Allbirds “Environmentally-Friendly” Claims New York Class Action

Allbirds, Inc. makes shoes from wool, which it advertises with the use of “eco-friendly phrases,” talking about sustainability, carbon footprint, and happy sheep. But the complaint alleges that these claims about environmental impact and animal welfare are misleading and not substantiated.

The class for this action is all New York residents who bought the Allbirds shoes during the applicable statutes of limitations.

Consumers these days prefer to buy products from companies that protect the environment, have fair labor practices, and care about animal welfare. Allbirds marketing addresses these consumer concerns, with phrases such as, “Sustainability Meets Style,” “Low Carbon Footprint,” “Environmentally Friendly,” and “Made with Sustainable Wool.” The complaint alleges, “Allbirds has purchase advertisements sot that it is presented to people who search for ‘ethically made running shoes.”

One statistic it offers is the purported carbon footprint of its shoes. For its Wool Runners, it gives figures for Materials, Manufacturing, Use, and End of Life, to arrive at a total Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) figure.

However, the complaint quotes People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), as saying, “Allbirds’ life cycle assessment (LCA) tool currently only measures the carbon footprint of each product, meaning that it doesn’t assess any other environmental impact of wool production, including on water, eutrophication, or land occupation.” (Eutrophication has to do with an excessive “richness” of nutrients in a body of water, sometimes from runoff, that can lead to much plant growth and the death of animal life from too little oxygen.)

The complaint alleges that the company ignores almost half of wool’s real environmental impact.

Furthermore, the complaint alleges that the company makes misleading animal welfare claims, such as when they claim that “Our Sheep Live the Good Life.” It quotes a PETA article to say that these kinds of assertions about happy sheep come from “empty welfare policies that do little to stop animal suffering.”

Allbirds asserts, “We work with leading organizations like ZQ Merino to ensure our wool is held to high standards of farming, land management, and animal welfare.” The complaint alleges that this is “pass[ing] the buck about its wool production to ZQ Merino, which does not put its standards and practices online “because it’s an on-farm manual for our growers, not a consumer-facing document.”

The complaint alleges that there are “gaps” in its program. For example, its rules don’t extend to transporting the sheep or slaughtering them. Furthermore, while ZQ claims to source from countries with strong animal welfare laws, it includes farms in Argentina, Australia, and South Africa where standards may be ignored.

The complaint alleges that the shoes are “sold for a premium compared to other similar products … higher prices than they would otherwise be sold for, absent the misleading representations and omissions.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Animal Welfare Claims, Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Sustainability or Ecological/Environmental Claims