The Commerce Commission has looked into the fashion sector's claims and given advice on complying with the Fair Trading Act, a spokeswoman says. Photo: 123RF
The Commerce Commission says it has a track record of investigating and taking action against environmental claims in response to a call by Consumer New Zealand for a targeted investigation.
Consumer NZ was concerned consumers were regularly being duped by environmental claims, which would not stand up to closer scrutiny by the regulator.
The commission's Fair Trading general manager Kirsten Mannix said environmental claims were a key priority for the commission in 2019, when it published updated guidance for businesses to help them understand their obligations under the law when making sustainability claims about goods and services.
Since then the commission has issued information or compliance advice to more than 50 businesses that were making disposal (recycling) claims.
It also investigated and issued formal warnings to two businesses regarding recycling claims.
Mannix said the commission looked into the fashion sector and the types of claims that particular clothing brands had made, which resulted in the regulator issuing advice to those businesses around compliance under the Fair Trading Act.
She said there had been a couple of key prosecutions in the past.
"Kiwipure in 2020 who were fined $162,000 for making unsubstantiated claims about the benefits and effectiveness of its magnetic water filtration system, and our case against Fujitsu in 2017 who were fined $310,000 for making unsubstantiated or misleading claims about the energy efficiency and performance of some of its heat pumps," she said.
"We will continue to investigate matters and take compliance and enforcement action where appropriate. We are also connected with our international counterparts in this space, including [the UK's] CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] and [Australia's] ACCC [the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission]."