In an effort to keep important forests out of paper packaging, fashion retail firm Inditex—which owns the brands Zara, Berksha, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho, and Zara Home—has joined environmental organisation Canopy’s “Pack4Good” campaign.
Javier Losada, chief sustainability officer at Inditex, said in a statement, “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.
For shipping boxes, e-commerce envelopes, paper bags, hang tags, and paperboard boxes, the fashion industry is a significant user of paper packaging. The ‘Pack4Good’ initiative focuses on sustainable alternatives to logging ancient and endangered forests, such as recycled pulp and paper, next-generation solutions, and FSC certification.
Nicole Rycroft, executive director of Canopy, added, “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.”
As a “Pack4Good” partner, the Inditex group will keep expanding on its current packaging reduction efforts, which include using reusable boxes for internal business use, increasing the percentage of recycled paper, and introducing cutting-edge next-generation fibres into their paper packaging. Examples of these innovative next-generation fibres include cereal straws, hemp stalks, jute, and even tomato stems—all of which are abundant worldwide but are typically thrown away or burned.