H&M is committing itself to having a more positive impact on the environment, and it’s willing to shell out a million euros for some help. The Swedish retailer is launching the Global Change Award, a contest searching for new ways to recycle clothes and will give out $1.16 million USD every year to anyone who can help improve its recycling methods.
Currently, the methods of recycling cotton aren’t the best, as Business of Fashion points out. “Existing cotton recycling methods make poor-quality fibres, and there is no efficient way to recycle garments of mixed materials, so the vast majority of clothes end up in landfill.”
Recycling is imperative to fast fashion, since a lot of clothes are made and purchased – and also thrown out. New recycling technology would help create a more sustainable approach to the industry. “No company, fast fashion or not, can continue exactly like today,” H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson said. “The (prize’s) largest potential lies with finding new technology that means we can recycle the fibres with unchanged quality.”
H&M will choose five winners of the contest who will split the €1 million prize, half of which will be distributed by the people through an online vote. You can submit your ideas before October 31 to be considered for the prize. The winners will be announced in February 2016.
[via Business of Fashion, H&M]
