Organic Cotton Fraud

Well, H&M got caught, but that's just the tip of things.

Man, it is so not shaping up to be H&M’s year when it comes to doing the green thing. The Swedish fast-fashion purveyor and other leading European retailers and brands, including C&A and Tchibo, have been hawking certified-organic cotton clothing contaminated with genetically modified cotton from India, according to the German edition of the Financial Times, which is crying fraud—well, alleged fraud—because GMOs are verboten in organic standards.... With the pervasiveness of biotech crops around the world, cross-pollination with their organic counterparts is not unheard of. The fault, however, could lie with with the offending brands and their inadequate monitoring of their overseas supply chains. “The fashion chains were not vigilant enough,” Monika Buening of the Federal Consumer Affairs Agency, told the Frankfurter Rundschau, adding that both H&M and C&A need to act tout de suite to minimize the damage.

Also see:  Why does organic cotton matter, if we don't eat it?