A 2026 case study says Fast Retailing has used Cascale Better Buying surveys since 2022 to gather anonymous manufacturer feedback and identify ways to improve planning, forecasting, communication and lead times. It also describes direct meetings with strategic suppliers; the account credits the company’s sustained work alongside shared Cascale tools.
Transforming purchasing practices: Since 2022, Cascale Better Buying has given Fast Retailing structured, anonymous feedback from manufacturers on its own planning, forecasting, and lead times.
Since 2022, Fast Retailing has used the Cascale Better Buying surveys to examine how its own purchasing practices affect suppliers, and support the process of direct meetings with strategic suppliers. "With Better Buying, it gave us the scale and the analytics that we just didn't have before," Chan said on "Source of Good," describing anonymous surveys now run across the wider Fast Retailing group. Chan goes on to explain that feedback helped Fast Retailing identify opportunities to improve planning, forecasting, communication, and lead times.
A Business & Human Rights entry records Fast Retailing as paying for all orders that were in production or completed. The supplied evidence does not provide a date, identify the recipients, or give further details.
Fast Retailing announced on January 11, 2023, that from March it would raise regular employees’ salaries in Japan by up to 40%. The plan included new hires and store managers; starting monthly pay for university graduates was to rise to ¥300,000. The company said the changes would help align global pay scales, while one report noted it had not disclosed the average increase for all employees.
A Uniqlo store in Tokyo's Ginza district. Its operator Fast Retailing said it will raise annual pay for full-time employees in Japan by as much as 40%. | BLOOMBERG
Fast Retailing Co., operator of the Uniqlo clothing stores, said Jan. 11 it will raise the annual salaries of regular employees in Japan by up to 40 percent from March.
The operator of the Uniqlo clothing stores will raise the salaries of its full-time employees by as much as 40 percent from March. The hike is intended to bring the pay scale of Japanese employees in line with employees at Fast Retailing offices and stores overseas.
Uniqlo clothing brand owner, Fast Retailing Co., will raise annual pay for full-time employees in Japan by as much as 40%, seeking to retain and motivate staff as the nation faces the fastest pace of inflation in decades.
In May 2023, Russia’s deputy trade minister said Fast Retailing had decided to exit Russia, but had not applied for government approval and had no buyer. Fast Retailing said Uniqlo’s Russian operations remained suspended, with some stores closed and no foreseeable prospect of reopening; it said it would monitor the situation.
Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing suspended the clothing brand’s operations in Russia in March 2022, joining scores of international companies in doing so, after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in what it dubbed a “special military operation”.
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre records that Fast Retailing signed a Global Framework Agreement negotiated globally with a trade union. The record says the statement was approved by the board and signed by a director; it gives no further details about the agreement’s terms or implementation.
Global Framework Agreement ? Company has signed a Global Framework Agreement, negotiated on a global level with a trade union.
NGOs filed a Paris complaint alleging Fast Retailing and other brands were involved in Xinjiang human-rights abuses and forced labor. Fast Retailing said none of its manufacturing was in Xinjiang and pledged cooperation; Tadashi Yanai later said Uniqlo did not use Xinjiang cotton, while declining to specify cotton origins, and said the company would stop business with suppliers where it found human-rights problems.
A Fast Retailing spokesperson told Nikkei Asia that none of the companies' manufacturing process was in Xinjiang. Uniqlo has "a zero-tolerance policy toward any human rights violation," said the spokesperson. Although the group had not been contacted by French authorities by early June, the spokesperson said Fast Retailing would "cooperate fully with the investigation to reaffirm there is no forced labour" in its supply chain.
During a BBC interview on Nov. 28, Yanai stated that Xinjiang cotton is not used in Uniqlo products. He refrained from specifying the origin of cotton used in the brand's products, saying any further comment on the matter could make it "too political."
"Of course if we find any human rights problems in any of our factories or cotton production, we immediately stop doing business" with such a supplier, Yanai said when asked by reporters on China's treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority population in Xinjiang.
Fashion Checker found no public evidence that Fast Retailing’s suppliers pay workers a living wage. The finding provides no details on suppliers, locations, or specific wages, and does not establish whether workers are or are not paid a living wage.
Living Wage in Supply Chains ? Fashion Checker found no public evidence that the company’s suppliers are paying workers a living wage.
Fast Retailing founder Tadashi Yanai is donating a further $31 million to the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, a UCLA–Waseda partnership, the largest-ever gift to UCLA’s College Division of Humanities. Most of the funds will support Japan Past & Present, a proposed online hub for research resources and scholarly collaboration.
Michael Emmerich, a professor of Japanese literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was helping Uniqlo translate its advertising copy in 2013 when he stumbled into a discussion about the future of Japanese literary studies with Tadashi Yanai, the retailer’s founder. After the academic wrote up a proposal to aid the research area, “it was really a matter of months after that when [Yanai] decided to make his first donation to UCLA,” Emmerich told Observer. A $2.5 million gift from Yanai helped establish the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities, which has for a decade operated as a partnership between UCLA and Yanai’s alma mater of Waseda University in Tokyo. Now, Yanai is donating an additional $31 million to the initiative in what represents the largest-ever gift to UCLA’s College Division of Humanities.
Fast Retailing reports tracing UNIQLO products upstream since 2023, combining Higg Index data with its own systems, factory engagement and supplier support. Its 2025 reporting says it trained 716 factories on the Higg Index in FY2025 and expanded checks across mills and raw-material sources. The account also describes long-term supplier relationships and emissions-reduction work.
Fast Retailing has also worked to extend visibility beyond first-tier production. According to its 2025 report, the company began extending partnerships upstream in 2023, working to trace raw materials to specific garment factories and building an in-house system to manage supply chain information, with standards covering quality, production management, environmental performance, and human rights applied across the chain.
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESS Newswire / October 29, 2026 / Fast Retailing (TSE:9983), the parent company of UNIQLO, has embedded sustainability into its LifeWear business model, connecting product quality and durability with responsible sourcing, supply chain transparency, environmental performance, human rights, and circularity. The company combines data from the Higg Index, stewarded by Cascale and exclusively available on Worldly, with its own monitoring and traceability systems, direct factory engagement, and long-term supplier relationships to make sure a flagged risk leads to a conversation and a plan, not just a report.
Deeper supply chain visibility: Since 2023, Fast Retailing has worked to trace UNIQLO products from raw-material origins to specific garment factories, expanding its focus upstream to spinning mills, fiber-processing facilities, and raw-material sources.
On October 24, 2019, Fast Retailing and the International Organization for Migration announced an initiative to investigate recruitment and employment conditions for migrant workers in Fast Retailing’s supply chain. The work included a preliminary study of suppliers in Japan, Thailand and Malaysia, alongside training to embed worker-protection measures in company policies and guidelines.
...Fast Retailing and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have launched an initiative to study the recruitment and employment conditions of migrant workers in Fast Retailing’s supply chains...
A Business & Human Rights entry records that Fast Retailing endorsed the International Labour Organization’s Call to Action. The supplied evidence gives no date or further detail about the endorsement.
A Financial Times stream headline says a clothing retailer’s head criticized inadequate testing and warned that the economy risked collapse. The supplied evidence does not identify the speaker or provide a date or further details.
Head of clothing retailer criticises inadequate testing and warns economy risks collapse
A Business & Human Rights entry lists an allegation that Fast Retailing requested retroactive discounts. The supplied evidence does not identify who made the allegation, when it occurred, or how the company responded.
In an August 2025 civil complaint, Tadashi Yanai’s Honolulu-based TY Management, homeowners’ associations and a farm accused Maui Land & Pineapple of failing to maintain the Honokohau Ditch System, restricting water and raising rates. They alleged harm to residents, businesses, crops and wildfire risk. The company said it was reviewing the complaint and following state water-priority guidance.
The Sentry PGA golf tournament was held at Plantation Course at Kapalua in January. The course is owned by Tadashi Yanai, whose Honolulu-based TY Management filed a civil complaint accusing Maui Land & Pineapple Co. of mismanaging West Maui’s water supply.
Fast Retailing Foundation, established by Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing and headed by Tadashi Yanai, selected nine Indonesian high school students for its inaugural scholarship group. They are scheduled to begin English-language degree programs at Japanese universities in autumn 2026, with awards covering tuition and living costs up to 4.5 million yen a year.
TOKYO -- Fast Retailing Foundation, established by Fast Retailing Co., the operator of global apparel giant Uniqlo, has launched a scholarship program for Indonesian high school students seeking to study in Japan, selecting nine students for its inaugural class.
Business & Human Rights lists Fast Retailing as having fully aligned, or committed to align, with the Transparency Pledge standard by publicly disclosing information about its supplier factories.
Transparency Pledge ? Company has fully aligned or committed to aligning with the Transparency Pledge standard, by publicly disclosing information about their supplier factories.
Transparency Pledge ? Company has fully aligned or committed to aligning with the Transparency Pledge standard, by publicly disclosing information about their supplier factories.
Business & Human Rights lists Fast Retailing’s response on pandemic policy concerning discriminatory dismissals as covered in a pre-existing policy. The supplied evidence does not describe the policy’s provisions or provide further details about the company’s statement.
Fast Retailing chief executive Tadashi Yanai said the weakening yen has “no merit whatsoever” for Japan. The supplied evidence gives no date or further context for his remark.
Chief executive Yanai says weakening yen has ‘no merit whatsoever’ for Japan
California records a June 12, 2026 settlement naming Fast Retailing and Uniqlo USA in a Proposition 65 notice concerning alleged failure to warn about bisphenol S in a Uniqlo receipt. The listed total payments are $12,500, including a $2,000 civil penalty; the notice sought a warning and civil penalty.
On August 19, 2026, Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai announced a personal $3 million donation to support people affected by Hurricane Lala. The report also says Uniqlo USA would donate up to 50,000 clothing items. The money was to go to nonprofits including Aloha United Way and the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Yanai, who is also president and CEO of Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing Co., said Uniqlo USA would also donate up to 50,000 items of clothing to those in need.
A Financial Times headline says Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai’s promise of high pay and promotion for young stars challenges conventions. The supplied evidence does not give details of the promise, its timing or whether the changes were implemented.
Tadashi Yanai’s promise of high pay and promotion for young stars challenges conventions
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre material describes Fast Retailing supporting suppliers to access finance and gives payment terms of 90–180 days. It also notes that payment times were extended, while listing pre-pandemic payment terms as a point of comparison; the evidence does not explain the extent or timing of the change.
In an October 20, 2026 paid press release, BBB National Programs’ Digital Advertising Accountability Program said Fast Retailing worked with it to review four brands’ websites and apps. DAAP had identified shortcomings in disclosures and opt-out access for interest-based advertising; the brands then added clearer notices and choice links, and changed app settings and layouts.
In response to DAAP's inquiry, Fast Retailing worked with DAAP to review the websites and mobile applications of all four brands and implemented a range of changes to strengthen transparency and consumer choice.
A Financial Times headline reports that Japanese retailer Fast Retailing developed machines with start-up Mujin to handle soft materials. The supplied evidence gives no publication date or further details about the technology or its deployment.