H&M, as a clothing brand, relies typically on a list of materials that farmworkers gather and factory workers put together from around the globe. Their list of raw materials include organic jute, recycled cashmere, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) recycled paper, FSC recycled wood, FSC recycled plastic, FSC certified wood, recycled plastic, recycled glass, FSC natural rubber, organic silk, organic linen, recycled wool, lyocell, recycled polyamide, recycled polyester, and cotton (Materials). According to their website, they have three sustainable cotton resources: the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Cotton Made in Africa, and Fair Trade Cotton, and H&M plans to use 100% sustainable resources by 2020. Besides their main raw material, cotton, most of their other materials come from recycled sources. Most FSC products come from FSC certified forest woods except, ironically, the FSC Recycled Paper which cannot “guarantee that the wood originally comes from an FSC™ certified forest” (Materials). With regards to more controversial materials like cashmere, H&M claims it will stop ordering conventional cashmere due to its effects on the environment and animal welfare; however, this is just a promise on their website where they also claim “if the cashmere industry in the future would meet our sustainability criteria, we could consider turning to virgin cashmere again” (Materials) instead of keeping up with recycled cashmere. Their stance on cashmere is shocking considering just a few years ago, mammals in Central Asia started to decline due to the globalization of cashmere (Berger). Moreover, their recycled plastic and polyester come from PET: a petroleum product which is one of the only recycled plastics (Sutton). Nonetheless, PET presents its own problems. Complications involving “‘isolati[on] [of] the material to be recycled,’ depending upon the product you’re trying to recycle and the waste mixed in with the PET” occur frequently (qtd. in Sutton). The materials from H&M come from a wide variety of resources, mostly recycle-based-- a much better alternative approach even if it is relatively new and could have started earlier. The making of this material into clothing, however, is debated on its righteousness as serious accusations of environmentally unsafe and socially harmful factories have risen in past years.

      Once these materials are obtained from various external suppliers, all around the globe, they are sent to manufacturing and processing factories from Asia, Europe, and Africa, where conditions have been known to be torturous. H&M recently took another step into transparency with their consumers by opening up its supplier list for public access (Hargrove). This page gives full information on the location of their production, manufacturing, and tier 2 factories as well as the names of their suppliers, all of which are external and not owned by H&M (Supplier). Some of those include Fakir Fashion, Chemaid Laboratories, and Innovia International. Although H&M supplies information of its dozens of suppliers in dozens of countries around the globe, there is more data from the various news articles printed about the conditions of these locations-- whether the way these materials come together is done in a just manner. According to an article where the CEO of H&M, Karl-Johan Persson, is worried about his “eco-conscious consumers [being] bad for fast fashion,” claiming it will have terrible social consequences at the price of a small environmental impact (Segran). Moreover, this article brings into light that working conditions in Asian factories have not completely been fixed. H&M has been under scrutiny in the past couple of years for their lack of safety in international factories and especially in their abuse toward female workers to meet the time-crunching expectations. H&M is known for setting “excessively ambitious targets to keep fast fashion alive at the production line” (Hitchings-Hales) and in doing so, they harmed workers through “rape, slapping, gendered bullying, misuse of power to pursue sexual relationships…forced overtime, and preventing women from taking bathroom breaks” (Hitchings-Hales). Moreover, factory-conditions in Bangladesh were found to be that of sweatshop conditions. Almost three years after signing the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, “the majority of H&M factories in Bangladesh workers still r[a]n the risk of being trapped in the building in case of a fire” (Three). Only after intense public pressure did H&M take note of its international workers’ conditions and start “showing new levels of transparency” (Three) through their website where they invite customers to investigate their materials, production process, and suppliers. In recent years, H&M has made its goal to change their company’s habits and work toward sustainability, worker’s compensation, and to be as clear with its consumers as possible. However, “[a]s recently as last year, a report came out that female workers making H&M garments in Asian factories faced abuse on a daily basis” (Segran). The clothing material is not only critical for its socially unjust methods of production, but also for its negative impact on the environment. 

       According to an article published just a few days ago, H&M’s promises for fast fashion is creating a drastic impact on climate change despite its attempt to become a sustainable brand. There is a massive overproduction of clothes around the globe, but H&M serving as a fast-fashion company with low prices and new sets every two weeks contributes to a significant part of this overproduction. The United Nations claimed that “10% of the world’s carbon emissions are generated by the fashion industry—which is more than the aviation industry and the shipping industry combined” (Segran). The CEO of H&M continues to believe that climate change is a massive issue, but will not rethink his business in terms of how its mass manufacturing affects the planet. Instead, such fast-fashion companies tend to focus on sustainability in their materials but fail to realize where their production process may also be harmful. Climate change will simply backfire on the company, however, as “[g]reenhouse gas emissions are expected to double in 50 years and the average surface temperature of the earth is expected to increase [2], potentially affecting cotton-growing and textile manufacturing” (Climate). 

       The production process of H&M clothing is as standard as any globalized clothing brand. Factories from foreign countries make such products working endless hours at a cheap cost for the company. Information on packaging and shipping is a little harder to dig out for H&M. H&M, after materials from various suppliers mentioned above for cotton, polyester, etc. are sent to factories across the globe. Most of H&M’s production is outsourced with about 50% of its production coming from Europe and the other half spread out between Asia, Africa, and the U.S.A. (H&M). After the products are manufactured in these companies, air, train, and truck travel brings these products to retail markets, usually in Europe and the U.S. H&M’s goal has always been efficiency and speed; with this in mind, it has improved upon all forms of transportation within the last couple years. The process is laid out perfectly by an article laying out the final steps of H&M’s supply chain network:

 

 “The right product has to be arrived at the right time, at the right place and at the right cost. H&M opt for the greenest possible transport that is in line with the ongoing determined work towards sustainability… H&M has almost halved its airfreight volumes in just a few years. H&M scrutinize the environmental performance of logistics services providers like road haulers and the shipping lines. The merchandises arrive in the distribution centers that are located in the different sale markets. After arriving, the garments are unpacked and allocated to the stores. These centers support the individual stores as they don’t have the backup stocks and they are stocked up or refilled from the central stockrooms. A request for replenishment is sent to the central stockrooms as soon as the product is sold. So every day, H&M receive new goods” (H&M).

 

The only materials that would enter into stores along with the product itself would be any cardboard holders for jewelry. After this intensive process, H&M employees will hang up the clothes and get it ready for the market. 

         At the market clothes are bought and after consumer use, consumers can recycle their h&m clothes back to h&m. Consumers who recycle H&M clothing receive 15% off coupon, filling their customers with a righteous feeling and money. However, this aspect of their sustainability project has been criticized as well. H&M had started losing consumers due to their clothing easily falling apart and then having to be thrown out. This left customers feeling as though they lost their money and guilt for throwing away torn clothing. Instead of fixing the quality of their clothes which would involve more money, H&M instead decided to fix the second part of the problem through their recycling program. Although “H&M’s sustainability efforts is to revolutionize their supply chain into a closed-loop system where textiles are shredded to fibers and rewoven, theoretically eliminating the need for raw materials and keeping textiles out of landfills,” (Otte) their recycling program does not change the need for raw materials or keep textiles out of landfills. Only “ 0.1% of what is donated is woven into a new material” because “a garment can only stand to be composed of a maximum of 20% recycled fibers without falling apart” (Otte). Moreover, “ 60% of what is donated is still wearable and gets donated to second hand clothing charities,” but clothes are eventually thrown out after their second life (Otte). H&M’s recycling program truly just “perpetuates the core problem of customers spending less, buying more, and throwing it away by removing the consumerist guilt that goes along with it” (Otte).