Recommendations
Sustainability is a huge issue within the fashion community. It has been found that 10% of global greenhouse gas emissons are caused by clothing and footwear companies (from EuroParl,2020). This is more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. With social media and documentaries focusing on this problem, this has lead to a more sustainable-focus consumer market. A majority of brands have felt the reprecussions of this, such as Zara, as consumers are aiming to avoid brands that are linked to fast-fashion and micro trends. Moreover, through the increase of awareness from consumers, this had lead to a higher desire for customers to be edcuated on the places they shop from, by researching past controversies, focusing on where clothing is made and materials used. As a result, brands are forced into becoming more transparent with the level of sustainability in their company.
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It is evident that as a whole, the population have grown increasingly more environmentally-conscious, and making these small changes to the brand can help them reach bigger demographics in the future.
Zara, a Spanish brand founded in 1975, is one of the largest global fashion companies. It belongs to Inditex, one of the biggest distribution groups.
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Materials
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The company itself already has a sustainable line, Join Life, which is still reffered to as a 'work in progress' on their website. They advertise their past milestones and future aims on the website for sustainability, allowing consumers to see where the company is up to in their list of goals. In terms of materials, the company uses cotton, linen, and polyester, aswell as viscose, which is made from natural materials that are typically plant based. With Zara advertising their goals and materials freely, we reccomend they should create sustainability reports annually and feature these on their website. These reports should include how much of these materials are bought and used across the span of the year, aswell as mentioning how natural resources (water, greenhouse gases) are used and how much. This would allow for Zara themselves to reflect and improve on their statistics each year, and gain more trust from their consumers due to how trasparent they are with them.
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Labour Conditions and Wages
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Previously, Zara have fallen under scrutiny after being accussed of using sweat shops and exploiting Syrian refugees.(Girit, 2017) Ethically, this is a huge problem as workers should be in safe conditions and being paid a good and decent wage to live on. Moreover, no children should be working in these environments for clear reasons (safety and health related) and so Zara and other companies affiliated with them should aim to have warehouse conditions set to a very high standard. The warehouses should be clean, have enough room for all staff members and safe for these workers to be in. Zara have failed to change payment for their employees to recieve a living wage. For a huge global brand, this is very poor and needs to be changed.
Zara need to start paying their employees higher wages, aswell as also showing the inside of these production warehouses in Spain, Turkey, Morrocco and Portugal to show their consumers the environment their clothes are being manufactured in.
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Animal Welfare
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Moreover, Zara have been shown to use wool, leather and down in some of their products. This is highly unethical, as innocent animals are being used to be worn by others. Animal welfare is a huge problem, with a number of animals risking extinction for people to use their fur for aesthic reasonings. This is unacceptable, and we suggest Zara should use alternatives, such as faux leather, cotton flannel, polyester fleece, and primaloft. These alternatives will allow for the brand's products to appeal to other groups of people, such as vegans, who actively avoid using any products that are assosicated with animals.
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Overall
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Undoubtedbly, Zara need to make changes to their brand in order to appeal to the ever-changing attitudes of the population. By taking more environementally-concious approaches to clothing, use of material, and changing the labour conditions, the brand could feel a huge increase in popularity. Moreover, they would also gain a huge amount of respect from consumers across the globe if they aim to share sustainability reports annually.
