Zara commits to source100pc sustainable fabric

World’s largest fashion brand Zara has announced that all of its clothing collections will be made from 100 percent sustainable fabricwithin the next six years.

Inditex Chairman and CEO Pablo Isla made the announcement at its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on July 16.

Zara – afashion brand of Spanish clothing giantInditex group–hasworked on sustainable initiatives for almost a decade.

Inditex has announced a series of new sustainability commitments, including a pledge that 100 percent of the cotton, linen and polyester used by all eight of its brands will be organic, sustainable or recycled by 2025.

By 2025, 80 percent of the energy consumed by Zara’s headquarters, factories and stores will be from renewable sources and its facilities will produce zero landfill waste, the company said.

Making a statement, InditexChairman and CEO Pablo Isla said: “We need to be a force for change, not only in the company but in the whole sector.

“We are the ones establishing these targets: the strength and impulse for change is coming from the commercial team, the people who are working with our suppliers, the people working with fabrics. It is something that’s happening inside our company.”

“Sustainability is a never-ending task in which everyone here at Inditex is involved and in which we are successfully engaging all of our suppliers; we aspire to playing a transformational role in the industry,” he added.

By 2023, the company will have fully eliminated single-use plastics from customer sales and 100 percent of the waste generated at the Group’s head offices, logistics platforms and stores will be sent for recycling or reuse, framed by the Zero Waste programme.

Zara’s Track Record

In 2012, Zara pledged to remove all hazardous chemicals from its supply chain by 2020. Later, in 2016, Zara launched an eco-friendly line, titled “Join Life”. The line featured organic cotton, recycled wool, forest-friendly wood fibre and more.

The commitment to a more responsible future was made at its AGM and makes Zara, which accounts for 70 percent of Inditex’s group sales, the first international high street store to make such a commitment, reports fashion news portal Women’s Wear Daily.

The fashion retailer Inditex owned eight brands – Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe.

Inditex have strong presence in the fashion sector through its online platform and around 7,500 stores in 202 markets across the globe. It started its journey as a small family business in a workshop making women’s clothing in 1963.

The fashion giant lunched Zara as its first brand followed by international expansion at the end of the 1980s.

The group was named the most sustainable retailer by the Dow Jones sustainability index from 2016 to 2018, and is owned by Spain’s richest man, Amancio Ortega.

Last year, Inditex’sannual sales grew by 3percent to €26.1bn.