Street performance outside Lululemon in Vancouver raises concerns over integrity of Team Canada’s Olympic apparel

VANCOUVER (Unceded Territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, and Squamish Peoples) — Just days before Canadian competitors are set to don Lululemon’s apparel at the opening ceremony of the Paris Summer Olympics at the end of this week, a street performance on Monday outside the Vancouver flagship store of athleisure giant Lululemon criticized the company’s failure to align its values with Team Canada while outfitting the nation’s finest athletes on the world’s biggest stage.

Produced on July 22 by environmental advocacy organization Stand.earth in partnership with Oxfam Canada and Remake Canada, the “Dressed in Oil” performance spotlights the sinking reputation of Lululemon — one of Canada’s most influential companies and one of the world’s biggest fashion brands. The company has recently faced increased scrutiny over its products’ sustainability and the welfare of workers in its global factories, despite a public mantra of “Be Human, Be Well, Be Planet.”

Click here to view folder of photos and video from the performance

“When Team Canada walks onto the world stage at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, they deserve to be dressed in uniforms that reflect their values; that reflect honesty, strive for new heights, and care for people and the planet. Instead, Lululemon is draping our athletes in oil,” Stand Campaigner Erdene Batzorig said. “Lululemon claims that its leggings help ‘restore a healthy planet,’ but in just two years, Lululemon doubled its climate pollution, burned thousands of tonnes of coal, and turned endless barrels of oil into clothing. It’s not always easy for fashion companies to go green, but lululemon can follow its own Olympic mantra and ‘inspire by example’ by transitioning its manufacturing from coal to renewable energy. Lululemon must do right by Team Canada and stop clothing our athletes in greenwash.”

Featuring activists from Stand, Oxfam Canada, and Remake, the Vancouver street performance will stage a tongue-in-cheek Olympic medal ceremony that awards Lululemon podium places in categories including Greenwashing, Human Rights Failures, and Climate Crime.

“The fashion industry thrives on stark inequalities, relying on the labour of millions of women who, despite working countless hours, are trapped in poverty with poor wages. This industry, one of the largest polluters, causes immense environmental damage,” said Nirvana Mujtaba, Women’s Rights Policy and Advocacy Specialist at Oxfam Canada. “Climate change exacerbates their plight with extreme heat, flooding, and pollution making conditions unbearable and cutting into their already insufficient pay. To truly transform the industry, we must address these intertwined issues of fair wages and climate justice.”

This Vancouver street performance follows last week’s hanging of a prominent “Dressed in Oil” banner over the Toronto Home of Team Canada building. Since 2020, Team Canada has been a signatory of the United Nations Sport for Climate Action Framework, a commitment to effective action to halve emissions by 2030. However, over the same time frame, Lululemon’s climate emissions have doubled, despite public marketing claiming that its products “contribute to restoring a healthy planet.”

“It is imperative that lululemon earnestly and ambitiously follows through on both its short- and long-term absolute emissions reduction targets; ensuring both that it will finance and enable a context-specific, feasible, and equitable energy transition throughout its manufacturing facilities and center worker voices and needs in the co-creation of its energy transition plan,” Remake Senior Advocacy Manager Becca Coughlan said. “Only then will the company be worthy of its ‘Be Human, Be Well, Be Planet’ claims.”

The recent actions come less than six months after Stand’s filing of a greenwashing complaint against Lululemon in February, which resulted in the Competition Bureau Canada officially opening an inquiry in April to investigate concerns that the apparel company misleads customers about its environmental impact.

“The acceptance of our complaint to the Competition Bureau earlier this year set off an official inquiry into Lululemon’s anti-competitive greenwashing practices,” Stand Executive Director Todd Paglia said. “Through this investigation, the Competition Bureau will have the opportunity to ask Lululemon how it can claim to ‘Be Planet’ while creating more planet-harming emissions every year than half a million cars. Lululemon customers worldwide deserve to know the true impacts of the company’s climate pollution, not the greenwashed version it uses to sell products.”

If the Bureau finds that Lululemon has made materially false and misleading representations to the public, they could be fined a penalty of up to 3% of their gross global profits for each year the company committed greenwashing, potentially amounting to $400 million USD or more. Stand requests that the funds be dispersed by the Environmental Damages Fund and used for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. Lululemon would also be obligated to change or remove its greenwashing ‘Be Planet’ marketing, which is misleading people into believing that buying Lululemon supports – or at least does not harm – climate sustainability efforts.

In stark contrast to the company’s ‘Be Planet’ slogan, Lululemon’s Impact Report released in 2023 revealed another year of staggering growth in emissions – in fact, a 100% increase in climate pollution (see page 79) since deploying the slogan. The company also relies heavily on climate-damaging fossil fuels to make its products: More than 60% of the materials it uses are fossil fuel-derived (see page 55) – materials that contribute to climate pollution, cannot be effectively recycled, do not biodegrade, and release microplastics in the oceans and waterways.

Through its ‘Be Planet’ campaign, Lululemon presents itself as a company whose actions and products contribute to a healthier environment and planet. Although Lululemon has taken some actions and set some targets to reduce the harmful impact of its business operations and products, Stand’s position in its complaint is that Lululemon’s business is inconsistent with its public claims to be an environmentally positive company.

The advocacy organisations joined forces this week to showcase the dangerous negative impact of climate breakdown faced by workers in Lululemon’s own supply chains, whose health and livelihoods are put at extreme risk by rising temperatures.

Fossil fuels enter the supply chain through synthetic fibres made from oil and fracked gas, the ongoing practice of burning coal for heat at garment factories, fashion manufacturers’ continued reliance on fossil fuels for electricity, and the heavy fuels required to transport their goods. Fashion companies transitioning their manufacturing to renewable energy is the most important change brands can make to their supply chains to cut emissions.

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Media contact:
Cari Barcas, Communications Director, cari.barcas@stand.earth, +1 312 720 7940 (Eastern Time)