How printwear and promotion businesses can stay ahead of sustainability regulations and buyer expectations

In business, you have to mean what you state and it is an ethos that is working its way into sustainability. The EU is changing its laws and now companies don’t just want eco-friendly products, they demand it. In this article, Akhil Sivanandan from Green Story explains why it is important to stay ahead of the changes and ways to do so without impacting business.

For the last two years, sales teams have come across a surprising shift in procurement for their clients: Sustainability data has gone from ‘nice to have’ to a commercial requirement for the printwear and promotion industry.

This is coming due to ripple effects on organizational targets and legislation. Corporate buyers, event organisers, and brand merch teams are under pressure to choose products with verified environmental performance, and not just claims. Teams (especially commercial teams) are therefore having to get smarter on sustainability messaging.

As regulations tighten across the UK and EU, and as buyers increasingly integrate sustainability into procurement scoring, printwear businesses must shift from broad ‘eco-friendly’ messaging to specific, verifiable environmental data.

Whether you supply blank garments, custom-printed apparel, or promotional textiles, the evidence behind your sustainability claims now matters as much as the products themselves.

Prama Bhardwaj – MantisWorld

Prama Bhardwaj, CEO and founder of Mantis and Babybugz, said: “The print and promotional products industry is moving rapidly from ‘nice to have’ sustainability to systemic change, driven by customer expectations and regulation.

“Upcoming EU and UK regulations around digital product passports, extended producer responsibility, deforestation and packaging are accelerating the need for traceable, lower-impact products.”

This guide breaks down what’s changing, the risks of getting it wrong, and how the industry can prepare.

Why printwear procurement teams are turning up the pressure

Corporate procurement teams for branded merchandise have rapidly raised expectations. Instead of general sustainability messaging (‘better cotton,’ ‘eco-conscious’), they now ask suppliers for specific environmental data for their orders, including product level carbon and water impact figures per order, evidence for recycled or organic fibre claims, and chain of custody documentation from raw fibre to finished garment.

More importantly, this isn’t optional anymore. Procurement teams now have sustainability KPIs tied to net-zero plans, ESG scoring, and environmental compliance risk, especially in corporate gifting, events, and retail-adjacent promotional products. If a supplier cannot provide data, buyers may simply select one who can (and the number who can are increasing).

For printwear and promotional products, this shift means data is becoming a differentiator, especially in tenders and B2B pitches.

Anne Pierson-Smith – Northumbria

Professor Anne Pieterson-Smith from the University of Northumbria said: “The driver for this change is coming from new UK and EU sourced regulations in the form of consumer protection laws with the power to levy substantial fines relating to turnover, such as the EU Empowering Consumers Directive (ECD) and the UK Competition and Markets Authority Green Claims Code requiring the use of clear and verifiable product data.”

How UK printwear suppliers are impacted by EU-Led regulatory changes

While the EU is leading the charge on this, procurement teams operate in a market shaped heavily by EU sustainability policy. The UK itself is not far behind in pushing stricter compliance rules around green claims. Furthermore, most major garment manufacturers serving the printwear and promotional products channel sell across the EU, and many UK suppliers distribute EU-made apparel and hence expectations are converging.

For example, for the upcoming ESPR regulation, textiles will be among the first categories required to provide product-level traceability data, such as fibre composition, chemical treatments, recycled content, and environmental footprints. These are then to be uploaded on EU and national registries as Digital Product Passports. France already has this in play with their Ecoscores (with Italy set to follow in 2026). As a consequence, large promotional buyers are already asking which suppliers are ‘DPP-ready.’

Daniel Bedwell – Beechfield

Daniel Bedwell, business sustainability lead at Beechfield Brands, said: “In an industry where we have limited contact with our end users, the DPP is also a great way for us to communicate our sustainability efforts and prove claims and credentials, ultimately building trust in our brand.”

The EU’s CSDDD framework is also pushing buyers to verify that suppliers understand their supply chain impacts, from mills and dye houses to cut-and-sew factories. For printwear, this means decorators and promotional suppliers will increasingly need to show where garments come from, not just how they are printed.

More locally, UK CMA is enforcing against misleading claims

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has made sustainability claims a regulatory priority, and the printwear sector is not exempt.

Dr Alana James, programme lead, impact and programme at Northumbria University said: “To comply with these new evidence-based requirements, transparent communication aligned with the three Cs of effective communication in providing: credible, clear and coherent messaging.

Equally, to ensure that responsible messaging reaches its intended target and builds trust through transparency, the solution lies in enabling technologies such as Digital Product Passports (DPPs) required by the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Product regulation by accounting for the entire product lifetime in supporting a circular economy.”

Recent CMA actions have included:

Investigations into misleading green claims across fashion, retail, and promotional goods.

Requirements for companies to remove or revise vague sustainability marketing.

Public enforcement announcements that have created reputational risk for brands involved.

Penalties across sectors have reached multi-million-pound levels, signalling the seriousness of misleading claims.

For printwear and promotional products businesses, this means claims like ‘eco-friendly shirts’, ‘sustainable uniform range’, or ‘green promotional textile’ are risky unless backed by specific, verifiable data such as product carbon footprint and lifecycle assessment (LCA) results, certified recycled content, or traceability documentation.

Daniel from Beechfield continued: “As a company we have always looked towards better, lower impact materials.

“The changes in legislation are helping push the industry in this direction, making more future-proof solutions accessible to us.

Dr Alana James

“Using a trusted partner like Greenstory adds a third-party guarantee that our data is trustworthy and credible.”

What these changes mean for printwear and promotion suppliers

Across the P&P supply chain – from blanks distributors to custom print shops – three shifts are now essential:

Move from generic claims to evidence-based statements.

Marketing and product descriptions must rely on measurable data, such as:

Carbon footprint per garment

Water usage reductions

Verified recycled content percentages

Strengthen supply chain traceability.

Know the fibre source, manufacturing facilities, environmental impacts, and certification validity for the garments you print on or sell.

Standardise your sustainability documentation.

Corporate buyers increasingly expect a consistent, auditable data pack that aligns with UK and EU expectations.

Businesses that adopt these practices early will win more tenders and avoid compliance risk.

Case study: How one printwear supplier secured major contracts through stronger environmental data

Last year, a client of ours (mid-sized UK printwear supplier specialising in workwear) recently faced growing pressure from major clients in the construction sector who were revising their sustainability procurement criteria.

The challenges:

Buyers wanted item-level impact data for best-selling cotton T shirts.

Marketing copy using vague terms were flagged by buyer.

EU competitors were beginning to offer LCA-backed product comparisons.

The solution:

Introduced third-party verified environmental impact data across core SKUs.

Standardised factory-level data gathering with a verification layer developed by Green Story.

Built a ‘Sustainability Data Pack’ that sales teams could share with clients, and internally built a ‘Sustainability Communications Data Pack’ based on best practices advised by Green Story.

The outcome:

The company renewed their major client with verified environmental data stated as a key hurdle they cleared.

The updated claims eliminated compliance risks flagged during internal audits.

Quick supplier request checklist (callout box)

When requesting information from your garment manufacturers or upstream suppliers, ask for:

Verified recycled content documentation

Fibre-level environmental impact data

Energy/water usage from dyeing, knitting, or finishing facilities

Valid certifications (GOTS, GRS, OCS, Oeko-Tex, etc.)

Chain-of-custody documentation

Evidence supporting any sustainability claim

This ensures you can meet both procurement demands and compliance expectations.

Implementing a structured sustainability checklist helps ensure that:

All claims comply with UK CMA requirements.

Product descriptions avoid vague or misleading language.

Marketing, sales, and production teams stay aligned.

You have traceability documentation ready for audits or buyer requests.

A consistent process protects against fines, forced claim withdrawals, or reputational damage.

Mantis’ Prama Bhardwaj continued: “In an industry crowded with greenwash, transparency and evidence are critical to building trust.

“When we look at technology partners who can help us to do this, it’s really important to work with organisations who understand the granular level of supply chains and have credible LCAs to verify the data.”

Reducing commercial risk

Beyond compliance, a careful approach as outlined above protects your business by:

Improving your success rate in corporate tenders.

Reducing back-and-forth with procurement teams.

Minimising delays caused by missing sustainability documentation.

Strengthening customer trust and repeat orders.

Ensuring supply chain partners can support future EU requirements like DPP.

In today’s printwear and promotional merchandise market, the risks of vague or unverified sustainability claims are higher than ever.

Prama concluded: “Ultimately, regulation is helping to raise the floor of the industry and businesses that act early will be better positioned when expectations become mandatory.”

Buyers are demanding proof, regulators are enforcing compliance, and reputational stakes are rising with every order.

Yet this landscape also presents a clear opportunity: suppliers who adopt a data-driven, transparent approach can not only mitigate fines and greenwashing exposure but also strengthen client relationships, win tenders, and position themselves as trusted leaders in a sector increasingly defined by environmental accountability.