Inditex – for those who don’t know – is the Spanish giant that controls brands like Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius. A billion-dollar giant, which dictates the rules of fast (and apparently “ethical”) fashion with the same delicacy with which a bulldozer crosses a field of daisies. It wants sustainability, transparency, traceability.
But behind these glossy labels, what remains of the reality of the supply chains?
We can tell you, through a testimony by Giacinto Gelli.
And it’s not an edifying story.
To work with Inditex, every supplier, every link in the production chain must have a “green stamp”. A pass. It only takes one, just one, to become “red”, and all the work is up in the air. Even if you bought from them when they were green. Even if you have all the paperwork in order. Even if you have respected every parameter. It doesn’t matter: you’re out.
So, here we are in the grotesque ballet of the ethical traffic light. Today you are in, tomorrow you are out. The day after tomorrow, maybe you will return. But in the meantime you have lost time, money, credibility.
How can you plan a production activity in these conditions? How can you build a solid supply chain if the criteria change from one day to the next?
It is a system that preaches transparency, but generates confusion. That demands ethical stability, but imposes operational instability. That asks you to be impeccable, but punishes you even when you are.
And the paradox is this: the more you commit to being sustainable, traceable, compliant, the more you remain trapped in a network of opaque bureaucracy and arbitrary controls. Because it matters little who loses.
If sustainability becomes a lottery, it is no longer a value, but just another form of control.
