Why 'sustainable paint' claims don't hold up to scrutiny

The paint industry's greenwashing problem runs deeper than marketing spin. Farrow & Ball's head of R&D Gareth Hayfield makes a blunt case: there is no such thing as sustainable paint, yet manufacturers routinely market products as eco-friendly without substantiating the claim.

This matters now because regulators are cracking down. The scrutiny extends beyond carbon footprint posturing to the chemistry itself – specifically persistent chemicals like PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) that accumulate in the environment and human tissue. Paint formulations contain these compounds as water and oil repellents. Marketing a product as environmentally friendly while its composition includes chemicals flagged for toxicity is the definition of greenwashing.

Hayfield's position reflects a growing awareness in the sector that vague environmental narratives – "natural ingredients", "low-impact", "eco" – cannot survive regulatory or reputational scrutiny. The industry needs to shift toward transparent, measurable claims: specific chemical disclosures, third-party verification of ingredient safety, lifecycle assessments tied to recognised standards.

This is not a peripheral issue. Paint appears in nearly every building project. If the industry normalises unsubstantiated environmental claims at this scale, it erodes the credibility of legitimate sustainability efforts across sectors.

The question for manufacturers now is straightforward: will they lead on transparency, or wait for regulators to mandate it? Because the window for self-correction is closing.

There is no such thing as ‘sustainable paint’, so why does the industry keep marketing it as eco-friendly?

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