Zara may be one of the biggest retailers on the planet, but how sustainable is it and does it use ethical practises?

The fashion brand, which is owned by Inditex, has almost 3,000 stores in 96 countries, with new stock arriving every week to keep consumers coming back for more. Everyone from celebrities Alexa Chung and Rosie Huntington-Whitely counts themselves fans of the brand, so it’s not surprising that Zara was valued at almost £14 billion in 2022.

Despite the retailer’s profits suffering from the effects of the pandemic in 2020, it still appears to be reigning supreme when it comes to the high street. Here, we take a look at the brand’s ethics, sustainability and position on animal welfare. Next, read more about the sustainability of brands Shein, Mango and H&M.

Wear next may earn commission if you click a link from one of our articles on to a retail website. Read more about how we choose our products.

Is Zara sustainable?

Zara hasn’t posted a sustainability report since 2022, but the brand does have a sustainability manifesto on its website that highlights their goals and commitments as a brand under its Join Life initiative. The website states that Join Life ‘represents a process of continuous improvement, always questioning what we (Zara) should do to move towards a more sustainable model.’

The brand also states that it works on different stages of their value chain with a ‘holistic approach’ whether its how they design their products, choose the materials or produce the garments, the logistics or the design and management of the warehouses and stores. They add that while they’re not perfect, they’re ‘dedicated to continuous improvement.’

By 2023, Zara says it aimed to:

• Use 100% cotton and more sustainable cellulosic fibres
• Use 100% Redesigned packaging to facilitate its reuse and recycling
• Eliminate 100% Of single-use plastics for customers
• Collect and process 100% of waste from Zara’s facilities for reuse or recycling

Zara has not yet confirmed whether these goals were met.

By 2030, Zara states it wants to reduce its emissions by 50%, use 100% raw textile materials with a lower environmental impact and to protect, restore or recover over 5million hectares of land. By 2040, they aim to have zero net emissions. You can read it in full here.

Zara launched its Pre-Owned service in 2022, which allows customers to get their old Zara items repaired either in-store or online, as well as buy and sell pre-owned Zara pieces. You can also donate your old clothes to Zara’s clothing collection programme, and the garments will be donated to people at risk of exclusion, sold in second hand stores or recycled. Zara claim that proceeds are used to fund social projects.

However Zara operates with a business model not too dissimilar to fast-fashion brands such as Pretty Little Thing, Nasty Gal and Boohoo. The brand releases an incredible 24 trend-led collections every year, 500 designs a week and almost 20,000 per year, which in turn leads consumers to see their clothes as disposable and adds to even more waste from the garment industry that ends up in a landfill. However, it was reported that the brand had suffered a 44% slump in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Zara announced it was closing 1,200 of its stores around the world, thus reducing energy consumption – albeit out of necessity, not a choice.

Of course, Zara’s fast fashion business model can never be environmentally friendly as manufacturing so many new garments create huge amounts of waste every year. This goes some way to explain why the average American is estimated to throw away 37kg of clothes each year, 85% of which will end up in landfill or be burned.

However, Inditex, the company that owns Zara, pledged to create all of its collections from 100% sustainable fabrics by 2025. They also claimed that 80% of the energy consumed in Zara’s headquarters, factories and stores will be from renewable sources by the same year and its facilities will produce zero landfill waste.

Inditex, which also owns brands Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius, also started a repair and reuse program called Closing The Loop in 2016, which allows shoppers to drop off used garments in-store or through the post to be recycled, while their packaging is also recycled. Dow Jones named the fashion group as the most sustainable retailer from 2016 to 2018, and Zara also launched their Join Life range in 2016, which is made using recycled materials.

But despite the well-meaning steps, Zara has been criticised for failing to catch up with other brands. Their Join Life range accounts for such a small percentage of their collections that it fails to have much of an impact on the brand as a whole, and as such a large company, many feel there’s no excuse.

Zara’s transparency has also been called into question, as they fail to disclose the number of resources that go into production. The brand, along with over 100 others, has also been linked to Amazon Deforestation. According to Slow Factory, ‘none of these brands are deliberately choosing deforestation leather’ but they do continue to work with manufacturers that source their materials from opaque supply chains.

You can learn more about the fashion brands that have indirectly contributed to Amazon deforestation and what you can do about it here.

The brand’s efforts to be transparent in its sustainability practices have also been questioned. A study of the top fast-fashion websites in the UK done last year reportedly revealed that 60% of environmental claims in these sites, including Zara’s, could be considered ‘misleading’.

Changing Markets Foundation said that many of these brands use the words ‘sustainable’, ‘low-impact’, ‘eco’, and ‘recycled’ but 59% of them do not live up to the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) guidelines on avoiding greenwashing — the list was topped by H&M but also included Zara.

Is Zara ethical?

It’s important to note the working conditions and wages of Zara’s staff. Who can forget their unpaid factory workers from Turkey, who said they were left with ‘no choice’ but to sew hidden messages into clothing for customers to find? They were hired by manufacturer Bravo Tekstil, who produced clothes for Zara, before closing down in 2016.

Unfortunately the garment workers did not get paid for the three months up to the company’s closure, until Inditex worked with a trade union and other retailers including Mango and Next to establish a ‘hardship fund’ to help the group of Turkish workers.

Since the bad publicity, Zara have started to improve the working conditions of their workers. They have a code of conduct that protects workers, and audits take place to ensure this is enforced. Zara also publish a list of suppliers, information of supplier audits and on gender equality, forced labour and freedom of association. However, Zara still fails to pay a living wage across its supply chain – despite such a huge profit margin.

They also fail to disclose evidence that their well-being programs are present at half of their factories, which suggests many workers are left unsupported.

In 2020, over 100 workers lost their jobs at the Huabo Times factory in Myanmar, which produces clothes for Zara, after forming a union. One worker claimed that they worked 10-hour days, six days a week and were regularly expected to work overtime to make enough money. Workers at the factory make around $3 per day, or £2.44. Meanwhile, the founder of Inditex, Don Amancio Ortega, is the sixth wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of over £59 billion.

READ MORE: 6 of the Best Eco-Friendly Razors For Smooth Skin (Without Harming the Planet)

As for the COVID-19 pandemic, Zara discloses policies in place to protect workers and suppliers in its supply chain from the impacts of Covid-19. In August 2020, it was reported that Inditex had pledged to maintain workers’ rights throughout their supply chains and the stability of payments to suppliers during the crisis.

The group had previously signed a joint agreement with global workers’ union IndustriALL, and during the pandemic, they reiterated their commitment to ensuring health and safety standards were met, and bargaining rights and workers’ rights to unionise were maintained throughout their supply chains.

Zara also committed to stable payment terms to allow suppliers to honour payments to their workers, ensuring they didn’t lose wages during the pandemic like certain fast fashion retailers’ employees did, such as those for Arcadia.

Zara Animal Welfare Policy

Zara uses wool, leather, down, and exotic animal hair, but their Animal Welfare Policy does ban fur, angora and animal testing in their clothing products.

Unfortunately Zara provide no evidence it traces any animal products to the first stage of production.

Read their Animal Welfare Policy here.

Is Zara the same as Shein?

Last year, people noticed that Shein has dozens of designs that can be considered as Zara dupes. But it’s more than just design that people compare between the two fast fashion brands.

According to the sustainable fashion index, Good On You, Zara’s green and sustainable efforts are not yet good enough. But compared to Shein, Zara has taken steps in creating good supply chain management through their Closing The Loop program.

Shein also received the lowest possible score Good On You has ever given a brand—avoid at all costs.

Summary

Like many high-street fashion brands, Zara are working towards becoming more sustainable and ethical – but there’s still a long way to go.

Working at such a huge scale, it seems impossible for the much-loved brand to ever be truly environmentally-friendly, but they could run an ethical business by paying their staff fairly and treating them with respect.

Despite Zara perhaps being the most popular fast fashion chain in the world, it could also lose its gleam by not thinking sustainably.

Topshop, which was previously part of the Arcadia group and has since been taken over by ASOS, went into administration last year and many were quick to pull apart its lack of ethical and sustainable practises, high price point and failure to innovate for reasons why it went bust. Shoppers are now more savvy than ever before.

However Zara isn’t the only fast fashion brand around. We’ve written a comprehensive list of high street brands which are fast fashion, and explained exactly what fast fashion means here.

Wear Next Opinion

Wear Next believes it’s important to highlight the negative and unjust practises taking place in the fashion industry. We believe ethics and sustainability are an important talking point to bring about change and we encourage you to contact fashion brands to demand this.

However, we understand that sustainable fashion isn’t accessible to everybody due to various factors, such as budget and the ability to find confidence-boosting clothes that fit. We will continue to offer you fashion inspiration and guidance to suit everybody and their budget, while also highlighting the unjust systems at play in the fashion industry.

We encourage our readers to shop mindfully and purposefully, ditching impulse purchases as a way to start shopping sustainably. If you want to learn more about fast fashion, we recommend books from this reading list.

Would you still shop at Zara? Let us know in the comments below.

Sustainable alternatives to Zara

In the past sustainable fashion was synonymous with bamboo, beige and basic garments, but recently slow fashion has started to change.

There are plenty of exciting small fashion brands that don’t compromise on style. If you like Zara, we recommend checking out these made-to-order fashion brands.

By Megan Crosby

By Megan Crosby is a small fashion brand by – you guessed it – Megan Crosby.

She designs and hand makes a selection of colourful, playful and beautiful clothes.

Shop her designs at bymegancrosby.com and don’t forget to check out our interview with Megan.

With Love Evie

With Love Evie might be a lesser-known sustainable label, but it’s growing quickly.

Like Megan Crosby, Evie Ashwin designs and hand makes a selection of dresses, tops and trousers in her recognisable heart-printed ginghams and florals.

Shop her designs at withloveevie.co.uk and don’t forget to check out our interview with Evie.

Molby The Label

Molby The Label boasts a whole host of celebrity fans, from Louise Thompson, to Holly Willoughby.

Her recognisable split-colour gingham Tilda dresses are instantly recognisable.

Shop her designs at molbythelabel.com and don’t forget to check out our interview with Karina here.

Omnes

Omnes is a sustainable fashion label with flare, offering style-led sustainable pieces designed in London.

The brand works with a select few fabric producers, ensuring their products as sustainable as possible.

Shop at omnes.com

You can see more small businesses that hand make pieces to order here.