Inditex adds ‘sustainability committee’ to board

ARTEIXO – The world’s largest apparel retailer, Spanish business Inditex, which owns Zara, has announced ground-breaking plans to establish a specific sustainability committee which – crucially – will sit within the group’s board of directors. The committee will have multiple roles which will include overseeing the company’s sustainability strategy and policies, supervising supply chain monitoring, and verifying compliance with the group’s health and safety and human rights standards along the value chain. This welcome move offers clear evidence that Inditex views sustainability as very much a board level issue, and surely offers a blueprint which other global apparel retailers might look to emulate (although some do now have a limited sustainability function at board level). It will also be very interesting to see how this pans out moving forwards and in what way, for instance, the committee responds to supply chain issues.