H&M’s sustainability deception

Hot Buttons

H&M has an uphill battle to be taken seriously as a sustainable fashion brand, and last week it got even worse. Quartz published an investigation into H&M’s use of an environmental impact scorecard to misrepresent the sustainability of its clothing lines, finding the company used faulty data to make claims that were patently false. Not a good look for a brand trying to remake its image.

We’re delighted to have the author of that article, Amanda Shendruk, as a guest this week. She’ll talk us through the details of H&M’s missteps.

Then we take another look at the industry’s challenges around transparency, and talk through the Fashion Transparency Index for 2021, which ranks fashion brands by “what information they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices and impacts, in their operations and supply chain.” The results aren’t encouraging. Brands have a long way to go in wages and worker conditions, supply chain carbon emissions, purchasing practices, their COVID response, and supply chain traceability.

Resources:

• Quartz: Quartz investigation: H&M showed bogus environmental scores for its clothing
• Fashion Revolution: The Fashion Transparency Index 2021

Hot Buttons is a production of Post Script Media. The show is hosted by Christina Binkley, Rachel Kibbe, and Shilla Kim-Parker. Follow the show on Twitter.

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