Zara owner Inditex has joined the non-profit group Canopy’s Pack4Good campaign – which is essentially a commitment not to use wood from vital forests in the manufacturing of its packaging.
Pack4Good partners – which include John Lewis, Kering, and Pangaia from the world of retail, and 449 companies in total – focus on using more sustainable alternatives to logging ancient and endangered forests, including recycled pulp and paper and FSC-certified material.
Inditex, which also owns Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, and Zara Home, has already had a decade-long ‘CanopyStyle’ commitment in place to eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests in its textiles. But this week it has expanded to ensure these vital forests are not ending up in paper packaging too.
The fashion sector is a major consumer of paper packaging for shipping boxes, e-commerce envelopes, paper bags, hang tags, and paperboard boxes, adding to its environmental footprint which is already under significant and growing scrutiny from environmentalists.
Canopy said that reduction, reuse, recycled content in packaging, as well as what it described as “next-gen alternatives made from waste”, are key to a healthier and more sustainable planet.
Nicole Rycroft, executive director at Canopy, commented: “It’s exciting to have Inditex bring the same leadership to reducing their paper packaging footprint as they have for the last decade to eliminate vital forests from their textiles.
“A company of their significance sends a signal to paper packaging suppliers that it’s time to give forests a break and to invest in and scale lower impact alternatives.”
Javier Losada, Inditex chief sustainability officer, added: “Inditex has worked hard to keep endangered forests out of our textile supply chain.
“Now we will extend that work to our packaging, where we have already taken steps towards reduction, reuse, and increase of recycled content. We look forward to continuing this work with Canopy to bring it to a new level, including the development of nex-gen alternatives that both reduce waste and help keep forests standing.”
Inditex has already launched several initiatives that align with Pack4Good campaign, including its ‘Green to Pack’ programme for reusing warehouse-to-retail paper boxes up to five times before sending them for recycling. It said this move resulted in a reduction of nearly 80% of paper use within that segment of its packaging – and significant financial savings.
A #BRINGYOURBAG initiative in 70 Inditex markets also encourages reuse by applying a fee for paper bags and envelopes in almost 70 markets. In addition, Inditex was one of the ‘next-gen Manmade cellulosics (MMCF) stalwarts’, making a public commitment to purchase 2,000 tonnes of the first commercial-scale circular MMCF pulp and committing to invest in the development of next-gen materials that do not yet exist at an industrial scale so as to enable 25% of their textiles to be next-gen by 2030.
Next-gen alternatives to wood fibre for paper include plentiful materials around the world that are commonly wasted or burned, such as cereal straws, hemp stalks, jute, or even tomato stems, according to Canopy.
[image credit: Green Retail World]
