The problem with broad green words
Words like eco-friendly, sustainable, green and conscious are easy to print on a hang tag and hard to support. The FTC Green Guides advise marketers to avoid unqualified general environmental claims, because almost no product has only environmental benefits and customers read broad words as broad promises. A yoga legging made with recycled nylon still uses energy, water, dyes and spandex, and still ships across an ocean.
The Green Guides are guidance on how the FTC applies the law against deceptive marketing. They are not a certification and there is no logo to earn. Following them means making claims that are specific, qualified and supported by evidence.
Specific beats general
The practical fix is to replace general words with the specific fact you can prove. Instead of an eco-friendly legging, describe a legging made with recycled nylon, and state the share if you have documentation for it. Instead of a sustainable collection, describe which pieces use organic cotton and how that is certified. A specific claim is easier to defend and, for many customers, more convincing. It also ages better: when a fabric source changes, a specific claim tells you exactly which sentence to update.
| Broad claim | Supportable alternative | Evidence to hold |
|---|---|---|
| Eco-friendly leggings | Made with recycled nylon, share stated | Fabric sheet, recycled content documentation |
| Sustainable yoga set | Organic cotton, certified to a named standard | Certificate number checked, documents linking to your order |
| Natural bamboo fabric | Viscose made from bamboo | Fabric sheet with fiber content |
| Non-toxic | Fabric tested to a named harmful-substance standard | Certificate covering the fabric and product class |
| Chemical-free | Avoid; every fabric is made of chemicals | Not applicable |
Bamboo: the most common labeling mistake
Bamboo-derived fabrics feel soft and suit loose yoga and meditation wear, but most of them are viscose or rayon, regenerated from bamboo pulp through a chemical process. The fiber is no longer bamboo in the sense customers imagine. The FTC position is that such fabric must be labeled and advertised as rayon or viscose made from bamboo, not as bamboo. That applies to the content label and to product pages, hang tags and ads.
Claims about the bamboo plant, such as fast growth, do not transfer to the viscose fabric automatically, because the processing has its own impacts. If you want to make a claim about the processing, you need evidence about the processing. The same care applies to product names: a style called the bamboo legging still needs the viscose wording wherever the fiber is described. See modal and bamboo viscose in yoga wear.
Organic claims and GOTS
GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, covers organic textiles through processing. Under GOTS, products labeled organic need at least 95% certified organic fiber, and products labeled made with organic need at least 70%. An organic cotton and spandex legging therefore has to fit one of those grades to use the GOTS label grade, and the share must match the fabric sheet.
Certification applies along the supply chain, not only at the farm. Ask whether the mill and the factory hold the relevant certification, check the certificate number in the public database, and keep documents that link the certified material to your specific order. A certificate held by a mill for a different fabric does not cover yours. Our GOTS and GRS note goes through the documents.
Recycled claims and GRS
Recycled nylon and polyester are common in yoga wear. GRS, the Global Recycled Standard, covers products with at least 20% recycled material, and use of the GRS label on a product requires at least 50% recycled content. If the recycled share is lower, you may still state a qualified recycled-content claim with the share, as long as you can document it, but you cannot use the GRS label on the product.
Be careful with the denominator. A claim of recycled nylon on a legging that blends recycled nylon with virgin spandex should make clear that the recycled share refers to the nylon or to the whole fabric. See recycled nylon and polyester for how mills state it.
Harmful-substance and chemical claims
OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 tests textiles for harmful substances by product class: class I for baby articles and class II for articles with skin contact, which is where most yoga wear sits. It is a product safety scheme, not an environmental one, so it supports a statement that a fabric was tested for harmful substances, not a claim that the garment is eco-friendly. bluesign is a chemical management system for mills; it describes how a mill manages chemicals, not a property of every garment.
PFAS deserve separate attention. California AB 1817 restricts intentionally added PFAS in textile articles from 2025, and other states have similar laws. A PFAS-free statement should rest on supplier declarations and, where appropriate, testing, and you should check current state requirements before using it.
A claims workflow for a yoga brand
- List every environmental or material claim you want to make, on labels, tags, pages and ads.
- For each claim, write the specific fact behind it and the share if it is a content claim.
- Collect evidence: fabric sheets, certificate numbers checked in the database, documents linking certified material to your order.
- Check labels: bamboo as viscose or rayon made from bamboo, fiber percentages from the approved fabric sheet.
- Remove or qualify any claim that you cannot support today.
- Recheck at every reorder, because fabric sources and certificates change.
What the desk does and does not do
We can ask partner mills and factories for fabric sheets, certificate numbers and supporting documents where they hold them, and check certificates by number lookup. We do not issue certifications and we do not hold certificates on your behalf. Final responsibility for marketing claims sits with the brand making them, so have your wording reviewed by your own adviser if the claims are central to your positioning.
For material options, see the sustainable yoga wear guide and the compliance overview. When you know which materials you want, send your brief and list the claims you plan to make, so documentation can be requested at the start rather than after production.