Is Zara Good or Bad?
I asked my Gen Z friends what they think about Zara's sustainability and compared their answers with the real data from the company's report.

Will you buy Zara clothes after reading this?

Why I Started This Project
My name is Lucy, and I’m a student. I created this project to learn more about sustainability in the fashion industry. I’ve always liked fashion, but I think it’s important to understand how clothes are made and how they affect the environment.

I chose Zara because it’s one of the most popular fast fashion brands, and I wanted to find out whether they truly care about the environment. Are they taking real action, or just pretend to be sustainable?

Gen Z's Take on Zara
I asked my friends about their thoughts on Zara's brand in general and its sustainability.
46 respondents took part in my survey, all of them are 15-20 years old and live in Monaco.

They are familiar with this brand:
57% buy Zara at least once or twice a year;
24% – a few times a month.
Just 15% buy Zara less than once a year, and 4% - never.
Quotes from the survey
"I think Zara is a great place to buy trendy clothes at a reasonable price, yet I don’t think that mass market brands are environmentally friendly or have thorough control over their employees."
"It’s very ethically incorrect that they renew their clothes almost every weeks which means that they throw away most of their clothes."
"I'm a consumer, I don’t really have any sorts of interest in Zara’s internal affairs. I like their products; they have good design for something that’s affordable to a certain extent."
What they like about Zara
My research has found that most of the respondents value Zara's design. Price is also important, with 24% mentioning it as a positive thing. However, just 8% admire Zara's quality.
Do they think Zara is environmentally friendly?

From my survey, I found that most people don’t see Zara as environmentally friendly, with 33% saying “Rather no.” Positive opinions were less common, and only a small group said “Yes.” A few respondents, around 9%, weren’t sure at all.


Do they think Zara is fair to their employees?
My survey showed that a large number of respondents believe Zara is fair to its employees, with 43% choosing “Rather yes.” However, there was still a significant share of negative opinions (37%), and 9% said they didn’t know.

Is Zara Really Sustainable?
To understand this, I analysed Inditex's Sustainability Report. You might be unfamiliar with the name Inditex, but you definitely know the company's flagship brand Zara.
That's what I found...

Microplastic pollution

30% of the materials they use are low-carbon and more eco-friendly. These include materials like organic cotton, recycled cotton, linen, wool, and special wood-based fabrics. The other 70% comes from more common materials like regular cotton, polyester, nylon, and other synthetic fabrics, which are less sustainable.

So even though Zara is improving, most of their clothes are still made from materials that aren’t very sustainable.

26% of all Zara clothes are made of polyester. Which is a synthetic material that can’t decompose in a natural environment. Within time, it breaks down into small plastic pieces, which contribute to microplastic pollution.



Emissions

Imagine three million cars on the road. Now, imagine the amount of greenhouse gases all these cars emit in one year. What if I told you that it’s exactly the equivalent of the emissions that just one fashion company releases?

Inditex alone produces 14 million tons of CO2. These emissions trap heat, making the planet warmer, which leads to the climate crisis.



Water consumption

Production of just one kilogram of Zara clothes requires 78 litres of water. That’s enough for you to drink for 39 days if you consume around 2 litres daily.

It’s not just about how much water is used, but also how dirty the water gets. A lot of chemicals are used for dyeing and working on the fabric, and they mix with the water. In many places where clothes are made, this dirty water just gets thrown into rivers without being cleaned.




Employees' Rights

There are more than 162 thousand employees working for Inditex (Zara). This is an official number. The company’s supply chain also includes 6,615 factories. Formally, these factories work independently and their employees are not Zara’s employees, but they produce clothes for this brand.

To be fair, Zara has the strategy with the goal to protect workers’ rights in the supply chain. They work with a human rights organisation called Shift to ensure they are fair to their employees. However, this strategy covers less than 40% of all factories. Which means that the majority of Zara’s supply chain workers remain unprotected.


What do I think?
Although I can see Zara does something for people and the planet, it still has a long way to go to fully diminish the damage on the environment it has created.

If you want to discuss it together, drop me a line →
medvedeva.llucy@gmail.com
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