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Zara and H&M sold clothing potentially manufactured with cotton sourced from Brazilian farms associated with land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and human rights violations, as reported by Earthsight. The British NGO highlighted that both brands purchased clothing from suppliers who, in turn, used cotton grown by two producers repeatedly fined for violating environmental legislation. This information was uncovered through an investigation that used export records to trace the supply chain of both textile houses.
The cotton in question was cultivated by two of Brazil’s largest agribusinesses – SLC Agricola and Horita Group – from the western Bahia state, part of the valuable Cerrado biome, extensively deforested in recent decades to accommodate industrial-scale agriculture. SLC, with 440km2 of cotton plantations in western Bahia, has been fined over US$250,000 by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) since 2008 for environmental infractions. Similarly, the Horita Group, with 1,400km2 of cotton plantations in the region, has been fined over 20 times by IBAMA, totaling US$4.5 million between 2002 and 2019.
According to Earthsight, Horita and SLC provided between 4% and 29% of the cotton for the Indonesian manufacturer Kahatex, which supplied 29% of its production to H&M between October 2020 and September 2021. Additionally, the two Brazilian producers supplied between 4% and...