/>iOn February 18, 2025, Judge Bloom (S.D. Fla.) dismissed a lawsuit against Lululemon, the athleisure company, that centered upon allegations of greenwashing. Specifically, the plaintiffs here had contended “that Lululemon made a number of direct environmental claims about the company's products and actions that are false, deceptive and/or misleading.” However, the judge found these allegations lacking and dismissed the case for lack of standing due to a failure to plead injury, since “Plaintiffs' allegations fail to tie any aspect of Lululemon's statements to the purported price premium that Plaintiffs paid for Lululemon's products.”
This conclusion by the federal district court is highly significant and will likely impact the growing number of greenwashing actions filed in various courts. In particular, the court's holding that, in the context of greenwashing, “blanket assertions are insufficient to constitute an economic injury, and therefore Plaintiffs lack Article III standing” may erect a significant barrier to the many greenwashing lawsuits that “fail[] to allege a factual connection between the value of [Company's]products and [Company's] representations.” In other words, a greenwashing lawsuit will not succeed based upon generalized allegations that a company is not upholding its environmental commitments or otherwise making improper claims of sustainability but rather will require a specific link between the alleged greenwashing and the economic injury suffered by plaintiffs. This will likely be harder to establish in many, if not most, cases, and so may enable defendants to dispose of greenwashing lawsuits at an early stage in the litigation--e.g., at the motion to dismiss stage, as occurred here.
Lululemon Athletica Inc. has escaped a proposed class action accusing it of misleading the public into thinking the company is environmentally friendly, after a Florida federal judge tossed the suit because the consumers couldn't make a price-premium connection. [] Judge Beth Bloom granted Lululemon's motion to dismiss, finding that the buyers lacked standing because they did not adequately link their claims of overhyped environmental statements to any kind of economic injury. The lawsuit "does not allege that there was any deceptive act or unfair practice regarding the products sold to plaintiffs," Judge Bloom said. "Indeed, the 'deception' plaintiffs purportedly relied on amounts to nothing more than goals and promises contained in a press release or on Lululemon's website. ... Plaintiffs' allegations fail to tie any aspect of Lululemon's statements to the purported price premium that plaintiffs paid for Lululemon's products."
