This research was published in the same week that H&M published its 2016 Sustainability Report, in which it announced a commitment to use 100 per cent recycled or sustainably sourced materials by 2030. Given that H&M is one of the chief purveyors of fast fashion, having created a plethora of affordable clothes sold in 4,351 stores across 64 markets, you could be forgiven for greeting this latest missive with cynicism. How can a retail behemoth that ostensibly thrives on disposable chic be committed to sustainability?
For one thing, it makes good business sense, as H&M’s CEO Karl-Johan Persson tells me when we meet in Stockholm, on the eve of the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award (more of which later). “I think there is a big responsibility for companies and private individuals who have size or resources to think a little bit wider – if we all do, I think the world will be better,” Persson says, in his low-toned, methodical English. “Secondly, I care about H&M long-term. We are dependent on resources. In the short-term it’s costing much more because we have to invest, but long-term it makes good sense.”
These aren’t hollow words. Since Karl-Johan, the forty-two-year-old grandson of H&M founder Erling Persson, took the helm as chief executive and managing director of H&M Group in 2009, he has made it his mission to improve the eco credentials of the brand. “My grandmother has a pair of trousers and a blouse from H&M in 1947,” he smiles. “And that’s what we want. We want the garments to last and not just be throwaway fashion, no, because then you will not come back as a customer.” Intrinsic to that is having a positive impact on the climate – the company has also committed to switching to 100 per cent electricity that comes from renewable energy, and to become “climate positive” throughout its entire value chain by 2040. Its garment collecting initiative, launched in stores in 2013, has collected 39,000 tonnes of unwanted clothes and it also produces a Conscious collection, made from organic and sustainability materials. “It’s easy to say that low price is fast fashion,” concedes Persson. “We want to grow like all companies, but we want to do good stuff so that our customers come back.”
A shift is slowing taking hold across the fashion industry. Amongst all the greenwashing and unfulfilled promises, brands are finally acknowledging supply-chain abuses, analysing their water consumption, and looking at textile production in more detail than they ever have before. On the high street, Mango and Zara recently released sustainable collections. In the luxury sphere Stella McCartney, long a pioneer in the field, does not use leather or fur, instead seeking out organic fabrics, low-impact dyes, and regenerated cashmere from off-cuts. And Kering’s 2012-2016 sustainability report names 2025 as the year by which they will cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent and reduce Kering’s environmental impact by 40 per cent, largely by eradicating PVC and other harmful chemicals from product lines, using higher quality skins with a lower environmental footprint and eliminating waste from its supply chain.
H&M has gone a step further in establishing the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award, an innovation challenge centred on textiles. This year is its second since its 2015 inception, and in Stockholm last week, much of the talk centred on: would you wear a dress made out of poo? How about a leather jacket made out of grapes? Or a silk scarf made from discarded orange peel? (Update: thanks to Ferragamo, you now can.)“I just want people to give a shit about the planet.”
“Manure Couture” was one of the five innovations which won a percentage of the €1 million grant and access to an acceleration programme in collaboration with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The mix of scientists, chemical engineers, management consultants and fashion people often made for amusing results. “I just want people to give a shit about the planet,” said the Manure Couture team leader Jalila Essaidi, a sassy Dutch scientist with a gift for one-liners. Her team’s innovation aims to convert cellulose from cow manure into a biodegradeable textile. The overall winner, Grape Leather, conceived of by a group of Italians, aims to use leftover grape skins and stalks from wine production to make vegetal leather. Then there was Denim-dyed Denim, a process which will bypass the traditional (hideously harmful) dyeing process for jeans by extracting the dye from old jeans to colour new, undyed jeans; and Solar textiles, a project that seeks to allow clothes to trap carbon from the environment within their fibres.
Less media-friendly, perhaps, but just as ground-breaking was Content Thread. Context: one of the biggest barriers to textile recycling is that it is very difficult to tell exactly what clothes are made of. Content Thread’s idea is to attach an RFID thread, a digital “ingredients list” tag, to each garment at the manufacturing stage, so that clothes can be easily scanned and recycled at the end of their life. It’s not sexy or headline-grabbing but it could dramatically reduce the April landfill figures that would make Eliot balk.
Crucially, it also requires little or no thought on behalf of the consumer. Recently I met Sebastien Kopp, the co-founder of French sneaker brand Véja. His trainers are made from sustainably tapped rubber, organic cotton and crafted by ethically-employed Brazilians. We agreed that consumers are becoming more clued up on where and how their clothes are made, but that vanity trumps conscience. “Our technique from the beginning was to have a well-designed product that someone would buy without knowing that it was sustainable too. 85 per cent of customers probably don’t realise we’re sustainable,” says Kopp. “What we want is to make that information available, so if you want to see it, you can learn all about how it is made. But if you just want a pair of sneakers? Fine.”Consumers are becoming more clued up on where and how their clothes are made, but that vanity trumps conscience.
Back in Sweden, Persson insists that we should all take an interest in where and how our clothes are made. “It’s really about trying to make conscious choices connected to the purchase, whenever we buy.” But consumers’ relative ignorance could perversely bode well for innovations such as Manure Couture. You might not knowingly wear a jacket made out of poo. But if you can’t be bothered to read the label? Then brown, not green, is the new black.
For one thing, it makes good business sense, as H&M’s CEO Karl-Johan Persson tells me when we meet in Stockholm, on the eve of the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award (more of which later). “I think there is a big responsibility for companies and private individuals who have size or resources to think a little bit wider – if we all do, I think the world will be better,” Persson says, in his low-toned, methodical English. “Secondly, I care about H&M long-term. We are dependent on resources. In the short-term it’s costing much more because we have to invest, but long-term it makes good sense.”
These aren’t hollow words. Since Karl-Johan, the forty-two-year-old grandson of H&M founder Erling Persson, took the helm as chief executive and managing director of H&M Group in 2009, he has made it his mission to improve the eco credentials of the brand. “My grandmother has a pair of trousers and a blouse from H&M in 1947,” he smiles. “And that’s what we want. We want the garments to last and not just be throwaway fashion, no, because then you will not come back as a customer.” Intrinsic to that is having a positive impact on the climate – the company has also committed to switching to 100 per cent electricity that comes from renewable energy, and to become “climate positive” throughout its entire value chain by 2040. Its garment collecting initiative, launched in stores in 2013, has collected 39,000 tonnes of unwanted clothes and it also produces a Conscious collection, made from organic and sustainability materials. “It’s easy to say that low price is fast fashion,” concedes Persson. “We want to grow like all companies, but we want to do good stuff so that our customers come back.”
A shift is slowing taking hold across the fashion industry. Amongst all the greenwashing and unfulfilled promises, brands are finally acknowledging supply-chain abuses, analysing their water consumption, and looking at textile production in more detail than they ever have before. On the high street, Mango and Zara recently released sustainable collections. In the luxury sphere Stella McCartney, long a pioneer in the field, does not use leather or fur, instead seeking out organic fabrics, low-impact dyes, and regenerated cashmere from off-cuts. And Kering’s 2012-2016 sustainability report names 2025 as the year by which they will cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent and reduce Kering’s environmental impact by 40 per cent, largely by eradicating PVC and other harmful chemicals from product lines, using higher quality skins with a lower environmental footprint and eliminating waste from its supply chain.
H&M has gone a step further in establishing the H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award, an innovation challenge centred on textiles. This year is its second since its 2015 inception, and in Stockholm last week, much of the talk centred on: would you wear a dress made out of poo? How about a leather jacket made out of grapes? Or a silk scarf made from discarded orange peel? (Update: thanks to Ferragamo, you now can.)“I just want people to give a shit about the planet.”
“Manure Couture” was one of the five innovations which won a percentage of the €1 million grant and access to an acceleration programme in collaboration with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The mix of scientists, chemical engineers, management consultants and fashion people often made for amusing results. “I just want people to give a shit about the planet,” said the Manure Couture team leader Jalila Essaidi, a sassy Dutch scientist with a gift for one-liners. Her team’s innovation aims to convert cellulose from cow manure into a biodegradeable textile. The overall winner, Grape Leather, conceived of by a group of Italians, aims to use leftover grape skins and stalks from wine production to make vegetal leather. Then there was Denim-dyed Denim, a process which will bypass the traditional (hideously harmful) dyeing process for jeans by extracting the dye from old jeans to colour new, undyed jeans; and Solar textiles, a project that seeks to allow clothes to trap carbon from the environment within their fibres.
Less media-friendly, perhaps, but just as ground-breaking was Content Thread. Context: one of the biggest barriers to textile recycling is that it is very difficult to tell exactly what clothes are made of. Content Thread’s idea is to attach an RFID thread, a digital “ingredients list” tag, to each garment at the manufacturing stage, so that clothes can be easily scanned and recycled at the end of their life. It’s not sexy or headline-grabbing but it could dramatically reduce the April landfill figures that would make Eliot balk.
Crucially, it also requires little or no thought on behalf of the consumer. Recently I met Sebastien Kopp, the co-founder of French sneaker brand Véja. His trainers are made from sustainably tapped rubber, organic cotton and crafted by ethically-employed Brazilians. We agreed that consumers are becoming more clued up on where and how their clothes are made, but that vanity trumps conscience. “Our technique from the beginning was to have a well-designed product that someone would buy without knowing that it was sustainable too. 85 per cent of customers probably don’t realise we’re sustainable,” says Kopp. “What we want is to make that information available, so if you want to see it, you can learn all about how it is made. But if you just want a pair of sneakers? Fine.”Consumers are becoming more clued up on where and how their clothes are made, but that vanity trumps conscience.
Back in Sweden, Persson insists that we should all take an interest in where and how our clothes are made. “It’s really about trying to make conscious choices connected to the purchase, whenever we buy.” But consumers’ relative ignorance could perversely bode well for innovations such as Manure Couture. You might not knowingly wear a jacket made out of poo. But if you can’t be bothered to read the label? Then brown, not green, is the new black.
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