Sweden : H&M names winners of Global Change Award

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H&M names winners of Global Change Award

15
Feb '16

The Finnish team led by Michael Hummel and behind 'Making waste-cotton new; conversion of waste-cotton into new textile' were named winners of first Global Change Award, who also received a grant of €300,000.

“Global Change Award is an annual innovation challenge for circular fashion initiated by the non-profit H&M Conscious Foundation,” a press release from Swedish apparel retailer H&M said.

To further accelerate the transformation towards a circular fashion industry, the Foundation now has launched the Global Change Award Network, an open-source database for innovations.

The second place winners and the prize of €250,000 were given to the US team led by Akshay Sethi for their 'The polyester digester - using microbes to recycle waste polyester textile' project.

The third prize of €150,000 was given to a project titled 'An online market for textile leftovers - a marketplace for industrial upcycling of spill in production' to a team led by Ann Runnel from Estonia.

Enrica Arena and her team also bagged the €150,000 prize for '100 percent citrus - creating new textile out of citrus juice production by-products' project.

Another prize of €150,000 was won by the team of Tjeerd Veenhoven from Netherlands for 'Growing textile fibre under water - utilising algae to make renewable textile'.

Inspired by the response and to spark impact beyond the five winners, the Foundation has now launched the Global Change Award Network, a public digital space where teams and ideas can grow.

“When the application period closed, we sat with thousands of amazing ideas and so we decided to create the Global Change Award Network,” Karl-Johan Persson, CEO at H&M said.

“You can look at it as a matchmaking site, where innovators can present their ideas, get feedback, make contacts and maybe investors can even find the next big thing,” he added.

The award ceremony on February 10 marked the beginning of a one year innovation accelerator, provided by H&M Conscious Foundation, Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

“The program will help the winners develop their ideas, focusing on three main areas; circular economy, innovation and fashion industry connection,” H&M too added in the press release. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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