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PARIS — Brazilian cotton used by fast-fashion behemoths H&M and Zara has been linked to deforestation and illegal land clearing, according to an investigative report by NGO Earthsight released Thursday.
The cotton was certified as sustainable under the Better Cotton label coming from two producers, SLC Agrícola and Groupo Horita, which are under investigation by both federal and state agencies in Brazil for land grabbing and deforestation. Both groups have been hit with a number of fines for environmental infractions and illegal land clearing since 2008.
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Earthsight’s yearlong investigation into the cotton supply chain showed that Brazilian cotton produced by SLC Agrícola and Grupo Horita worked its way to the fast-fashion companies via Asian suppliers.
The NGO examined satellite images, court rulings and shipping records to track 816,000 tons of directly exported cotton from the two growing firms to eight manufacturers that supplied H&M and Zara. Among them were Indonesia’s PT Kahatex, Bangladesh’s Jamuna Group and Pakistan’s Interloop. Earthsight then traced garments from those suppliers to the retailers’ sales floors in the U.S. and Europe.
Both companies responded to the report implicating Better Cotton’s practices.
“We welcome Earthsight’s commitment on these issues and take these allegations extremely seriously. We are in close contact with the Better Cotton certification owner — who has begun a thorough investigation into the specific allegations,” H&M said in a statement. “We remain in close dialogue with BCI and other stakeholders to identify improvement needs for the standard and its verification and welcome the opportunity to continue a dialogue with Earthsight on the same.”
Zara parent company Inditex added: “As sustainability is a work-in-progress, we continuously collaborate with certifying organizations and other specialized third parties to enhance the quality of these standards, their requirements, their traceability tools and compliance policies. We take very seriously any information regarding to improper practices in the textile industry,” it said.
Inditex went further and published a letter it sent to Better Cotton chief executive officer Alan McClay on the Spanish business news site Modaes. It said the allegations in the Earthsight investigation “represent a serious breach in the trust placed in Better Cotton’s certification process by both our group and product suppliers.”