On 12 April H&M launched its sustainability report 2017 in which the company lays out its progress towards a circular and renewable fashion industry.
"Making the shift from a linear to a circular model is not only necessary for the planet, it also presents a strong business case. Once customers are finished with products, 87% of the material fibres used by the industry to create those products end up in landfill. This represents a lost opportunity of more than USD 100 billion every year."
H&M set itself an ambitious goal - to use 100% recycled or other sustainably-sourced materials by 2030. In order to achieve this goal the company focuses on five key stages within its value chain: A. Design, B. Material choice, C. Production processes, D. Product use, E. Product reuse and recycling.
Stage B - Material choice is one of the key issues for H&M: "We currently use several types of recycled materials including recycled cotton, polyester, nylon, wool, cashmere and plastic. But we are constantly working to increase this share and maximise our use of recycled or other sustainably-sourced materials. The challenge we face, however, is that viable recycling solutions for many types of textile fibres – especially blended fibres – have either not been invented yet or are not commercially available at scale."
This is why H&M joined in 2017, among other projects, Demeto - "focusing on recycling polyester textiles into new fibres without compromising quality."