Complicated Green Advertising: Understanding the Promotion of Clothing Recycling Efforts

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The fashion industry, a major global polluter, has been paying more attention to the environmental and ecological impacts of clothing production. A subset of established brands — some supported by the US group Cotton Incorporated — have pushed programmes where denim and other types of clothing can be turned in at a store, collected, and then sent for recycling. Often, these recycling efforts are supported with promotional offers that allow customers to purchase new items at a discount. This is potentially paradoxical as in this way recycling is used to promote further consumption. This paper interrogates the promotion of recycling programmes from four US brands: American Eagle, H&M, Madewell and The North Face. To do so, this paper uses a textual analysis and deconstruction of the brands’ websites and in-store advertising, as well as a KWIC analysis of Twitter messages. By examining the tangible communication components that support the recycling efforts, this analysis highlights the ‘complicated greenness’ (Hepburn, 2013) within the process as consumer incentives for recycling promote further consumption and often leave consumers confused as to the environmental efficacy of such practices. This paper offers considerations for ways fashion brands might be more impactful in their foray into environmentalism.