Human rights

At H&M Group, we recognise our responsibility to respect human rights in our own operations, value chain and in the communities where we operate. We recognise the importance of human rights due diligence in identifying, preventing, mitigating and addressing human rights risks.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), human rights consist of basic rights and freedoms that apply to all people, such as the right to life, freedom of expression and equality before the law.

These universal rights are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, religion, language or any other status.

Human rights range from the most fundamental — such as the right to life — to economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to food, education, work and health. They include the right to good working conditions, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination and independently of where they live or work.

We follow the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a global framework that provides guidance for companies on how to respect human rights within their operations and across their supply chains.

We adopted our first Human Rights Policy in 2012, and over the past decade our strategies have evolved. Along the way, we have learned and adapted as both our business model and the context in which we operate have changed. In response, we reviewed and updated our Human Rights Policy in 2025.

Due to the nature of our business, we focus primarily on the working conditions of our colleagues in the operations as well as the workers in our global manufacturing supply chains.

Our salient human rights issues inform our priorities. As well as general labour rights, wages and modern slavery, they cover topics such as access to water and sanitation, reflecting potential impacts connected to our value chain.

We follow a risk-based approach to due diligence and adjust our actions across our value chain. This includes policy development and integration, training and capacity building, strategy development, collaboration through industry initiatives and, where available, support for grievance channels that workers can use to raise concerns.

Although we do not directly employ the garment workers who make our clothes, we have a responsibility to set expectations for suppliers and use due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and address human rights risks in our supply chain. We have been working with our manufacturing suppliers for many years to set expectations that they comply with international labour standards, and in 1997, we launched our first Code of Conduct and Supplier Audit Programme. Today, our approach to supply chain management focuses strongly on collaboration and continuous improvement.

We also work to integrate human rights considerations into how we do business. Examples include supplier programmes related to gender equality in our manufacturing supply chain and through inclusion and diversity work within our operations.