Tesco

Aug 21, 2022

Tesco is a British grocery and general merchandise retailer founded in 1919 in London by Jack Cohen. The multinational retail company creates fast fashion for men, women, and children.

Tesco makes casual apparel for the whole family under its brand F&F, formerly Florence & Fred, and launched as Clothing at Tesco in 2001. Donna Bridgeman is the Head of Design at F&F.

Tesco offers a fantastic range of clothing from F&F with all the latest styles available in 607 selected stores. The F&F clothing collection is also available at Next.

Tesco cares about the environment and believes quality, affordable fashion should be sustainable. It aims to source its products responsibly and ethically, helping to protect the workforce and communities in its supply chain.

The clothing retailer offers a sustainable collection made from organic or recycled materials called Made Mindfully. Currently, over half of its clothing is Made Mindfully.

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Sustainability Rating: 5/10

Rating FAQ

Category: Clothing

For: Women, men, children

Type: Basics, denim, knitwear, activewear, underwear, loungewear, swimwear, outerwear, sleepwear

Style: Casual

Quality: Low

Price: $

Sizes: S-4XL, 2-18 (US), 6-22 (UK), 34-50 (EU), 4-20 (AU)

Fabrics: Cotton, linen, modal, viscose, acetate, polyester, nylon, spandex, polyethylene, polypropylene, acrylic, neoprene, polyurethane, rubber, leather, wool, down

100% Organic: No

100% Vegan: No

Ethical & Fair: Yes

Recycling: Yes

Producing countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Madagascar, Moldova, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, UK, Vietnam

Certifications: GOTS, Bluesign, Oeko-Tex, FSC, PEFC, BCI, SMETA, SA8000

Sustainability Practices

Tesco takes wide-ranging measures to protect biodiversity, reduce its consumption of water, energy, and other resources, avoid waste, and combat climate change.

It wants to minimize its environmental impact, organize better chemical management and choose cleaner textiles. However, the majority of its business remains detrimental to the environment.

Tesco only uses a small proportion of organic materials such as organic cotton or recycled materials such as recycled polyester and regenerated nylon.

Only very few of its collections are dedicated to sustainable fashion. Most of the fabrics it uses are either natural without relevant certifications, such as regular cotton or linen, or synthetic petroleum-based fibers such as polyester, nylon, and more.

Tesco also uses a little amount of semi-synthetic fibers or regenerated cellulosic fabrics such as modal, acetate, and viscose.

Tesco publishes a list of all its manufacturers and processing facilities on its corporate website, tescoplc.com. It aims to improve standards and adopt best practice processes.

The 2021 Fashion Transparency Index gave Tesco a score of only 34% based on how much the group discloses about its social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts.

Tesco manufactures its clothes in Turkey and many other East Asian countries where human rights and labor law violations still happen every day.

The British clothing retailer has some labor certification standards that ensure good working conditions, health, safety, and other important rights for workers in its supply chain.

Tesco has a code of conduct that applies to all its suppliers and subcontractors based on the regulations set by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Tesco assesses compliance with its Code of Conduct by informal visits or third-party audits with or without notice. It believes that human rights are fundamental to protecting people within its supply chain and across its business.

Tesco doesn't use any exotic animal skin, hair, fur, or angora. But it uses leather, wool, and down feathers to manufacture many of its clothing pieces.

These animal-derived materials are cruel and unethical. They also harm the environment by producing greenhouse gases and waste. More sustainable alternatives exist.

Sustainability Goals

Tesco has committed to increasing its uptake of recycled polyester to 45% by 2025. It also aims to source 100% more sustainable cotton by 2025.

100% of the fabrics Tesco uses to make its products with will be sourced responsibly and sustainably by 2030.

Tesco plans to reduce the aggregate greenhouse gas footprint of new products by 50%, limit global warming to 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change and achieve Net Zero by 2050 at the latest.