H & M: Style and Substance Sustainability Report 2009

H & M has published their Style and Sustainability Report 2009. Grown in Turkey, India and China, all of the company's organic cotton is independently certified by accredited certification bodies. Additionally all factories handling organic cotton products are certified (by IMO and Control Union) according to the relevant standards, OE 100 and OE Blended.  Organic cotton is used in all their clothing divisions (men, women, teenagers, children and home). They offer both 100 % organic cotton clothes and blended organic garments containing a mix of organic and conventional cotton. Garments are labelled accordingly to help our customers to make an informed choice.
 
H & M have set a target to increase organic cotton use by at least 50 % every year until 2013, based on the previous year’s target. The baseline for this staged increase is their 2008 target of 2,000 tonnes. Increasing by 50 % each year from this level will mean that they will reach a total of 15,000 tonnes by 2013. In 2009, they used 8,500 tonnes of organic cotton, exceeding the target. By the end of 2010 they plan to use organic cotton in all of their Flower labelled baby garments, either as blended organic cotton or 100 % organic cotton.
 

H & M is actively involved in the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) aiming to improve conditions in conventional cotton growing. Following their aim to source all cotton in their range from sustainable sources, at the latest by 2020, they regard the BCI as the key initiative to reach this goal.  250 tonnes of transitional cotton in 2009 were booked, and it is planned to blend this cotton into garments produced in 2010, while garments containing transitional cotton will not be specifically labelled as such. In 2009, 16 different garments made from recycled cotton were introduced. The company also updated their product policy. The new policy now contains, amongst others, stricter requirements on angora wool, merino wool, use of animal skin and feathers and downs. They also received the “Proggy Award” as Company of the Year in 2009 from the organisation PETA in recognition of their updates to their policy and animal welfare efforts.

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