H&M Releases Conscious Actions Sustainability Report

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB has published its Conscious Actions SustainabilityReport for 2010. 

“I want our customers always to feel that we doour best to ensure that the fashion we offer has been made, transported and sold responsibly.To achieve this, transparency is key and our Sustainability Report is an important tool to showour progress and challenges,” says Karl-Johan Persson, CEO at H&M in a press release.

To clarify and guide H&M’s sustainability work we identified seven ambitious commitments in2010. All our work-in-progress for a more sustainable fashion future is now also gatheredunder one name, H&M Conscious. Among other things, the report shows that:

• H&M announced a target for all cotton to come from more sustainable sources by 2020.

• A total of 68,000 cotton farmers were educated on more sustainable farming practicesthrough our active engagement in Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). 2010 also saw the firstcotton harvest from the BCI.

• H&M used more organic cotton than ever before in our products, a total of 15,000 tonnes.This is an increase of 77 percent compared to 2009 and it makes H&M one of the largestusers of organic cotton in the world (2009: rank 5).

• 1,600 tonnes of recycled materials were turned into new clothes.

• H&M played an active role in forming the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, working to createa universal index to show the environmental impact and fair labor practices for clothingand footwear production.

• More than 300,000 workers in Bangladesh have been educated on their rights since2008. H&M will expand this to India in 2011.• H&M announced a global ban on sandblasting for all our products.

• H&M saved 50 million litres of water in denim production relative to previousproduction methods. We plan to introduce this technique for all our denim suppliers inBangladesh.• H&M reduced the energy use per square meter in all H&M stores by 8 percent from 2007-2010. This shows a good progress against the target to achieve 20 percent reductions by2020.

“I am happy to see good progress in our sustainability work. To remain at the forefront of ourindustry we will gradually broaden our scope to take into account every part of our product’slife cycle. Our engagement in the Better Cotton Initiative and the Sustainable ApparelCoalition are two important initiatives to increase this influence,” says Helena Helmersson,Head of CSR at H&M.

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