Sustainability becoming shared responsibility - H&M

28 Apr '10

3 min read

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB has published “Style & Substance”, its sustainability report for 2009.

The report shows that H&M:

• continues to invest in sustainable materials – in 2009, H&M's garments contained 8,500 tonnes of organic cotton and the company aims for all cotton in its range to come from sustainable sources by 2020 at the latest
• exceeded its carbon emissions reduction target for 2005-2009
• during 2009 educated more than 150,000 of its suppliers' employees in Bangladesh on rights at work
• launched a five-year initiative in 2009, All for Children, with UNICEF to improve the situation of children in cotton-producing areas in India, financed by a MUSD 4.5 donation.

CEO Karl-Johan Persson, Message;

• H&M strives to be a sustainable business – financially, socially and environmentally. If we are to continue being a successful company, we believe that integrating sustainable thinking into everything that we do is absolutely necessary.

• Given the financial downturn, this past year has been challenging for most companies – H&M is no exception. But you should know that this has not led us to compromise our sustainability agenda.

• We are moving towards sustainability becoming a shared responsibility. Everyone at H&M should live our values and help H&M become a more sustainable and successful business. We continued working on the implementation of our sustainability strategy throughout the year. More of our departments began a review of their work to identify the risks and opportunities associated with their activities. Our ambition is for all of our departments to establish targets and action plans for improving their sustainability performance themselves.

• Like everything else at H&M, our sustainability agenda is based on a drive for continuous improvement. Ultimately, our entire value chain has to be leaner, smarter and more sustainable than that of our competitors. We know that taking a full value chain perspective will not happen overnight – but several of the initiatives that we are already involved in reach far beyond our own and our direct suppliers' operations. The Better Cotton Initiative and All for Children are two examples of the key ones.

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) was founded in Sweden in 1947 and is quoted on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. The company's business concept is to offer fashion and quality at the best price. In addition to H&M, the group includes the brands COS, Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday as well as H&M Home. The H&M Group has around 2,000 stores in 37 markets. In 2009, sales including VAT were SEK 118,697 million and the number of employees was more than 76,000.

H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB

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