Hennes & Mauritz has declared its long route to meet sustainability standards. H&M recently set the next milestone with a pledge to use only recycled or green materials in its products by 2030. Crafted in 2016, Sustainability Report, H&M will work towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, aiming to be climate positive throughout its entire value chain by 2040. The retailer has been on green initiatives spree for quite some time now and there’s no looking back. H&M launched the Conscious Collection in 2011, using sustainable materials such as organic cotton, organic linen, Tencel and recycled polyester. This was followed by a garment collection program that allows customers to drop off used clothing at its stores in 2013. According to Anna Gedda, Head–Sustainability, H&M, interest in sustainability is increasing all over, from customers to shareholders to other brands and other actors within the industry and the efforts have been appreciable. Environmental group Greenpeace has rated H&M and Inditex among the front-runners in its ‘Detox My Fashion’ campaign. Together with Benetton, they were awarded ‘avant-garde’ status last year for their progress toward the goal of eliminating hazardous chemicals from the manufacture of clothes by 2020.
To keep up with sustainable practices, Hennes & Mauritz has been meeting entrepreneurs developing technology concepts that make the clothing industry more sustainable. H&M has so far collected 39,000 tons of unwanted textiles through its stores, equivalent to 196 million T-shirts, according to Gedda. By 2020, it aims to collect at least 25,000 tonne of textiles every year, up from 16,000 in 2016. Becoming 100 percent circular, of course, involves more than just materials: It involves how the products are designed, how the material is processed and also how the product is used by the consumer and what happens with the material afterwards, she added.
