After years of environmental damage, exploitation of work and promotion of unbridled consumerism, the Fast Fashion system is starting to deal with a growing wave of controls and penalties. From the Italian authorities to the European ones, up to international bodies, an awareness is being consolidated that we should now have: the use model of the USA is unsustainable from every point of view.
The devastating impact is now under everyone’s eyes: water pollution, CO2 emissions to the stars, mountains of textile waste, working conditions at the limits of exploitation and promoting a compulsive consumerism that pushes to buy garments intended to last a few weeks. A system that “makes water from all sides”, as they say, and that finally begins to suffer the regulatory consequences it deserves.
In this context, the fine of one million euros is inserted that the authority of competition and the market (AGCM) has just “delivered” to Shein (to be precise to Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd, a company that manages the buying and selling sites of Shein products in Europe) for its deceptive advertising practices in environmental matters.
The AGCM had started to investigate Shein in September 2024, for deceptive advertising regarding the sustainability of its products, in other words for Greenwashing.
The green strategy that does not convince
The Chinese giant of Fast Fashion has built a very questionable environmental narrative. In the #Sheintheknow section of its site, the company spoke of “design of a circular system” and the recyclability of its products. Affirmations that AGCM has called “false or at least confusing”, considering the materials actually used and the recycling technologies currently available.
The communication around the “Evolushein by Design” line, presented as ecological through the emphasis of “Green Fiber”, is even more problematic. The problem? The authority highlighted how these claims
do not clearly indicate what the substantial environmental benefits of the products are during their entire life cycle“And above all they omit that”This product line is still marginal compared to the total of Shein brand products
The case of the climatic objectives announced by Shein is particularly significant: 25% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reset by 2050. Ambitious objectives on paper, but which according to AGCM come “presented in a generic and vague way, even resulting contradicted by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions of Shein’s activity for the years 2023 and 2024“.
A contradiction that highlights the distance between how much the company communicates and how much it is actually done.
Now, for all this, Shein has caught a nice 1 million euro fine but alas, the company will not move the company by a millimeter. The value of the AGCM decision, however, goes beyond the purely pecuniary aspect. The authority has in fact underlined “The greatest duty of diligence“Which weighs on operating companies”In a sector and in highly polluting modalities, such as that of so -called “USA without clothing‘”.
The sanction to Shein therefore represents a first step towards greater responsibility in the sector. What is certain is that to attend a real change is needed a decisive change of course, which passes from aware choices of those who produce, of those who communicate and those who buy. Only in this way can we begin to limit the environmental and social damage of a sector that has so far only aimed at fast profit, at the expense of the planet and people.
The road is still long, but decisions like that of the AGCM (and not only) show that something is moving in the right direction.
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