H&M Greenwashing

H&M is one of the world’s most valuable brand in fashion industry introduced the “Conscious Exclusive” campaign back in 2010 (Gerretsen and Kottasová, 2020). From “Conscious Campaign. H&M claims that their product are being made from recycled or other sustainably sourced material. H&M also claims that clothes which are being manufactured in this campaign are using 50 percent or more sustainable material and 20 percent “Organic Cotton” (H&M, n.d.).

The picture used by H&M for this campaign depicts “Eco-Friendly” approach for manufacturing of the clothes for this campaign. Throughout the photo they have used plants or grass in the background which represents nature and then at the main subject of the pictures are models at the centre representing company clothing line form the campaign. H&M with these picture aims to represent that, they are producing clothes without damaging the environment, even the campaign’s name “conscious” depicts that H&M are producing the clothes while keeping nature in mind. All the pictures have been clicked in day time in order to get that perfect green colour in the pictures as well as the contrast.

Due to the drastic changes in climate and environment more than ever, it make us feel powerless and overwhelmed due to this alot of big brands are finding a loop hole to fulfil the production at the same rate without damaging the environment, with this being said H&M tagline that they are using “50 percent or more sustainable material” to produce their clothes grabbed the attention of a lot of people. This is how I also came to know about the brand and made me curious as to how they are doing this, They also took the initiative to start the service in which customer get 5 euro discount on every bag of clothes they bring.

H&M is a fast fashion industry which means they are mass producing the fashion designs and bringing them to the retail stores while they are in high demands among their audience with this they are consuming natural resources at an accelerated rate and polluting them at same time in order to meet the demands. The main component that is used to make these clothes are cotton. Furthermore it requires 20,000 litres of water to grow 1 kg of cotton, which is equivalent to the weight of a shirt or pair of jeans (Unknown, 2022). Not only this, as the fast fashion industry is growing so does their customers with this H&M recycling service comes in play, H&M have burned 15 tons of clothes which they received from customer for recycling [Unknown, 2017] and as per World Resources Institute report, each year 1.2 billion tons of Co2 is released in atmosphere by the fashion industry which leads to global warming. With, claim of using sustainable material and with campaigns like “conscious”. H&M is greenwashing [Unknown, 2012]. Greenwashing is a term used when brand deceive their customer in believing that they are using sustainable material to produce their products or they are “environmental friendly” or “the intersection of two firm behaviours: poor environmental performance and positive communication about environmental performance” (Delmas and Burbano, 2011, p.65.). This whole “conscious campaign” and using sustainable material is a marketing strategy to maximise the profit, without thinking about the harm they are causing while achieving it.

Customer who have been woken up with the H&M greenwashing practises, they started putting pressure putting pressure on the H&M and all other brand to take down this false advertisement. While these brand are denying these claims. At the end of the day, H&M is an unsustainable fashion brand.

References

1. Gerretsen, Isabelle, and Ivana Kottasová. “The World Is Paying a High Price for Cheap Clothes.” CNN, Cable News Network, 6 May 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/03/business/cheap-clothing-fast-fashion-climate-change-intl/index.html.

2. “Conscious Choice Products Explained.” H&M, https://www2.hm.com/en_ca/customer-service/product-and-quality/conscious-concept.html.

3. Unkown. “A Power Plant Is Burning H&M Clothes Instead of Coal.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 24 Nov. 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/sweden-power-plant-h-m-coal-burn-vasteras-stockholm-oil-discarded-products-a8073346.html.

4. Unkown. “Valuing Our Clothes: The Cost of UK Fashion.” WRAP, 11 July 2012, https://wrap.org.uk/resources/report/valuing-our-clothes-cost-uk-fashion.

5. Unknown. “Environmental ImpUaUct of Fashion.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Jan. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_fashion.

6. Delmas, M.A and Burbano, V.C. (2011): The drivers of greenwashing, California Management Review, 54(1), 64-87.