Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Uniqlo (UK) Ltd t/a UNIQLO
Where: United Kingdom
When: 24 June 2026
Law stated as at: 22 July 2026
What happened
A paid-for online ad for UNIQLO, a fashion retailer, stated “Fleece Coats & Jackets – UNIQLO Women’s Range […] Shop UNIQLO Fleece Coats & Jackets Now […] Recycled Materials”. The complaint queried whether the claim “recycled materials” was misleading and could be substantiated.
The ASA referred to the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code), which requires that absolute environmental claims must be supported by a high level of substantiation. It also highlighted the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) guidance on complying with consumer law when making environmental claims in the fashion retail sector, which says that advertisers should not imply that a product is entirely made of a single fabric if that is not true. Accordingly, a product should not be described as, for example, “recycled” or “organic” where it contains fibres that do not possess those characteristics, unless the proportion of such fibres is negligible.
The ad did not include information explaining the basis of the claim “recycled materials”. The ASA therefore considered that consumers would interpret the claim as absolute and as meaning that all of the fabrics used in the fleece coats and jackets referred to in the ad were made entirely from recycled materials. The ASA expected to see evidence to substantiate this.
UNIQLO said that the claim did not suggest that every component of the garments, such as the metal zipper or the labels, was recycled, but rather that it referred to the textile materials that made up the main body fabric and the fabrics used in the lining and trim.
However, because the evidence did not demonstrate that each of the products was made entirely from recycled materials, the ASA considered that the claim had not been adequately substantiated. It therefore concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.
Why this matters
This ruling reinforces the ASA’s commitment to tackling greenwashing in the fashion sector and its approach to absolute green claims. As highlighted in the ASA’s report on environmental claims in UK online advertising, absolute environmental claims require a high level of substantiation, and the ASA will expect to see evidence from the advertiser to support its claims. The ruling demonstrates that green claims about fabric characteristics need to be appropriately qualified where the product as a whole contains various materials and the claim does not apply to all of them.
The CMA’s guidance states that, when describing a product as being made with a fibre that has a particular characteristic, such as “recycled” or “organic” fibres, or where environmental claims are made based on the product’s fabric composition, advertisers should clearly set out the specific percentage of relevant fibres in that product and the minimum percentage of relevant fibres that the product must contain. Advertisers would do well to keep the CMA’s guidance in mind when creating their marketing materials.
