H&M Group Sustainability Performance Report 2020

Although we have made good progress advancing our sustainability agenda, the last twelve months have served to further reinforce the importance of sustainability and the need to accelerate this work. We all need to play our part in transforming our industry into one that is genuinely built around circularity.

Helena Helmersson, CEO H&M Group

Some highlights from 2020 include:

• 64.5% of our materials are from recycled or more sustainable sources.
• We reached our goal that 100% of our cotton is organic, recycled or sourced in a more sustainable way.
• We set a new ambitious material goal, aiming to use 30% recycled material by 2025. This is supported by breakthroughs in the recycling of post-consumer fabric without quality loss. Innovations are moving out of the lab to our brands – Monki’s collection in collaboration with HKRITA’s Green Machine being one of many examples.
• To continue our journey of becoming a fully circular organisation, H&M Group has developed a multi-brand packaging system with bags made of certified paper.  They have been introduced to customers at COS, ARKET, Monki and Weekday and selected H&M brand markets and will be further rolled out in the upcoming months.
• To become even more transparent, H&M brand trialed an on-product-transparency pilot with the Higg Index, a tool to create comparability of sustainability performance across the fashion industry. 7 million customers participated in this test.
• We help customers to access and enjoy fashion in a more sustainable way with new business models such as COS Resell and Arket Rental.
• We further promoted sustainable change within the industry by launching Treadler – enabling other companies to access our supply chain.
• We piloted blockchain technology to track three sustainable fibres through six levels of our supply chain.
• 32% of the tier 1 supplier factories we work with have trade union representation and 18% have collective bargaining agreements in place – building long-term structures that give workers a strong voice.
• We supported the Black community by partnering with key organisations and donating 500,000 USD to further support their work. This is one of several major initiatives intensifying our work for inclusion and diversity in 2020.
• In the beginning of 2021, H&M Group has issued a EUR 500 million sustainability-linked bond with a maturity of 8.5 years. Sustainability-linked bonds are coupled to the company meeting a number of defined sustainability targets and therefor create a clear and transparent commitment.

For more information read the full Sustainability Performance Report 2020.