Do certifications answer the most important buying questions, or just the easiest ones to standardize?

Certifications are often used as shortcuts for ethical credibility, but they do not all measure the same thing. GOTS is more tied to textile processing standards, Fair Trade is more associated with labor and sourcing conditions, and B Corp is broader, focusing more on company governance and accountability than on a single garment.

That makes them useful, but also easy to over-read. A certification can signal that a brand has met some external standard, but it does not automatically answer other questions that matter in ethical fashion, like durability, repeat wear, overproduction, repairability, or whether buying secondhand would make more sense in the first place.

So how do people actually use these labels at the point of purchase?
Are they meaningful enough to narrow your options, or are they mostly just a first pass before looking deeper?