H&M is the first fashion company to make its supplier network fully public. The company works with between 2,200 and 2,500 suppliers, including primary and secondary. It has mapped out all Tier I suppliers and has gotten through roughly 60 per cent of Tier II.
H&M is working on the traceability factor so consumers can follow each product as it evolves from, say, a boll of cotton to a thread to a fabric and finally into a finished garment. The need for fashion is to wake up to the reality of its environmental and social impact.
By 2030, H&M plans to source only sustainably produced materials, and it’s on track to meet its 2020 goal of using all sustainably sourced cotton. Garment and textile recycling has been a big push for H&M. Not only has the company partnered with Worn Again to tackle the challenge of separating polyester and cotton fiber from fabric blends, it has spearheaded a similar project with the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel to develop a similar poly-cotton separation technique. One year later, HKRITA has a viable solution and is looking to scale as it sets up a factory and plans to make its approach open source by 2020.
