sustainable materials” were misleading in all these adverts. The ASA considered that the terms were without qualification or substantiation and could therefore be understood to mean that products, across their whole life cycle, had no detrimental effect on the environment. Where the adverts related to specific clothing ranges or products, or the claim of sustainability related to an aspect of the production process, those limits needed to be explained at the point of claim rather than relegated to footnotes or links.

All About Context - Conclusion 

The ASA continues to tackle broad terms in advertising which denote sustainability. Even where companies are making significant progress in tackling their environmental impact, this evidently is not sufficient to be branded “sustainable” because of how this absolute term is deemed to be read by the consumer. Decisions like these reinforce the importance of following the CAP code for making environmental claims:

• Qualifications and substantiation: vague terms which demand context are likely misleading;

• Scope: use of comparatives such as “greener” or “reduced impact” need to be qualified with the information compared to; and

• General claims to sustainability in fashion need to be based on the whole production cycle. 

It is interesting to contrast this decision with the recent ASA ruling in favour of Shell for its claims of decarbonisation in its Business Energy project with Baker Hughes, an energy technology company (see our article on this advert). In this instance, Shell’s claim to “decarbonise operations” though broad, was qualified enough by the context of the advert to not be (in the view of the ASA) misleading about Shell’s global environmental impact. In Shell’s case, a key distinction was the intended (business) audience for the advert and the context of Shell’s services only being made available to businesses. This illustrates the different approach taken to environmental claims made in “B2B” communications vis-a-vis “B2C” communications. 

This article was written by Christopher Wenn, Jemimah Lack and Charlotte Sinclair