H&M: A Leading Global Fashion Brand With A Sustainable And Recyclable Approach To Production

Discuss about the H&M Recycling for Sustainable Fashion Trends.

H&M, one of Sweden’s leading and most successful fashion brands has gained recognition for its trend-led young fashions as well as sell-out designer teamwork. The company occupied a prestigious position on the Stockholm stock exchange list in 1974, whereby its name received an abbreviation of H&M, as been known in recent times. Since then, H&M has been evolving into a global brand and further enhancing its brand recognition with over 3,500 stores and responsible for delivering the latest and most unique fashion trends across the world (H&M group, 2018). H&M being the world’s second leading retailer organization catering in the clothing business, following Zara but surpassing Gap Inc, H&M has successfully established and preserved massive reliability and success across its customer base through 67 years of its existence. The business conceptualization implemented by H&M is “Fashion and quality at the best price.” However, the company comprises of design and purchase department that produces the best designs and collections of H&M further facilitating to serve the most trend setting clothes. However, a number of measures in recent times have been introduced in order secure and further enhance the quality level of the products and by contracting the quality standards, the company has further succeeded in effectively evolving and increasing the numbers of its suppliers and distributors (Siegle. 2013). The market share of the company has risen up to 3% in 2017 but has further lost its position whereby it has been affected by the advent of digital shopping supporting its business framework of introducing increased rate of physical stores. 

In recent times, H&M has been putting considerable level of efforts on its Corporate Social Responsibility, specifically associated with the environmental aspect. The company has been underpinning its consumer base to promote recycle, raise the usage of recycled or processed polyester products for production and further condensing its rate of carbon emission (H&M group, 2018). 2011 has been marked as a year for H&M where it has initiated its ‘Conscious Collection” that is regarded as a fashion line of clothing that is generated via sustainable practices such as the usage of organic cotton fabric as well as recycled materials. It has been noted that H&M is accountable for selling contributed or donated clothes to I: Collect, a Swiss-based reprocessed startup company whereby it is based on producing rather than beating a product such as introduction of the voucher incentives along with a non-profit creating endeavor (Siegle. 2013). Furthermore, revenues are anticipated to rise towards the covering of running expenditure of H&M. The company has been producing increasing number of sustainable or recycled clothing products further monitoring the resource level of the world (Pookulangara, Shephard & Liu, 2016). The immense progress in technological factors have enormously facilitated the fashion retail industry where the fact lies to the dedication and commitment of controlling system textile sustainable at present remains a significant comment towards its customer base. H&M, in order to inspire its buyers to grow their inclination towards environmental accountable preferences is encouraging them to choose recycling procedures (Kant Hvass, 2014).

Over the decades, effective partnership has become increasingly significant to the company’s sustainable activities. It has been critical throughout this strategy as well as goal-establishing procedures and will be significant factors in order to attaining the vision of the company in the following years (Siegle. 2013). However, H&M has been successfully performing with kind of associates as well as innovators who will be able to approach effective work which incorporates other fashion brands, international trade unions, intellectuals, observers along with ILO, Sida,WWF, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and alike (Preuit, 2016).

Sustainable approach towards production and marketing not only decreases the environmental concern but also brings variety in the production process by improving the design and quality of products. Sustainable approach and recycling are intricately associated with ethics and long-term environmental development. In a globalized and first paced world, however, sustainable approach towards fashion and business is often considered somewhat stunted and slow (Armstrong, et al., 2015). The concept of slow fashion as put forward by Forbes is essential for bringing forth a positive change n how consumers utilize product in the domain of fashion and apparel. Slow fashion can bring competitive advantage to firms. In a globalized world, sustainable approach and recycling of cloths can only stay if the production process is not lapse. Forbes has predicted that it is definitely a coherent way of attaining local sustainability (Asdrubali et al., 2015). Fashion industry has been undergoing adverse impacts on global environment. H&M in recent times has introduced its sustainability program which is known as the “Conscious Action’ whereby increased rate of job opportunities in developing or less-developed nations are being generated, along with increased level of recyclable resources that are used in production as well as consumers are well-informed to be improve the sense of ethics and principles (Chow & Li, 2018). Furthermore, H&M experiences a considerable number of threats and challenges across the sustainable supply chain strategy (Watson et al., 2017). The company being one of the significant brands with global recognition is suitably representative to evaluate the recycle strategy or sustainable fashion distribution chain.

The approach should be infused with aesthetic pleasure and responsibility from the end of customers’ while at the same time maintaining the rights of the workers’ (Zamani et al., 2015).  In the opinion of the company’s CEO, sustainability should be invested in the entirety of the production including the delivery, assortment and packaging of the recycled product. The final outcome would be 100% green product operation and sales (Jung & Jin, 2016).  The best outcome can be achieved after a thorough analysis of consumer buying decisions and motivation. It should not be simply concentrated o a particular class of consumer making recycled product a luxury but cater to the rapidly growing consumer population that should be integrated in the field of eco-friendly market (Meanmber & Joy, 2017).

The experience that I have gained while visiting H&M  has shown me the innovative side of textile recycling. I saw the creation of something unique and vivid from discarded materials.

Primary information gathered over telephone interview: The chief spokesperson of the textile recycling unit of H&M was quoted saying that “the growing pile of textile waste has paved the avenue of recycling and creation of uniquely designed products by offering discount voucher”.

How is your experience of working in H&M?

Mr. Jones (Store manager): “we work 9 hours a day and my job is sorting apparels and evaluating its recent initiatives related to recycled clothes”

Our company has been encouraging global initiative in order to reduce the pessimistic impact of the fashion industry on environmental factors. Our initiative of collecting garments has been effectively encouraging our consumer base to bring their old yet wearable clothes or even damaged clothes and apparels in return for store discount vouchers. We are considering it as a closing system and firmly believe in establishing a process of circular economy for producing and utilizing new garments. Furthermore, hand in used or other discarded clothes and textiles are donated and customers receive a 15% reduction vouchers for their next purchase.       

It is significant to note that the business organization under consideration here provides 15% discount to the customers who oft for the recycled products offered by the concerned business organizations. The concept of recyclable goods have gained a considerable amount of popularity in the recent times and it is a reflection of this particular fact that the business organization is taking the help of this particular policy to attract a larger number of customers to the products offered by them (Arrigo, 2018). Furthermore, in the recent times it is seen that the concept of ethical consumerism has gained much prominence among the various customers and they have become concerned about the manufacturing process used by the various business organizations for the manufacture of the products offered by them to the customers. Therefore, the business organization under consideration here takes the help of this changing trend in the buying behavior of the customers to increase the amount of annual profit gained by them (Kant Hvass, 2014). Thus, it can be said that this particular offered by the concerned business organization has dual role, firstly they help the business organization under consideration here to contribute in a positive manner towards the cause of the environment and at the same time it also helps to cater to the changing requirements of the customers. Therefore, it would be apt to say that this product is likely to improve the prospects of the concerned business organization in a significant manner.

According to reports, the textile industry contributes around $1 trillion globally and therefore can create a huge difference in the outlook of the consumers towards textile and production. One of the manufacturers who as intricately associated with the production of recycled textiles expressed that the citizens of U.S have grown more sensitive towards the environmental crisis and lack of resources. They have opted for recycled products and have therefore gave way for an improved skill in environmental action strategies amongst the manufacturers. 

One of my friends has opined that New Jersey has reached heights after creating the record of keeping one million pound of trash away from landfills globally. At this juncture it is the responsibility of the government to encourage and generate the functioning of these industries and provide fund to improve the machines used in the production of recycled clothes. Certain textile brands do not adhere to the traditional norm of advertising and instead channelizes the money into the production of organic apparels.

References

Armstrong, C. M., Niinimäki, K., Kujala, S., Karell, E., & Lang, C. (2015). Sustainable product-service systems for clothing: exploring consumer perceptions of consumption alternatives in Finland. Journal of Cleaner production, 97, 30-39.

Arrigo, E. (2018). The Key Role of Retail Stores in Fast Fashion Companies: The H&M Case Study. In Contemporary Case Studies on Fashion Production, Marketing and Operations (pp. 121-137). Springer, Singapore.

Asdrubali, F., D’Alessandro, F., & Schiavoni, S. (2015). A review of unconventional sustainable building insulation materials. Sustainable Materials and Technologies, 4, 1-17.

Chow, P. S., & Li, C. K. (2018). Towards Closed-Loop Fashion Supply Chains—Reflections from Retailer-Facilitated Used Apparel Collection Programs. In Contemporary Case Studies on Fashion Production, Marketing and Operations(pp. 219-239). Springer, Singapore.

H&M group. (2018). Retrieved from https://about.hm.com/en.html

Jung, S., & Jin, B. (2016). Sustainable development of slow fashion businesses: Customer value approach. Sustainability, 8(6), 540.

Kant Hvass, K. (2014). Post-retail responsibility of garments–a fashion industry perspective. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 18(4), 413-430.

Meanmber, L. A., & Joy, A. (2017). Fashion in consumer culture. Routledge Handbook on Consumption, 431.

Pookulangara, S., Shephard, A., & Liu, C. (2016). Using Theory of Reasoned Action to Explore” Slow Fashion” Consumer Behavior.

Preuit, R. (2016). Fashion and sustainability: increasing knowledge about slow fashion through an educational module (Doctoral dissertation, Colorado State University).

Siegle. L. (24 April 2013). H&M: how does the fashion retailer’s sustainability report stack up?. The Guardian.Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/h-and-m-sustainability-report

Watson, D., Elander, M., Gylling, A., Andersson, T., & Heikkilä, P. (2017). Stimulating Textile-to-Textile Recycling(Vol. 2017569). Nordic Council of Ministers.

Zamani, B., Svanström, M., Peters, G., & Rydberg, T. (2015). A carbon footprint of textile recycling: A case study in Sweden. Journal of industrial ecology, 19(4), 676-687.