H&M Continues To Strive For Sustainability, But What Is The Result?

H&M, a Swedish fashion group, recently launched a research on recycling fabrics with IKEA, a Swedish home retailer IKEA, to continue its layout of "sustainable fashion". In fact, in the past year, H&M has been making moves in this direction: improving the proportion of sustainable materials, expanding the old clothes recycling plan and launching the clothing leasing business. However, the move seems to be "thundering and heavy rain", even the industry has some doubts about its voice.

Constant action

At the recently held sustainable fabric exchange conference held in 2019, H&M announced a joint research effort with IKEA to investigate the chemical composition of recycled fabrics in the post consumption stage. It is reported that the focus of the two sides' cooperation is to study the composition of recycled fabrics, and expect that the research results can promote the management legislation and standardization process of optimizing the chemical composition of recycled fabrics, enhance the utilization rate of recyclable materials in products, and reduce the hidden dangers of chemical components to the body.

In fact, since the beginning of this year, the layout of H&M's "sustainable fashion" has been constantly moving. In April of this year, H&M announced the 2018 sustainable development report. According to the report, the proportion of materials used by renewable or other sustainable sources reached 57% last year, which is 35% more than that of the previous year. At the same time, H&M95%'s cotton is a renewable source or other sustainable source. The company's goal is that the cotton used by the company will be a sustainable source by 2020. According to Xia Yanhong, director of sustainable supply chain and stakeholder relations in the Far East of H&M group, the company plans to use recycled materials or sustainable materials in 2030.

Meanwhile, H&M's old clothes recycling program is still expanding. In April of this year, H&M worked with Alibaba's idle trading platform for leisure fish. Consumers can complete a series of operations such as online recycling clothing through Tmall App and H&M flagship store. It is reported that this is the first time H&M has extended the recycling of old clothes to online channels.

In addition, H&M announced in August this year that it will open the clothing rental service and set up sewing workshops. In October 15th, H&M bought about 70% of the e-commerce platform Sellpy, developing second-hand clothing sales business. H&M said that the expansion of the above two businesses is an important step for the company's "sustainable fashion" strategy.

How to land

In fact, many fashion brands at home and abroad are in favor of sustainable fashion. In July this year, Zara parent Inditex group announced that by 2025, 100% of all brands will be made of sustainable fabrics. Gap also promised that cotton would be purchased only from organic farms or recognized sustainable producers in 2021. In addition, Jiangnan cloth clothing has launched a brand new fashion environmental protection brand "REVERB" last year. Pathfinder has also developed a number of sustainable environmentally friendly products, including chitin fibers, dyed products, etc., to extend the life cycle of products and reduce pollution.

According to data from China Circular Economy Association, about 26 million tons of old clothes are thrown into trash cans every year in China, and the data will be raised to 50 million tons after 2030. China's Circular Economy Association official told the China Commercial Daily reporter that most of the old clothing treatment methods are landfill or incineration, causing environmental pollution of land and air.

The China Commercial Daily reporter interviewed dozens of consumers randomly, and found that with the enhancement of public awareness of environmental protection, consumers' demand for sustainable development of clothing brands has been increasing. A consumer said he would have a higher degree of interest in the clothing brands that invest in sustainable development and would not mind paying higher prices. For H&M overweight and sustainable fashion, the consumers said they would continue to focus on their development process.

However, from the current situation, the exploration of H&M's sustainable fashion is still questioned. In August of this year, Norwegian Consumer Authority, a Norway consumer watchdog, accused H&M of its sustainability fashion series H&M Conscious women's clothing series suspected of false marketing. The agency believes that H&M advertising always promotes sustainability, but does not specify how the environment will benefit. In response, H&M responded that it was discussing with the agency how to make H&M Conscious series advertising more accurate.

Meanwhile, an industry observer who declined to be named told the China Commercial Daily that although the H&M recycling program is still in progress, under the existing technology conditions, H&M is difficult to digest tens of thousands of tons of old clothes, and the reuse of old clothes is still a small proportion. In addition, the company's fast fashion production has not yet seen the specific results, and whether "sustainable fashion" can be effectively landed is still unknown.