Sustainable Impact Partnership Programme

Sustainable Impact Partnership Programme (SIPP) further defines the applicability of H&M Group Sustainability requirements and assesses our suppliers’ performance and their compliance with the Sustainability Commitment. This enables us to support our business partners in raising their environmental and social performance.

We expect each business partner to take ownership of their sustainability agenda and drive environmental and social progress within their operations, including across their supply chain.

Minimum requirements and follow-up assessments

Before starting any business relationship with a supplier, we ensure compliance with sustainability minimum requirements through an assessment. We then conduct follow-up assessments at a defined cadence to ensure our minimum requirements continue to be sustained.

Industry tools and collaboration

We support industry-wide collaboration tools that avoid duplication and promote transparency. For this reason, we use the Higg facility tools, developed by Cascale (previously named Sustainable Apparel Coalition or SAC), to assess performance and management systems in SIPP. We were one of the first brands to incorporate both the Facility Environmental Module (FEM) and the Facility Social Labor Module (FSLM) into our supply chain sustainability programme. Today the majority of the manufacturing factories making our fashion and shoes are covered under industry tools. 

Our suppliers conduct a self-assessment using FEM and FSLM, which is verified by a Cascale and SLCP approved third parties. This ensures that all parts of the modules are accurately completed and supports credibility.

FSLM helps manufacturers, brands and retailers understand the social and labour impacts of their value chain, reduce audit fatigue and make proactive improvements. It uses the Social & Labor Convergence Program (SLCP) assessment tool and process, asking the same questions as the SLCP Data Collection Tool and following the SLCP verification protocol. To see more information on the verification process for FEM, please refer to the FEM Verification Protocol.

Better Work and Better Factories Cambodia

Factories operating in countries with a Better Work presence and factories wishing to enrol in Better Work for the purposes of data sharing via SLCP will be able to do so according to the agreed rollout schedule in each Better Work country.

In Cambodia all our factories are part of Better Factories Cambodia (BFC). BFC conducts regular workplace assessments at exporting garment factories, using checklists and criteria that determine compliance with the Cambodian Labour Law and the ILO’s core conventions. 

The table below shows the number and shares of supplier factories with participation and verification in FSLM.

For more information on the definition of tier 1 and 2 factories in our production supply chain, visit our supply chain page.

Only suppliers that we actively work with and whose sustainability grading is approved are included in Higg reporting scope.

For those factories that are not covered by the Higg tools, we take a risk-based approach to monitoring our business partners’ compliance and apply different levels and methods of evaluation depending on country risk, the nature of the goods and services provided.

All these factories are covered by annual minimum requirement assessments, performed either by our internal team or by a nominated third party.

Verified assessments, including annual surveys and regular performance tools, are used to identify supplier compliance, impacts, risks, strengths and weaknesses. This information supports our suppliers in setting focus areas and goals for improvement.

Depending on our strategic priorities, we provide support through capacity-building workshops, training and management system analysis. We take a holistic approach to continuous improvement at our suppliers, which includes quality and other business indicators as well as sustainability performance. We encourage our suppliers to develop their own strategies and solutions to challenges, as well as providing incentives to shift impacts from negative to positive.

It is important to us that workers can report concerns and have their voices heard. Depending on a supplier’s level of risk or case history, we may require or recommend a factory to invest in a digital grievance mechanism.

H&M Group maintains comprehensive and collaborative sustainability due diligence processes, including risk identification, supplier support, supplier onboarding, implementing guidelines for salient human rights subjects and support on corrective and preventive action plans, to prevent, mitigate and remediate adverse human rights and environmental impacts. In cases of severe non-compliance or if a supplier does not respond to remedial actions, we may end the business relationship.