H&M Group Praised By Greenpeace For Leading The Way On Responsible Water And Chemicals Management

At H&M group we have been working on a responsible water and chemicals management in our supply chain for many years, having one of the strictest standards in the industry. With our commitment to eliminate the use of hazardous chemicals, we took this to yet another level and increased our ambition to lead the way towards a toxic-free fashion industry as a whole together with other brands and partners.

Among the big fashion brands/companies, H&M, Inditex, Benetton and Fast Retailing are leading the pack. Greenpeace report Destination Zero: seven years of Detoxing the clothing industry.

The latest report from Greenpeace praises the progress and achievements of committed companies, like H&M group, on key areas such as water, chemicals and circularity. It also raises the challenges the industry as a whole faces, which we remain committed to tackle, together with our partners, other brands and increasingly also with the support of policy-makers. Our global partnership with WWF or our work with other brands within the Swedish Textile Water Initiative (STWI), which aims to improve industry standards on water and chemical management and energy use, are some examples of that.

“Solving environmental challenges is not something a single company or organisation can do on their own. Collaboration is fundamental when it comes to industry-wide challenges such as water and chemicals management, and it is also necessary to set up next steps at industry level as it is stated in the report from Greenpeace,” says Ylva Weissbach, Sustainability Business Expert on chemicals at H&M group.

• Our vision to lead the change towards a toxic free fashion future includes our commitment to eliminate the use of hazardous chemicals and hence achieve zero discharge of such substances from the production of our products by 2020 and to achieve full traceability of input chemicals by 2030.
• Our partnership with WWF aims to lead the fashion industry on key environmental impacts towards solutions that fit within the boundaries of our planet, both at H&M group’s value chain and beyond, having a special focus on water and climate. 
• The way we address our water and chemicals management is crucial to achieve H&M group’s ambition to become circular, which includes among others, our aim to only use recycled or other sustainably sourced materials by 2030 and to become climate positive by 2040.

For more information on our extensive work on these areas, please visit hm.com/sustainability.