Preaching sustainability while hawking fast fashion – meet the greenwashing influencers

‘Influencers tell their followers to avoid fast fashion while making money out of affiliate links to clothing from brands such as H&M.’ Photograph: Peter White/Getty Images

For brands wanting to get away with greenwashing, one solution has become especially popular: stick an influencer on it. From Boohoo appointing Kourtney Kardashian as its “sustainability ambassador” to Shein’s notorious influencer trip to promote its “innovation centre” in China, using influencers has become a common tactic to gain attention for halfhearted eco initiatives – and to create a cushion between the brand and the public backlash.

Recently we have seen influencers acting as the faces of PR campaigns such as Pretty Little Thing’s resale site Marketplace and H&M’s Conscious line – spin-offs that are explicitly introduced as a remedy for a brand’s negative impact on the planet and usually come alongside a grand, but somewhat vague, environmental promise. H&M, for instance, plans to use only sustainably sourced materials by 2030. Boohoo aims to achieve carbon reductions across their value chain.