Communicating about ‘sustainable fashion’ is greenwashing, new chatbot Josie proposes alternative

Antwerp – Sustainability expert Jasmien Wynants and solicitor Judith Bussé have joined forces to combat greenwashing. They are doing so with ‘Josie’, a chatbot that extracts vague or misleading information from your Instagram posts. According to the European Commission, half of what companies write online about sustainability is incorrect.

‘Ready for my baby shower?’ It sounds like a post from your newly minted niece or nephew, but it is indeed a professional invitation that Wynants and Bussé circulated via LinkedIn. Today, on Fashion Revolution Day, they are christening Josie, an AI agent for questions about greenwashing based on ChatGPT.

They call her a love child. “Judith and I have known each other for a while. We both worked for Flanders DC,” Wynants explained. “If I have a legal question about greenwashing, I know that I can go to her law firm Pivot Law.”

With another former colleague from Flanders DC, technology expert Ann Claes, Wynants founded the fashion agency Masjien. The entrepreneurs provide advice and workshops to companies, including on greenwashing. “In it, I explain which words you should avoid in your sustainability communication and emphasise that you should always be able to prove the information you share,” Wynants said.

Words such as ‘sustainable’, ‘ecological’ or ‘responsible’ appear to be out of the question. These would imply that fashion companies ‘do not have any negative impact on the environment and the climate, which is impossible’. At least, that is how the Federal Public Service Economy reasons, which checks in Belgium whether statements about sustainability are correct.

According to the European Commission, half of the sustainability claims on websites are unproven, vague, unclear or deceptive. “Heavily polluting industries, such as the fashion industry, must ensure that their environmental claims are correct in relative terms,” an official from the Economic Inspectorate emailed to a well-known web shop for children's clothes and other baby items last year. The proposal is to speak of ‘less harmful to the environment’ instead of ‘environmentally friendly’.

127 Companies checked for greenwashing

Wynants also received that advice during her work as an independent sustainability advisor at the fashion brand Xandres. In April 2022, the company was checked for misleading sustainability communication. At the end of 2022, it received a warning in the post.

Xandres is not alone in this. The newspaper De Morgen and the news website Apache were able to speak with 12 fashion companies between May 2023 and April 2024, seven of which were checked. Five of these also received a warning.

The Federal Public Service Economy does not say which companies it checked and warned. Since 2021, there have been 127 checks, which go beyond just the fashion sector. Of these, 66 companies received a warning. In the case of one company, a report was drawn up and a transaction was made, spokesperson Lien Meurisse emailed.

“As a consumer, you think that greenwashing always happens intentionally, but that is not the case,” Patrick Desrumaux, the then chief executive officer of Xandres, testified about this in De Morgen. “It’s about small wordings that we didn’t think about before.”

If you want to communicate about certain materials, Wynants gave an example in business magazine Trends. You must ‘always explain what the fabric is exactly, what certificate you have of it and why it is better than another fabric’.

Wynants was already wondering how much information the customer has in a message. “Suppose you have to do that under every Instagram post, then no one will read it anymore.”

AI fuelled with Belgian and Dutch regulations

To support companies, Wynants wants to go beyond the advice that she gives to companies one-on-one. “Because I was increasingly asked questions about greenwashing, I developed a workshop about it, based on the legal framework. Now we have tried to make that information even more accessible, via the AI chatbot. That way, I don’t have to visit your company, but you can work with the knowledge yourself, at all times.”

Wynants and Bussé had the idea of unleashing AI on this subject almost simultaneously. Wynants still thinks that is crazy. “We were sparring about the subject on the phone and then it turned out that we were playing with the same idea. On a beautiful summer day in the south of France, everything came together nicely.”

At that time, Bussé had already made a first attempt to create a chatbot. “It is an AI agent that works on the basis of ChatGPT, but in a closed circuit,” Bussé explained.

Together with Wynants, she wrote a prompt that ensures that Josie knows what to answer to questions about greenwashing. For this, she is fuelled with her own expertise, European and national legislation and specific guidelines from the Federal Public Service Economy, but also the Dutch consumer authority ACM. She knows which information to prioritise and how to deal with it.

Especially useful for marketers and copywriters

Wynants notices that companies have become afraid to communicate about sustainability. “Companies that have been checked have become more careful, which in itself is a good thing,” she said. But it would be a shame not to talk about sustainability at all anymore, because then we are back to square one.

Moreover, not all companies have had a check. “You keep encountering terms such as ‘eco collection’, ‘responsible collection’ or ‘sustainable fashion’. That makes it difficult. There are companies that don’t know that this is not allowed and accidentally continue to do so. As long as that continues to happen, it is confusing, especially for your marketing department. Why are they allowed to do that and we are not?”

Josie can support sustainability managers in conveying the right messages about the ecological and social impact of fashion brands. In practice, however, marketers and copywriters are likely to be the main users, Wynants thinks.

“Anyone who works in a marketing department is busy bringing a message to the outside world. They cannot be experts in all fields. We cannot expect marketers to know everything in detail. Sometimes there is a new colleague, or the company works with a freelancer. Having to go through all the regulations first is not easy. But having to address your sustainability manager every time is actually not necessary either. Josie makes it a lot easier for a marketing department.”

You can now have the sustainability page on your website or an Instagram post quickly reviewed by AI, instead of by your colleague. “For me, this is an example of how AI does not take jobs away, but is an addition to someone’s job. Because you don’t have to address your sustainability manager every time. And you remain creative as a marketer.”

Since the matter is sensitive, there is a chance that a proposal to adjust Josie will come across as technical. “But then you can ask to write it less dry, as you would ask ChatGPT, or rework it yourself and that way you can regain your creativity.”

Governments applaud initiatives such as Josie

The Federal Public Service Economy says it is "aware of companies that assist traders in reducing their environmental impact and in marketing it to the outside world", spokesperson Lien Meurisse emailed. Although she does not recommend any specific tools, she emphasises that she "applauds initiatives that lead to increasing awareness about greenwashing".

The ACM, in turn, welcomes "all ways that lead to companies making better and easier good sustainability claims", press officer Dorith de Jong emails. “An instrument that supports companies in this can certainly be of added value. Of course, it is important that companies themselves critically assess whether the outcomes are correct and desirable.”

As a fact checker, Josie is already a lot safer than the ‘ordinary’ ChatGPT, Bussé believes. “She does not scour the entire World Wide Web, but remains limited to the relevant regulations,” the solicitor said. Although there is a disclaimer with every request for help: Josie does not give strategic or legal advice. “If you have received a warning for greenwashing, it is still better to ask for human legal assistance,” she thinks.

Josie works with a subscription. For 29 euros per month, you can use the chatbot and you also get access to an online academy, for which Bussé and Wynants have recorded tutorials about greenwashing.

This article was co-created with the support of the Flemish-Dutch Journalism Scholarship and the Pascal Decroos Fund for Special Journalism.