Are H&M, Zara Destroying Forests In Brazil?

A report released recently said that top fashion brands like Zara and H&M have been linked to illegal deforestation, land grabbing and violence in an area of Brazil ‘plundered’ to grow cotton.

The investigation carried out by non-governmental organisation Earthsight tracked 816,000 tonnes of cotton to firms in Asia to make jeans, hoodies, shorts and socks being sold in Ireland.

The crop was grown at a place where people have been forced off the land through violent attacks, shootings, intimidation and cattle theft.

While global concern has focused on the impact of beef and soy farming in the Amazon, deforestation alerts in Brazil’s lesser-known Cerrado tropical savannah jumped 44% in 2023, data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) shows.

The NGO said that the area – home to around 5% of the Earth’s species has been destroyed by business houses to make the South American country, the world’s second largest cotton exporter.

The cotton was certified ‘sustainable’ by Better Cotton, which is used to make most Zara and H&M products despite past allegations of greenwashing, secrecy and human rights failures.

Sam Lawson, the director of the NGO said, “If you have cotton clothes, towels or bed sheets from H&M or Zara, it is probably stained by the plundering of the Cerrado. These firms talk about good practice, social responsibility and certification schemes, they claim to invest in traceability and sustainability, but all this now looks about as fake as their high street window arrangements.”

The group argued the EU is one of the largest importers of clothing in the world (second to the US), Earthsight argues the bloc has a big responsibility to clean up its supply chains.

Fashion  giants H&M said, “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,” the company added.