Uniqlo is increasingly known for its clean-cut and gender neutral fashion.
But how does it perform when it comes to workers’ rights, carbon emissions and animal welfare?
Since 1989 we've been researching and recording the social and environmental records of companies, and making the results available to you in a simple format.
Learn more about our company profiles →Our research highlights several ethical issues with Uniqlo, including workers' rights issues, inadequate animal welfare policies, and a lack of clear steps to cut its climate impacts.
Below we outline some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Uniqlo’s overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.
When it comes to the workers’ rights of those producing its clothing, Uniqlo’s owner, Fast Retailing, has relatively strong policies in place. Its supplier code of conduct outlines vital expectations for suppliers, such as no use of forced labour and freedom to join a trade union or organise for better rights.
Fast Retailing has also published details of all of its direct suppliers, as well as some fabric mills and factories that do subcontracted work like washing and printing. This is considered an important step towards transparency, so workers and civil society can hold companies accountable.
However, Fashion Checker, a living wage monitoring project from Clean Clothes Campaign, was released in September 2026 and found that Fast Retailing was one of five brands receiving the lowest possible rating for living wages in its global supply chain. The brand makes no claim and no public evidence was found that its suppliers are paying a living wage. Which means the brand cannot prove that the workers making their clothes earn enough to live on.
In the UK however, Uniqlo is Living Wage certified.
Uniqlo was criticised by Clean Clothes Campaign in 2025 for failing to contribute to the $5.5million owed to Indonesian garment workers after the closure of the Jaba Garmindo factory in 2015, which made clothes for Uniqlo, among others. Clean Clothes Campaign stated that Uniqlo failed to mitigate against the risk of severance theft and have refused to remedy the issue, despite continuing to make significant profits. The Fair Labor Association (FLA), of which Uniqlo is a member, recommended that the company should pay into a relief fund for the workers. Uniqlo has ignored the recommendations but is still a member of the FLA.
Uniqlo’s owner Fast Retailing performs poorly on issues related to the climate and its carbon emissions.
It did not appear to have a Net Zero target for 2050 in line with crucial international climate goals. It only had near term targets for 2030. To reduce its emissions it stated it was focusing on: Reducing coal use and switching to renewable energy in the supply chain.
In 2025, environmental advocacy organisation Stand.earth published a ‘Fossil Free Fashion Scorecard’, rating companies’ attempts to reduce their fossil fuel dependency.
Uniqlo’s owner Fast Retailing scored D overall, and the organisation stated: "Fast Retailing has acted slowly to phase down fossil fuel based fabrics, increase closed-loop apparel-to apparel recycling for synthetics.”
The scorecard found:
The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2024 said it has “concerns about the feasibility” of Adidas, H&M Group, Inditex, Nike and Fast Retailing to meet “ambitious 2030 targets” [...] None of the five fashion companies commit to reducing overproduction or moving away from the fast fashion business model.”
Ethical Consumer has also looked at Uniqlo and Fast Retailing's policies and practices on animal rights and welfare issues.
Uniqlo sells a large range of animal products. While its owner Fast Retailing has some animal welfare policies in place, in October 2026, Ethical Consumer found that it lacked policies to prevent some of the worst welfare outcomes for the animals involved. For example, it sold leather without a leather policy, and cashmere that was neither recycled nor Good Cashmere Standard certified.
It did however prohibit mulesing in its Merino wool supply chain, and only used Responsible Down Standard or recycled feathers and down.
Fast Retailing lacks transparency when it comes to financial ethics – failing to disclose its directors’ pay in its 2025 annual report.
However, it is unlikely to be involved in tax avoidance tactics. While the company has a number of subsidiaries in tax havens such as the Netherlands and Hong Kong, these all appeared to be legitimate apparel and clothing companies serving the local population, so were not considered high risk for tax avoidance.
The text above was written October 2026, and most research was conducted in September 2026.
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