Fashion groups ask Better Cotton to make improvements
Inditex and H&M have issued statements in response to allegations from campaign group Earthsight that cotton from SLC Agrícola and Grupo Horita in Brazil has found its way into clothing sold in the fashion groups’ stores.
Earthsight’s report accuses Grupo Horita and SLC Agrícola of growing cotton on farms in the west of the state of Bahia that have links to deforestation in the Chaco region, and to land-grabbing and violence against indigenous communities.
The report acknowledges that H&M and Inditex do not buy this cotton directly, but that mills and garment manufacturers that supply fabric and clothing to the two fashion groups have sourced cotton from the farms in the frame.
Specifically, the report said PT Kahatex in Indonesia, the largest buyer of the cotton at the centre of the allegations, has H&M as its second-largest customer. It said the Swedish group had sourced socks, shorts and trousers containing this cotton from the Indonesian supplier.
It also said that another buyer of Horita and SLC cotton was the Jamuna Group in Bangladesh. In the year to August 2023, it said stores run in Europe by Inditex’s main brand, Zara, had sold jeans and other denim clothes worth €235 million manufactured by Jamuna. Earthsight said this equated to approximately 21,500 pairs of jeans a day.
In response to the report, H&M said it required all of its suppliers to source sustainable cotton. Its requirements also include the stipulation that the standards and certifications under which the cotton is presented as sustainable be “credible and robust”. It added: “We rigorously monitor that our requirements are met.”
H&M said the findings from Earthsight’s report were “highly concerning” and that it was taking the allegations very seriously. It said it was in close dialogue with Better Cotton about the report’s claims and about a third-party investigation Better Cotton has commissioned.
It concluded: “The report clearly highlights the need for all actors to continue the work to further improve standards and traceability systems, which we fully support.”
Better Cotton has confirmed that its chief executive, Alan McClay, has received a formal letter from Inditex asking the London-based cotton sustainability organisation to put in place a plan for offering the apparel industry maximum visibility into its certification practices, and for taking forward “in a decisive manner” its work on traceability.
