First, earlier this month, the New York Times broke a story about H&M intentionally destroying its unsold clothing. To ensure that the unwanted garments would never be resold or worn by anyone else, H&M slashed the clothing with box cutters or razors instead of donating the clothing to charity.
Now, H&M is under attack for “organic cotton” fraud. Lothar Kruse, a director of the independent testing laboratory Impetus, said, “Roughly 30 percent of the tested samples [of ‘certified organic’ cotton] contained genetically modified cotton.” H&M emerged relatively unscathed from the wasteful destruction of its unwanted clothing, but who knows how this latest controversy will impact the company? The only thing I can say is that H&M needs to step it up ASAP – seriously.
Catherine Hsu