How we review brands, and how to read a brand review

The majority of sustainable fashion content online is funded by the brands it covers, either directly through sponsored posts and partnerships, or indirectly through affiliate commissions that increase when readers buy. This doesn't make the information wrong, but it creates systematic pressure to be generous in assessments and to cover brands that pay rather than brands that deserve coverage.

The second problem is methodology. Many brand scoring systems — including well-known ones like Good On You — use self-reported data, meaning brands fill in forms about their own practices. Self-reporting introduces obvious bias and allows brands to claim practices that aren't verified. Some brands score highly primarily because they've invested in the paperwork for certifications, not because their actual environmental or labour impact is low.

The third problem is that brand-level assessment misses supply chain complexity. A brand can have excellent headquarters practices, use certified organic cotton, and still work with factories that violate labour standards for specific product lines. The disconnect between brand story and supply chain reality is where most greenwashing happens.

Each brand receives a score from 1 to 10 across the five criteria above, weighted based on the brand's category and scale. The overall score is a weighted average. We don't hide the methodology: every review publishes the breakdown by category so you can see where a brand performs well and where it doesn't.

Scores above 7 indicate brands that are doing the work across most or all criteria with third-party verification. Scores of 5 to 7 indicate genuine effort in some areas but meaningful gaps or unverified claims in others. Scores below 5 indicate brands where sustainability marketing outpaces practice, or where critical information is unavailable.

We update scores when brands publish new information, gain or lose certifications, or when investigative reporting reveals practices inconsistent with their claims. Scores carry a date stamp so you know when we last reviewed them.

Supply chain complexity means we cannot independently verify every claim. We note where we rely on self-reported data versus third-party audits versus investigative journalism. A brand that has been independently audited and a brand that has good-looking self-reported data can look similar from the outside when they shouldn't.

Geographic variation is real. A brand's factory in one country may have excellent conditions while another in the same brand's supply chain does not. Global scores flatten these differences. Where we have country or facility-specific information we include it; mostly we don't.

We don't assess product quality directly. A brand can have excellent sustainability credentials and make products that fall apart. We note quality where it's consistently documented in independent reviews, but our scores are not quality ratings.

First: who wrote it and do they have a commercial relationship with the brand? Affiliate links, sponsored content disclosures, or brand partnerships don't automatically invalidate the review but they change how you should read it.

Second: what evidence supports the claims? "Committed to sustainability" needs to point to something specific — a certification, a published target, a third-party audit. Claims without evidence are marketing.

Third: what does the reviewer not address? A review that covers materials but skips labour, or covers certifications but skips volume and growth, is probably missing the parts of the story that don't support a positive conclusion.

Fourth: when was it written? Brands change. A glowing review from 2021 of a brand that has since scaled aggressively, lost certifications, or faced labour investigations is now misleading even if it was accurate when written. Always check the date.