Some corporate entities are allowed to get away with ecological harm while others face consequences

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

World leaders have been advocating for climate change action and urging citizens to adopt eco-friendly practices, but the stark reality remains that many large corporations continue to operate with impunity, wreaking havoc on the environment.

While governments implement regulations and policies to curb emissions and promote sustainability, these measures often fall short in holding powerful corporations accountable for their detrimental environmental impact. Corporate interests, driven by profit margins and shareholder satisfaction, frequently overshadow environmental concerns, leading to practices such as: deforestation, pollution, and unsustainable resource extraction.

Recent investigations have revealed that the fast fashion titans H&M and Zara are indirectly contributing to environmental degradation in Brazil. A comprehensive report by Earthsight, a British environmental group, has linked these fashion giants to suppliers involved in the destruction of the Cerrado Savanna, a region pivotal to global biodiversity.

The Earthsight investigation utilized: satellite imagery, court documents, shipment records, and undercover probes, and found that from 2014 to 2023, over 816,000 tons of cotton were exported from these controversial farms. This cotton was then supplied to eight Asian manufacturers that produce clothing for the aforementioned retail brands.

According to Earthsight’s “Fashion Crimes” report, H&M and Zara sourced cotton from two major Brazilian agribusinesses: SLC Agricola and the Horita Group. These firms have been implicated in severe environmental and ethical violations, including massive deforestation, land grabbing, and corruption. Despite these practices, the cotton was misleadingly certified as ethical by the Better Cotton Initiative, highlighting significant oversight failures within the certification system. They call it oversight failures, but is it really? Is it a failure, or a blatant oversight?

Between 2014 and 2023, SLC and Horita Group exported at least 816,000 tons of cotton from Bahia to foreign markets (quite an oversight), although the total amount could be almost double, additional sources say. Horita Group and SLC’s business have long wreaked havoc on the Cerrado and its communities, Earthsight shows. Since 2008, SLC has received more than $250,000 in fines from IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, for environmental crimes in Bahia, while Norway’s pension fund stopped funding the company over its negative environmental record. So, this is something that has been happening, and yet, world leaders have stood aside, and not taken any real action, like speaking against these organizations for their blatant, and rapacious actions.

In 2014, Bahia’s environment agency found 25,153 hectares (62,154 acres) of illegal deforestation on Horita farms at the Estrondo Estate—a 200,000-hectare (494,000-acre) mega-farm in western Bahia — while in 2020, it indicated it could not find permits for 11,700 hectares (28,911 acres) of deforestation carried out by the company between 2010 and 2018. IBAMA fined Horita more than 20 times between 2010 and 2019, totaling $4.5 million for environmental violations.

The report also denounces Bahia’s government for mostly supporting agribusiness expansion and thus encouraging widespread land-grabbing and vegetation loss.

“Since colonial times, there’s been a very intertwined and interdependent relationship, as the private sector has a lot of influence and is often too close to the state,” said Julia Neiva, development and socioenvironmental rights coordinator at Brazilian NGO Conectas.

In 2011, Zara was accused of purchasing cotton from Brazilian suppliers using slave labour;  the retailer lost the case and the appeal in 2017, with analysts arguing that the incident exposed significant deficiencies in the company’s monitoring system.

The Cerrado, often described as the world’s most biodiverse savanna, has seen rapid degradation due to the encroachment of agribusiness. Over 100,000 hectares of its native vegetation have been cleared in the pursuits of cotton farming—activities heavily fined and repeatedly penalized by Brazilian authorities.

In response to the mounting evidence, Better Cotton has committed to an independent audit of these allegations, promising transparency in its findings. Both Inditex, the parent company of Zara and H&M, have urged for full disclosure, acknowledging the gravity of the claims. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Cotton Producers’ Association has defended its practices, although their rebuttals have not been widely accepted.

Why are world leaders quick to come down on citizens for climate change, yet turn a blind eye to larger corporations like H&M and Zara, which are linked to major environmental damage in biodiverse regions like the Cerrado? Is it that some entities are allowed to get away with ecological harm while others face scrutiny and consequences?

The disparity between the rhetoric of global environmental stewardship and the actions of influential corporations underscores the urgent need for stronger regulatory frameworks and greater corporate accountability to effectively combat climate change and protect the planet for future generations.

REFERENCES:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1E77G18N/

https://www.earthsight.org.uk/news/fashioncrimes-pressrelease

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-links-hm-zara-environmental-destruction.html#google_vignette