Organic textile fraud

Leading European retailers and brands have unknowingly been selling certified organic cotton clothing contaminated with GM cotton from India, Ecotextile News reports. The scale of the alleged fraud uncovered by the German edition of the Financial Times seems to be immense. A director of the independent testing laboratory Impetus in Bremerhaven, who examined the cotton fabrics, claimed that around 30% of the tested samples contained GM cotton. The GM cotton found in the collections has been traced back to India which supplies nearly half of the global supply of organic cotton.

The brands involved in the alleged fraud, H&M and C&A for example, have been criticised for not adequately monitoring their supply chains. Monika Buening of the Federal Consumer Affairs Agency said that H&M and C&A needed to take immediate action to limit the damage. A spokeswoman for the Swedish clothing chain H&M stated that the company became aware of the incident last year and admitted that GM cotton could have made it into H&M‘s organic range. C&A are said to be undertaking a thorough investigation.

Ecotextile News