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Sustainability

Fashion is more than a mirror for the latest trends. It is a form of expression, an identity badge. It is a tool for change.

Guided by ambition and passion to create quality fashion for all, we are determined to continue to innovate and raise our efficiency while reducing our impacts. We are advancing towards a circular model and to achieving net zero emissions.

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At Inditex we believe in the transformational power of fashion and we are working to help transform the textile industry.

Roadmap

We are determined to reduce our impact by acting on our water, energy and natural resource consumption. We want to contribute to the battle against climate change and loss of biodiversity through alignment with the United Nations’ recommendations and aspirations, so helping to protect the planet and its inhabitants. At Inditex we are agents of change. The company was one of the first signatories of the United Nations Global Compact back in 2001, since when we have consistently demonstrated our firm commitment to people and the environment. Together with renowned scientists, social and environmental organisations and partners from a range fields, we want step up and contribute to innovation in the world of fashion and spearhead the transformation of our industry. To that end we have set targets to help us visualise where we are headed and the challenges we need to overcome along the way. With those targets we aim to stimulate innovation and attract the talent and resources needed to bring about change that affects our entire industry.

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Our Main Goals

2025 / 100% lower-impact linen and polyester

2025 / 2Reducing our water consumption in our supply chain by 25%

2025 / Reaching three million people in our supply chain with our Workers in the Centre strategy

2030 / Protecting, restoring, regenerating or otherwise improving biodiversity across 5 million hectares

2030 / Reducing our emissions by over 50% (own operations and our value chain).

2030 / Using lower-impact textile fibres only (next gen fibres, recycled fibres and fibres obtained from organic or regenerative farming practices)

2040 / Achieving zero net emissions by reducing our carbon footprint by at least 90% by comparison with 2018

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A new cycle

We have ambitious sustainable targets for our key raw materials. Our move to innovative, organic or recycled raw materials is a key path to transform our industry, reduce our emissions and use clean energy and water. 

Circularity starts with design. That is why all our designers receive sustainability training. They are always open to new ideas and constant experimentation, the embodiment of the innovative thinking that characterises us. We pay special attention to the impact of the raw materials we include in our products, such as cotton, the fibre most widely used in our garments. To that end, we work with our suppliers to prioritise the use of cotton sourced from producers selected for their social and environmental performance, as certified by an independent third party, so enabling traceability.

Prioritising the use of innovative, recycled or organically and regeneratively farmed raw materials is key to transforming our industry, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and making responsible use of water and energy.

Creativity and disruption by design are essential aspects of our Sustainability Innovation Hub, the platform we use to search for better materials and processes, teaming up with startups and forging strategic research alliances with leaders from the chemicals industry, innovation accelerators and benchmark partners.

Through that platform we are working to scale up new types of recycled fibres through offtake commitments, such as Infinna™, a recycled fibre made from cotton-rich textile waste, and cycora®, recycled polyester made from textile waste. We are also making direct investments in startups:

/ CIRC, which has developed ground-breaking technology that will enable industrial-scale recycling of textiles made from poly-cotton blends, one of the biggest challenges facing our industry.

/ Infinited Fiber, a startup specialised in recycling cellulose fibres.

/ Galy, which has devised innovative technology for growing cotton in a lab using cotton plant stem cells.

/ Epoch Biodesign, which uses artificial intelligence to identify enzymes that enable the recycling of mixed plastics and textiles.

These advances are behind our pledge that by 2030, 100% of our textile products will only use materials that deliver a lower impact on the environment. In 2024, 73% of the textile fibres used in our products were lower impact, reaching a 39% of recycled fibres.

Best available technologies and measures to reduce enviromental impact


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Production

Our aim is to generate a positive impact for the more than three million people working at non-exclusive suppliers and factories that produce for Inditex: for their communities and ecosystems that span 40 countries; and for the broader fashion industry. 

At Inditex we believe in our industry’s potential as an engine of economic growth and community development. To continue to push towards a more responsible textile industry, we are working to get all the suppliers and manufacturers in our supply chain, from garment factories to spinning facilities, to embrace best practices. Framed by our human rights commitments, we run a strict compliance programme based on continuous audits and action plans to ensure appropriate social and working conditions in the factories that work with us. In collaboration with organisations such as IndustriALL Global Union, with which we have a sector-pioneering Global Framework Agreement, we are working to ensure solid industrial relations.

We have a single social strategy, called “Workers at the Centre”, which fosters the wellbeing and empowerment of the people populating our supply chain. Under that strategy we are pushing for worker engagement, living wages across the industry, safe and discrimination-free workplaces and health protection in a holistic sense. Additionally, we support the industry's resilience in facing challenges such as the transition to lower-impact processes, the adoption of new technologies, and social changes. We also work on defining adaptation mechanisms that strengthen the sustainability and competitiveness of supply chains.

To drive this improvement in productive processes, we have rolled out our 2024-2027 Supply Chain Environmental Transformation Plan, which raises mandatory requirements for the factories that work with us with respect to water consumption and management, waste treatment, the use of chemical substances and carbon footprints. All cutting, garment, washing, dyeing, spinning and weaving factories are required to have a decarbonisation plan this year that will allow them to reduce their emissions at an annual pace of over 4%, in line with our emissions reduction targets. This plan encourages the use of renewable energy, streamlining of productive processes and adoption of more environmentally-friendly technology.

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Responsible water management and consumption, the proper handling of waste and safe use of chemical products are the three cornerstones of this plan. To achieve our goal of reducing water consumption in our supply chain by 25% this year, we are working with our suppliers on optimising their wet processes, ensuring efficient consumption at every step and for each type of fibre, as well as the reuse of waste water. We are also working with ZDHC to make progress on the safety of the chemical products used. By 2027, 95% of the substances used by the factories in our supply chain must be ZDHC-certified. To facilitate this transition, we are supporting and accompanying our suppliers, a programme that includes the provision of expert advice. This support will include personalised decarbonisation plans, training and tools. A good example is our Best Available Techniques (BAT) Guide, which contains detailed information about practices with a lower impact than conventional practices.

TExecution of our roadmap is predicated on constant collaboration with our suppliers and a rigorous monitoring system to guarantee transparency and encourage continuous improvement. Our alliance with the International Apparel Federation to work with business organisations, brands and other players on the transformation of global supply chains in the textile and garment industry is one example.

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Distribution

We continuously review our stores and entire distribution chain to see what mechanisms and ideas can be introduced to reduce our impact on the planet.

We mainly use ocean freight and ground transportation and we rely on air freight to cover intercontinental distances for which other modes are not effective. Moreover, thanks to the fact that a very significant percentage of our garments are made in countries located near to our head offices and distribution centres, mainly Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey, we are able to minimise the distances travelled in procuring our products.

We are working with our logistics partners to make each shipment more efficient by maximising the use of space and consolidating loads to prevent empty trips. We are propelling the use of high-capacity vehicles such as duo-trailers that have the ability to reduce emissions per trip by 30%. We are also promoting multimodal transportation, combining train and ground transportation to reduce our environmental footprint. In ocean freight, which represents the majority of our imports, our goal is to have 90% of trips use alternative fuels as early as this year, reducing the related emissions by over 80%. We have also signed agreements for the use of sustainable fuels for our air freight, another aspect of our effort to move towards more efficient logistics.

The efficiency of this procurement and distribution model, coupled our integrated stock management system, allows us to minimise the volume of surplus end-of-season stock: less than 1% of all items put on sale.

We continue to work to improve our renewable energy management and purchase mechanisms. All of our facilities (head offices, distribution centres, factories and owned stores) have been consuming 100% renewable energy since 2022, reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 88%. Moreover, some of our flagship stores and all of our logistics facilities boast the most prestigious green building seals.

As part of our circular economy commitments, in 2020 we stopped giving customers plastic bags (in our stores or with online deliveries) and we eliminated 95% of the single-use plastic ending up in customers’ hands in 2023. We actively encourage our customers to bring their own shopping bags and discourage the use of new materials by charging for shopping bags in our stores. Thanks to this measure, the Group managed to reduce the consumption of new paper bags by over 50% in 2024, earmarking a sum equivalent to the money collected through the sale of bags to environmental initiatives in over 30 countries in partnership with entities of the calibre of WWF (with whom the Group is collaborating on 14 projects for the restoration of ecosystems and protection of threatened fauna all over the world), Water.org, an organisation we are working with to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in several countries in Southeast Asia, and the regional government of Galicia, with whom we are working to prevent forest fires in north-east Spain.

Our responsibility does not end at our facilities. We want to help our customers to extend the life of their garments. That was behind our decision to launch Zara Pre-Owned in 2022, a pioneering platform which offers repairs, person-to-person sales and the possibility of donating used clothing. Zara Pre-Owned is now available in 16 European markets and the US. We also offer our customers the possibility of depositing their used clothing, footwear and accessories in containers in our stores for subsequent reuse and recycling in partnership with non-profits.


Community

Wwe are keen to contribute to projects that support the education community, provide relief in emergencies and care for the environment by looking out for people, our planet and its ecosystems.

WIn 2024, we supported 953 social and environmental projects, in which we invested €135 million. These initiatives directly benefitted more than 4.6 million people. Our goal is to help 10 million people by 2025.

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Through strategic alliances and support programmes with over 450 organisations, the company strives to have a positive impact on multiple communities, locally and globally. These projects notably include initiatives for improving access to health services under agreements with MSF, Medicus Mundi and Every Mother Counts, among others; for integrating people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups through our for&from stores and work with NGOs such as Caritas and Entreculturas; and for fostering education and research, through stable collaborations the University of Coruña, MIT and Tshingua University, among many other universities.

Biodiversity is what allows our ecosystems to work, playing a crucial role in water purification, soil fertility, crop pollination and climate regulation. That is why we have committed to protect, restore, regenerate or otherwise improve biodiversity across 5 million hectares. In the biodiversity protection field we are working with Conservation International on the Regenerative Fund for Nature to help scale up regenerative farming and breeding practices and on Mountains to Mangroves, a project for conserving and restoring the Eastern Himalayas region, an ecosystem than represents a twelfth of all biodiversity on the planet.


Reporting

Transparency and collaboration are key to our company culture. We are always looking to improve what we do through constant experimentation and careful listening while providing the world with inspiringly beautiful, responsibly made fashion. At the same time, we recognise the importance of engaging with all our stakeholders about our progress. Find out more about us, our plans for the future and our achievements.