Zara commits to using 100% sustainable fabric by 2025

Zara's parent company, Inditex, announced that by 2025, 100% of the cotton, linen and polyester used by all eight of its brands will be organic, sustainable or recycled. Meanwhile, 80% of the energy used in the group's activities such as stores, logistic centres and offices will be renewable by 2025. Besides Zara, Inditex's list of brands include Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti and Bershka.

For Zara in particular, 100% of its stores will be eco-efficient by this year, bringing it one year ahead of the original target. Zara's at-home used clothing collection service currently operating in several cities in Spain and China will also be extended to Paris, London and New York by September. Inditex said in a press statement that it aims to transform the store platforms for its other brands into an eco-efficient ones by 2020, in an effort to fine tune and digitalise its sales footprint. Garments from Inditex's sustainable label Join Life is expected to grow by 110% in 2019, up from 136 million garments in 2018. By 2020, one in every four clothing items put on sale will qualify for this sustainability label, Inditex said.

Meanwhile, Inditex will eliminate the use of plastic bags from all its brands by next year, with Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe already having done so. In 2018, only 18% of all bags were made from plastic, the company said. Next year, all of the group’s stores will have been fitted with containers for collecting used clothing for subsequent charitable purpose reuse or recycling. The Clothing Collection programme is one of the cornerstones of Inditex’s circular economy effort, it said.

By 2023, Inditex said it will have fully eliminated single-use plastics from customer sales and 100% 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.

According to Inditex's executive chairman Pablo Isla, its digital transformation and determined progress towards the most demanding sustainability standards are complementary and underpinned by the efficiency of its long-standing business model, which is based on offering consumers the best in quality fashion.

He explained that sustainability is "a never-ending task" in which everyone in the company is involved in and in which it is successfully engaging all its suppliers. "We aspire to play a transformational role in industry," Isla added.

Inditex joins companies including Nestle, Yakult Singapore, Burger King, and Starbucks that have doubled down on their sustainability commitment. Meanwhile, P&G and AEON are also working with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to turn boxes of discarded plastic from local households or the oceans into podiums for the upcoming games.

(Photo courtesy: Inditex)