Before they reach the display windows of fashion giants like Zara and H&M, cotton pants, shorts, shirts and socks leave behind a trail of deforestation, land grabbing and human rights violations in Brazil.
Though many of them carry a sustainable production label, a yearlong investigation by UK-based NGO Earthsight detailed the connection between crops in Brazil, the world’s fourth largest cotton producer, and European brands.
Earthsight analyzed satellite images, shipping records, public archives and visited producing regions to track the journey taken by 816,000 tons of cotton.
The problem lies at the source: Cotton for export is mainly produced in the western part of Brazil’s Bahia state, a region immersed in a tropical and extremely biodiverse savanna called the Cerrado.
Switzerland-based Better Cotton told DW that it has just completed an enhanced third-party audit of the farms involved, and that it needs time to analyze the findings and implement changes if necessary.
For Rubens Carvalho from Earthsight, holding Europeans accountable is part of the solution to ending deforestation and rights violations in commodity-producing centers like Brazil.
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