The H&M Group has announced a major initiative, called Treadler, on sustainability and i A recent sustainability project ‘ Accelerating Circularity ‘ partners with major clothing firms to map ways of reducing textile-industry waste and transforming it into recent fabrics and materials.
Accelerating Circularity’s mission will be to research and identify opportunities in apparel supply chains in order to make them circular, which mean taking returned goods and items defined as waste materials and turning them into new textiles. The initiative’s first projects will include research into mechanical and chemical recycling of cotton, viscose and polyester textile waste. These three fibers comprise more than 80 per cent of all textile fiber production.
The recycling of less than one per cent of textile waste into new textiles. Every year about 16.9 million tons of textile waste was dumped. Some of the biggest names in fashion are joining forces to create a sustainable industry focused on circular economy concepts, and tackle problems that have seen the fashion industry becoming one of today’s most polluting and inefficient operations. New maps for the supply chain need to be available which do not exist today. The knowledge of where the textile waste is, how it should be processed and where it will be fed to the correct recyclers needs to be developed.
ts supply chain, with a fairly radical move that will give external companies access to its global supply chain. The B2B project is part of the Swedish company’s drive to make fashion production more eco-friendly and will see smaller brands using Treadler in a wide range of areas such as product development and sourcing, production and logistics.
Treadler will initially work on a small scale and provide a service that is tailored to suit the need of each client. The move is the first big announcement under new group CEO Helena Helmersson, but continues a sustainability focus that has run throughout the group’s operations in recent years.
Helmersson meanwhile added that the fashion industry as a whole hasn’t been sustainable enough and that in order to future-proof it, companies have to transform their supply chains. H&M has been working on this and has realised that the output of its efforts can be valuable for others too.
The Swedish retail giant said its new offer applies to all steps in the supply chain “from product development to sourcing, production and logistics” based on the “needs of each client”. “Treadler will enable its clients to benefit from H&M Group’s expertise, long-term supplier partnerships and strategic sustainability work, thereby helping them to overcome initial business barriers and accelerate sustainable change,” H&M said in a statement.