Laurence Dollimore
ZARA’S new sustainable clothing range has been slammed as ‘not good enough’ by environmental groups.
The Spanish label’s ‘Join Life’ collection, which launched earlier this year, uses only organic and recycled materials.
Each piece must also be manufactured with one of the company’s ‘Green to Wear’ technologies, such as water recycling.
But environmentalists including Nikolay Anguelov, author of The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry, say they are very skeptical of the line.
“There’s misinformation in the marketing message,” said Anguelov.
“The eco label is not deserved. It is a minor improvement, but unfortunately it’s communicated to the consumer as if it’s problem solved.”
His research shows that fabric accounts for only 6% of the cost of any piece of clothing, meaning a change in the textiles fails to make much of a difference to the environment.
The energy used to transport the clothes and the toxic chemicals released in the bleach and dyes are what need to be addressed, claimed Anguelov.
He added that millennials buy five times the amount of clothes as the previous generation, exacerbating the problem.
Inditex, which owns Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear, released 1.1 billion units of clothes in 2015, raking in €10.47 billion.
