Sustainable Development Of H & M

Over the past 10 years, H & M group has made every effort to achieve the goal of sustainable and environmentally friendly denim production process and products, using more sustainable sources of fabrics and accessories, and saving water, energy and realizing zero emission of harmful chemicals in the jeans production process. As a leader in the fashion retail industry, H & M has come up with a wealth of experience in how to make more sustainable ready-made garments.

H & M group is one of the world's largest users of recycled polyester fiber, while the group is recognized as the world's largest preferred cotton user, including cotton that is not exposed to chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides in the production process, recycled cotton and cotton purchased through the good cotton Development Association (BCI). In 2020, all cotton used by the group will be made from cotton from sustainable sources.

"Our goal is to achieve zero emissions of hazardous chemicals by 2020, which has reached 80% from the current monitoring data." Yosef El Natour, general manager of the Far East production office of H & M group, told reporters.

Joseph Natour has been working in H & M group for more than 20 years. He has witnessed the transformation and development of H & M. After visiting several regional offices in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and Shanghai, Joseph Natour saw different understandings of sustainable development in different regions, which ultimately came down to concerns about environmental pollution. At the same time, Joseph Natour also found that young people everywhere have a deeper understanding of sustainable lifestyles.

In the middle of summer, H & M has carefully organized the popular denim tailoring into a fashion jeans guide including a number of new denim items. The cotton used in H & M denim products comes from sustainable sources, which ensures that the use of harmful chemicals is strictly restricted in the production process, making it safe and comfortable.

"We hope to jointly promote the development of denim production in the direction of non-toxic, water-saving, energy-saving and other more environmental protection." H & M group firmly expresses its own concept and leads the new fashion of environmental protection jeans.

Leading the new fashion of jeans

Denim has been integrated into people's lives and become one of the indispensable items in the fashion industry. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers say they wear jeans or shorts at least three times a week, according to the lifestyle monitor TM survey, which was updated by American cotton in March. Joseph Natour himself was a big fan of cowboys.

There are various needs in the broad consumer market, and the styles and fashions of jeans are also updated in turn. According to H & M group, its denim product types are rich, including not only men's, women's and children's wear, but also the styles keep up with the trend, and there are different versions for customers to choose from.

At the same time, the fashion of jeans is becoming more and more serious. According to the report released by the World Resources Research Institute, the world is facing an increasingly serious water crisis. It is estimated that by 2040, 40% of the world's irrigation crop production will be affected by water shortage. "It takes more than 10000 liters of water to produce a kilogram of cotton (which is enough to produce a pair of blue jeans), which is equivalent to the total amount of water a person can drink in 10 years," said biget leaultman, an analyst at UNECE

According to this consumption rate, people will face the situation of no cotton and no water in the near future. Fashion should not be at the expense of the environment, and the industry is gradually realizing that it should get rid of this cycle.

The emergence of environmental protection cowboy has saved many producers and young consumers who like cowboys and are worried about the sustainable development of the environment. H & M group is setting off a new fashion trend. H & M's Denim combines fashionable design with comfortable wearing, and pays more attention to high quality, safety and sustainable development.

It is reported that all of H & M's current denim products are made from sustainable cotton. The H & M group is recognized as the world's largest preferred cotton user, according to the 2019 material change insight report released by the non-profit international organization textile trading organization. The good cotton purchased by the group in 2019 helped save about 32.7 billion gallons of water. Since the spring 2020 series, H & M has fully used more sustainable cotton to achieve the 2020 sustainable development goals. H & M group's next goal is to use 100% of all products from renewable or other sustainable sources by 2030.

The sustainable development of jeans can enter the consumer's wardrobe. On the one hand, it is related to the change of consumer's concept, and has a deeper understanding of environmental protection concept; on the other hand, it also benefits from the continuous improvement of recycling process.

Recycling fashion, discovering new value of old clothes

The production process of jeans displayed by H & M group is as cool and eye-catching as digital punk. At the same time, attention should be paid to the mode change it brings.

In order to realize the closed-loop business model of environmental protection jeans, H & M starts from every link of jeans product value chain, including design, production, customer use, reuse and recycling. This means that the ultimate purpose of denim products should be considered in the design: quality and durability, safety of chemicals, evaluation of materials and production process, and maximum extension of the service life of denim products.

In terms of production, H & M has also made continuous efforts to reduce the adverse impact on water resources in the value chain, the effective use of resources and cleaner manufacturing processes, and help suppliers reduce the consumption of water resources. Since 2015, H & M has been working with Spanish cowboy consulting company jeanologia to use jeanologia's environmental impact measurement tool to assess the impact of denim products on water resources. By adopting more energy-saving and environmental protection washing technologies such as laser laser technology, ozone washing and nano bubble washing, the average water consumption of each "green" jeans produced by H & M group does not exceed 35 liters.

"H & M's top priority is to ensure that the safety and health of workers is a top priority in all businesses and workplaces in the supply chain. In the production process of jeans, we prohibit the use of harmful chemicals and sandblasting process. H & M innovates the denim processing technology to maximize the health of workers. " H & M is particularly concerned with the prohibition and innovation of hazardous chemicals.

In Joseph Natour's opinion, fashion sustainable production mode includes two aspects: one is to reduce consumption as much as possible in the production process and save natural resources; the other is that the production environment is friendly to factory workers, and the cleanliness and standard of production workshop are the basis to ensure the product quality. "Our most important task is to ensure the rights, health and safety of workers, which is the first requirement for all brands and partners."

Walking into many H & M stores, people often see the old clothes recycling box beside the cash register, which reads: "recycle and reuse, give new life to the old clothes. Please bring us your idle clothes or home textiles, and you can get an H & M 15% discount coupon. " It is reported that consumers can put any brand of textiles into the used clothes recycling bin of any store of H & M group to recycle the idle clothes and other textiles.

At the same time, Joseph Natour also candidly: "in terms of old clothes recycling, whether it is jeans or other overall recycling process is not too different. Denim recycling is still highly recognized in China. Our old clothes recycling data shows that the recycling amount of jeans is about 8%, while the proportion of jeans in the wardrobe of consumers is basically about 10%

H & M launched the old clothes recycling project in 2013. As the first fashion retailer to launch the project, the group hopes to provide customers with a simple and convenient way to dispose of idle clothes through the old clothes recycling plan. Customers can donate the idle clothes of any brand, quality and color to H & M stores for recycling or reuse.

"Change the value of old jeans or add new value through innovative models." Referring to the recycling of H & M's old clothes, Joseph Natour is very proud. "In addition to the new cotton thread that can be spun after recycling jeans, we are also one of the few brands that can make small accessories such as buttons and zippers into environmentally friendly materials."

Since its launch, H & M has recovered more than 78000 tons of textiles, and more than 2525 tons of textiles have been recovered in mainland China, so as to realize the closed-loop fashion mode of the fashion industry and reduce the number of textiles buried in landfills.

"Future" and "sustainable goals"

Up to now, the sustainable development of H & M has gone through more than 10 years. The fashion group, founded in 1947, has been trying to innovate in environmental protection for ten years. H & M group has a number of brands, including H & M, cos, Monki, weekday, & other stories, H & m home, arket and around. At present, H & M has opened online stores in 51 markets and more than 5000 stores in 74 markets (including franchised markets).

In fact, as early as 2011, H & M publicly promised to abolish hazardous chemicals in clothing and leather products. During the same period, H & m also launched a series of environmental awareness, using organic cotton, organic flax, Tencel and polyester fiber and other environmental protection materials. According to Joseph Natour, "we launched the H & M environmental conscious action limited series for the first time in 2012, which used a lot of environmentally friendly fabrics, which were very expensive initially."

Previously, many consumers were worried about the price of environmentally sustainable fabrics, and H & M was also trying to reduce costs. "H & M's business philosophy is to continue to provide affordable fashion for today's consumers and for the next generation of consumers at affordable prices," Joseph Natour said

It is worth mentioning that even if it develops to the scale of H & M, the first consideration for cost reduction is to strengthen the cooperation of stakeholders in fashion industry chain and solve the problem through joint efforts of various parties. "On the issue of sustainable fabric prices, cooperation is an attitude we must adopt, because our consumers have aspirations and want fabrics to be more environmentally friendly. We need to work with various partners to solve this problem."

In view of the above considerations, H & M began to change its sustainable development mode and explore the development of circular economy many years ago. H & M joined Ellen MacArthur Foundation's "make fashion circular jeans redesign", which provides specific guidelines for the design and production of jeans based on the principle of circular economy.

      Last year, colorix & M, a company based in the UK, is developing a method of dyeing bacteria from its headquarters in nature, colorix, and so on Use.

Prior to this, H & M group also released a sustainable development report for 2019, which showed that up to 97% of the cotton used by H & M group was renewable or other sustainable sources, and it would no longer purchase traditional cotton for its series products from 2020. Of all the materials used, 57% are renewable or other sustainable sources, and will continue to move towards the goal of using 100% renewable or other sustainable sources by 2030.

"Whether it's jeans or other fashion items, H & m still needs more investment." Referring to the promotion of environmental protection jeans in the future, Joseph Natour repeatedly stressed that in the following days, he will further bring the concept of sustainable development to consumers and promote the development of environmental protection.

Human beings are being punished for the excessive demand for natural resources in the past, and they also realize the importance of environmental protection and sustainable development. H & M group's concept and strategy of sustainable development reflects the responsibility and responsibility of an enterprise under the development of the times. Its concept of "reinventing fashion and reinventing fashion" will also promote the sustainable development of the enterprise.