Greenwashing Promotional Products: Sustainable Merch What It Is (And Isn’t)

September 1, 2026

Most “sustainable” branded merchandise is designed to signal the right intent, not deliver meaningful impact. The industry has spent a decade optimizing the visible markers, recycled content, organic cotton, a certification logo on the hang tag, while the bigger drivers of impact sit almost entirely unexamined: how much gets produced, how long it actually gets used, and how transparently it was made. At Fairware, we’ve been asking ourselves these questions for years. The main question isn’t “what’s this merch made of?” It’s “should so many of these have been made at all?”

This post answers a narrower, more useful question than most sustainability content in this category: what makes a promotional product sustainable, and how should companies evaluate the decisions behind it, not just the materials list attached to it?

Key Takeaways

• Material claims are necessary, but on their own, not sufficient. A GRS-certified recycled tote, ordered in bulk and used once, is still waste – and while the material is ‘preferred’, the certificate doesn’t change the outcome.
• The merch industry over-indexes on visible markers. Recycled content, organic materials, and certification logos dominate the conversation because they’re easy to put on a spec sheet – not because they’re the biggest lever available.
• Volume is the sector’s biggest gap. Supply chains stay opaque, certifications get taken at face value, and almost nobody questions whether the order size made sense in the first place.
• Durability and relevance consistently outperform material claims. A well-made item someone uses for five years beats a “recycled” item that gets tossed in a week, every time, in terms of real-world impact. The ‘brandfill’ issue in promo is real, and it’s a tough one to address.
• Certifications verify inputs, not outcomes. GRS and GOTS confirm what a material contains but neither one tells you whether the product should have existed in that quantity.

The fix is anchored in better decisions — not better adjectives. Ensuring order volume matches the project intent, designing for longevity, and supply chain transparency move the needle further than a material swap.

Where Does the “Sustainable Merch” Conversation Go Wrong?

Material choices dominate the sustainability conversation because they’re visible and marketable — but they’re only one part of the equation, and not the largest one. A recycled polyester jacket and a virgin polyester jacket have different footprints, but both footprints are dwarfed by the question of whether 5,000 of either one needed to be produced, or whether 500 well-chosen items would have done the job.

This is where the industry’s claims problem and its impact problem diverge. Even a fully substantiated material claim — a product that genuinely carries Global Recycled Standard (GRS) certification, with a real chain of custody and a transaction certificate to prove it — still doesn’t answer the harder questions. The raw material verification truth is that certifications confirm what went into a product, not whether it should have been made in that quantity at all. In our industry, certifications are treated as a finish line rather than one data point. 

And volume, the single biggest driver of total environmental cost, is rarely questioned by anyone in the buying process. The result: products that look sustainable on a spec sheet while quietly contributing to overproduction and waste.

What Actually Makes Promotional Products Sustainable?

The most meaningful shifts in merchandise sustainability come from three decisions: reducing quantity, designing for long-term use, and working with partners who can demonstrate how/where their products are made.

Quantity matters more than most procurement processes acknowledge. Ordering half as much of a better-chosen item almost always beats ordering the original volume in a “greener” material. Longevity matters because impact is a function of use, not production: an item designed to be used weekly for two years has a fundamentally different footprint-per-use than one designed to be photographed once and discarded. Transparency matters because it’s the thing that lets a buyer verify the first two, and vetting corporate merchandise at the supply-chain level — not just at the finished-product level — is what separates a real claim from a marketing one.

Durability and relevance to the recipient trump material claims – if a product is useful, and durable, chances are it will stay out of the landfill longer. 

And here is the thing folks really don’t want to talk about, most sales reps in the promotional products industry are compensated primarily on a commission model – many of them at 100% commission (ours aren’t). It creates a perverse incentive to sell more, not better. 

And clients have a role to play too, how many of you bump against the ‘spend it or lose it’ issue as budget cycles end? Merch is a quick win to get those budgets used up, but timing makes it hard to be mindful in selecting the right merch, or the right amount. It’s hard to complain about orders coming in, but these are the real-life issues driving over consumption in the promotional products industry.

How Should Companies Act on This?

For marketing teams, this means moving away from volume-driven giveaways (think the 2,000-unit conference order chosen for unit cost), toward fewer, more intentional product choices that someone will actually keep. 

For procurement teams, it means looking past the certification badge and asking deeper questions about sourcing, production volume, and end-of-life, the same way you’d interrogate any other supplier claim. Working with a partner who can deliver verified compliance custom merch documentation, not just a certificate PDF, is what makes that scrutiny possible.

At a leadership level, it means treating merchandise as a reflection of brand values, not a disconnected line item somebody in marketing signs off on without scrutiny.

And it means resisting the easiest, least useful move available: asking your merchandise partner to make a “better” version of a product that shouldn’t have been ordered at all. A recycled-content stress ball is still a stress ball nobody needed. 

What Steps Should Buyers Take?

Start by shifting to quality not quantity — before optimizing materials, make sure you’re ordering what you need.

Prioritize products designed to be used regularly and over time, not novelty items designed to be noticed once.

Ask suppliers for transparency into their supply chains: product claims certification, social compliance reports specific to your order — in addition to company level claims about their practices. 

Make sure every product connects clearly to the brand story it’s meant to tell — if you can’t explain why this item is a fit, to your audience, don’t order it.

Closing Perspective

Sustainability in merchandise is less about finding more ‘sustainable’ products and more about making better decisions about what gets made at all. Understanding the issue of product impact and waste aligns with PPAI’s 2026 sustainability benchmarking work with WAP Sustainability Consulting: the firms making real progress are the ones asking harder questions about decisions, not just swapping in better-labeled materials.

FAQ

Is recycled content enough to make a promotional product sustainable? No. Recycled content addresses one input, not the product’s overall footprint. A certified-recycled item ordered in excess volume, or designed to be discarded quickly, can still have a worse total impact than a lower-claim item that’s used for years.

What’s the difference between GRS and RCS certification? RCS verifies only that recycled material was traceable through the supply chain. GRS requires that same traceability plus minimum recycled content thresholds and independently audited environmental and social criteria — but neither certifies the order size or the product’s usable lifespan.

Why does order volume matter more than material choice? Because total impact scales with quantity produced and discarded, not just material composition. 

What should merch buyers ask suppliers beyond certification badges? Ask for production-level documentation —Sustainability Certification, Social Compliance reports specific to the order, end of life management options.

Are bamboo promotional products actually sustainable? Most “bamboo” apparel is manufactured processed rayon derived from bamboo pulp, not a raw bamboo textile or natural fibre, and labelling rules require it be identified as rayon. It’s misleading to think of bamboo fibre as natural. You can learn more about it here.

How should marketing teams rethink branded giveaways? Shift the default from “how many can we afford” to “how many will actually get used.” Fewer, better-chosen items that recipients keep and use consistently outperform large novelty orders on every meaningful sustainability measure.

If you want to dig deeper on your custom branded merch program, get in touch with my team — and for the compliance mechanics behind specific claims like “recycled,” “eco-friendly,” and “carbon neutral,” see Decoding the 2026 Greenwashing Regulations.

Denise Taschereau

CEO of Fairware, North America’s leading sustainable branded merchandise agency. A recognized leader in sustainable procurement and responsible sourcing, she has spent more than 20 years helping organizations use merchandise to create positive environmental and social impact. Before founding Fairware, Denise was the Director of Sustainability and Community at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC). She currently serves on the board of Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) .