Fashion retail group Inditex, which owns Zara, Berksha, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius, Oysho, and Zara Home, has joined environmental organisation Canopy’s ‘Pack4Good’ initiative to keep vital forests out of paper packaging.

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.

“We look forward to continue this work with Canopy to bring it to a new level, including the development of Next Gen alternatives that both reduce waste and help keep forests standing.”

The fashion sector is a major consumer of paper packaging for shipping boxes, e-commerce envelopes, paper bags, hang tags, and paperboard boxes, the ‘Pack4Good’ initiative focuses on sustainable alternatives to logging ancient and endangered forests, including recycled pulp and paper, next generations 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.

“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.”

As a ‘Pack4Good’ partner, the Inditex group will continue building on existing initiatives to reduce the amount of packaging it uses, including employing reusable boxes for intra-business use, increasing recycled paper content, and incorporating innovative next-generation fibres into their paper packaging, such as using plentiful materials around the world that are commonly wasted or burned, like cereal straws, hemp stalks, jute, or even tomato stems.

The addition of Inditex brings the ‘Pack4Good’ initiative to 449 brands worth more than 287.4 billion US dollars in annual revenue.