Should You Use AI to Check If Brands Are Sustainable?

As a consumer trying to make more ethical choices, are you getting overwhelmed, not knowing where to start or how to figure out if a brand is actually telling the truth about their environmental footprint?

Then, relying on AI can feel like the most logical solution.

In fact, I remember the launch of ChatGPT like it was yesterday: I was extremely impressed by the possibilities it opened up, and so I started using it for almost everything, both at work and in my personal life.

However, I then heard about the negative implications of AI, too. So, I’ve been looking into it more.

Here are my best findings, data, and thoughts to help you decide if you should use AI to check a brand’s sustainability or discover new ethical ones.

Pros of using AI to check if a brand is sustainable and ethical 

• AI saves your time and mental energy – Let’s start with the obvious one. Instead of spending hours jumping from one website to another and reading confusing supply chain documents, you can use AI to simplify your research. Some AI-powered apps also allow you to scan a tag or paste a link to obtain a clear overview or eco-score
• AI simplifies industry jargon – I’ve been running this ethical fashion platform since 2017, and even I still get confused when reading certain reports and coming across new acronyms. So, if you’re not a sustainability expert, it can be extremely challenging to decipher some certifications or brand websites, whereas AI can ‘translate them’ into plain English
• AI can sometimes expose greenwashing –  For 28% of consumers, ‘unclear labelling’ is the main barrier to sustainable purchases. After all, vague terms and buzzwords like ‘green’ and ‘conscious’ lack evidence, and some brands downright lie about their supply chain and environmental impact. In some cases, AI can expose them
• AI might help you discover new brands – If you provide extremely specific prompts, AI might bring up brands you’ve never heard of before (and that you might not discover otherwise)

Cons of using AI to check if a brand is sustainable and ethical

• AI has a problematic environmental footprint – While it depends on various factors (from the AI model to the data centre’s location and the scope of the query), a single ChatGPT response requires between 1 and 50 millilitres of water and 10x more electricity than a Google search. But it goes beyond this.
  Much like with fast fashion, we’ve been led to use AI without considering its hidden costs and environmental impact. AI doesn’t magically exist in the online space, though! It has a big physical presence, especially through its data centres. And these have been leaving communities without drinking water, disrupting ecosystems (for example, through noise pollution and heated water discharged into aquatic systems), creating hardware and e-waste (an estimate of 5 million metric tons by 2030), and contributing to climate change.
  So, I’ve been wondering: does it make sense to use AI to check if a brand is sustainable, if it means feeding something with such a bad environmental footprint?
• AI makes mistakes – These tools often misinterpret or downright invent data and facts. It’s even worse if their database hasn’t been updated recently, as it might pull outdated scores and reports that don’t actually reflect a brand’s current practices. This might lead you to support problematic companies and avoid some that are genuinely doing their best for their workers and the planet.
  For example, when I tried to use AI to find new sustainable clothing brands to add to Project Cece (our platform bringing hundreds of ethical ones in one place), it showed me lots of websites that aren’t even trading anymore!
• AI might believe a brand’s empty claims – As we’ve seen before, AI tools can help you go beyond a company’s greenwashing and generic buzzwords… sometimes. Some other times? It falls for them, encouraging you to support brands that are actually problematic (or fast fashion in disguise) 
• AI lacks human nuance – When it comes to sustainability, things are rarely black and white. So, AI might wax lyrical over a brand just because they’re using recycled polyester… without mentioning their sweatshops and child labour 
• AI might overlook smaller but resourceful brands – Despite what we’re pretty much led to believe, AI hasn’t magically got all the answers in the world. It analyses human-made content and data to find patterns and predict the most relevant string of words.
  So, take a small sustainable clothing brand, for example: since it’s hard enough for them to stay profitable in the current economy, they haven’t usually got the right marketing budget to truly put themselves out there or publish lots of content. So, when you ask AI to recommend a certain type of ethical brand? That one might be the perfect fit… but you’ll never know, because AI hasn’t picked it up 
• Relying too heavily on AI affects your brain – Studies have shown that the brains of hardcore ChatGPT users have much lower electrical connectivity (and, therefore, critical thinking skills). I noticed the difference myself, when I stopped relying on it as much as I used to. Now, before I open Claude or Mistral, I ask myself: “Do I really need to ask AI, or can/should I think about this myself?”

So, should you use AI to check if a brand is sustainable?

The answer is very personal and nuanced, but overall, I believe it’s best NOT to rely on AI whenever you need to check if an individual product or brand is sustainable, especially when it comes to new queries on generative AI platforms like ChatGPT.

While this also depends on various factors, your environmental impact tends to be lower when using specific AI-powered apps or platforms that let you search a brand or scan a product’s barcode (like Yuka, for food and cosmetics), and their output should be more reliable, too.

Easily finding ethical clothing brands on Project Cece

When it comes to clothes and accessories, specifically, you can find hundreds of fair trade brands right here on Project Cece, with filters to simplify your choice. 

Every single one was vetted by humans, and you’ll get to see exactly what makes each brand or product more ethical.