Zara is the world’s largest retailer, capable of producing 60,000 garments an hour. Yes, pretty incredible. Due to this, Zara is renowned for their ability to respond quickly to upcoming trends and ship stock out to stored within two or three weeks. Not even designer brands can keep up.
But is Zara a victim of their own success? This rapid production line has heightened the demand in consumerism, thus promoting fast fashion. But within fast fashion, there is a lot of waste. Not only does the waste occur from the factories that create these garments, but in order for customers to keep up with trends, they will only wear the clothes a few times before finding purchasing new ones. So what happens with the old clothes? Many are put into landfill sites, which in turn has bad effects environmentally.
We live in a world of rapid consumption, production and transportation of these goods cause the environment a considerable amount of damage with regards to toxic waste and pollution. We live in a world in which we are fixated by living in the moment, we forget about the consequences of these actions. Surely we have a moral obligation to future generations who will be living in this world? Change needs to happen. And Greenpeace has been at the forefront.
As a result of Greenpeace international’s Detox campaign and immense public pressure, Zara declared their commitment of becoming toxic free, by eliminating all discharge chemicals from its supply chain by 2020. This will also affect her sister brands in the Inditex group, including Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe. The campaign was globally launched last Tuesday in Beijing with a fashion show and press conference, inspiring thousands to comment on Zara’s Facebook page sharing a demand for ‘fashion without pollution’.
Due to this pressure, Zara has responded funding the victory for Greenpeace, fashion and the environment. Now that the largest retailer has made a commitment, it is hoped that it will be the start of many and other retailers will follow in the same path to a greener future. Although, some may argue this isn’t enough and there needs to be a fundamental change in fashion’s attitudes to the environment and fast fashion. But for now, lets enjoy Greenpeace’s success.
