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Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.

The Brewing Controversy Over the Cotton in Your T-Shirt

Zara owner Inditex, the world’s largest fast fashion company, is ditching the industry’s biggest sustainable cotton scheme amid a deforestation scandal and a wider push to prioritise organic fibres.
A worker unloads cotton from a truck at a market in Pakistan in 2023.
Inditex has significantly increased its purchases of organic cotton as it moves away from fibres certified under Better Cotton, the industry's biggest sustainable cotton scheme. (Asad Zaidi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Further Reading

Are H&M and Zara Harming Forests in Brazil?

Cotton linked to environmental and human rights abuses in Brazil is leaking into the supply chains of major fashion brands, a new investigation has found, prompting Zara-owner Inditex to send a scathing rebuke to the industry’s biggest sustainable cotton certifier.

Sustainable Fashion’s Credibility Crisis

This week, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition suspended the use of its product labels, employed by companies like H&M and Amazon, as concerns over greenwashing engulfed one of the industry’s top sustainability tools.

About the author
Sarah Kent
Sarah Kent

Sarah Kent is Chief Sustainability Correspondent at The Business of Fashion. She is based in London and drives BoF's coverage of critical environmental and labour issues.

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