H&M Group Joins The World Water Week With Water Roadmap To 2022

Image Courtesy of World Water Week

World Water Week 2019 focussed on the challenges for an inclusive and sustainable development for all people, in all countries.

In a world where, by 2030,  water supply will be outstripped by demand by 40%,  H&M Group, together with WWF and other stakeholders, have joined the World Water Week and engaged in discussions about the importance of joining forces in textile water stewardship to achieve global collective action impact.

H&M Group is committed to address the challenges and has set high ambitions to be fully circular and renewable.

Without water, there is no life. From the growing of cotton and the dyeing of fabrics to the washing of the clothes we love to wear — all of it has an impact on water resources.

And since water is essential to our business and, of course, the planet and everyone living on it, we are working actively together with organisations such as WWF to make sure that we value every drop.

To be able to achieve this ambition, resources such as water must be managed in a responsible way.

We have a long experience in reducing water impact and we have been collaborating with WWF since 2011 within this area.

“We are proud of what we have achieved so far. Now we have even stronger ambitions for our supply chain on how to use water, such as the goal to recycle 15% of wastewater back into production processes by 2022. However, we still have a long way to go to reach a truly sustainable fashion industry.”

Kim Hellström, Strategy Lead Climate & Water, H&M Group.

H&M Group’s global partnership with WWF has played a fundamental role in our work with water management along the value chain.

Water is key in many production processes, from the growing of cotton to the washing of our clothes therefore, highlighting these challenges is of great importance.

Collective action within the whole textile industry is key and collaboration is fundamental when it comes to addressing industry-wide challenges such as water management.

As part of our partnership with WWF and our water stewardship strategy, we launched our new water roadmap in 2018.

The roadmap contains our key goals and actions up to 2022 and consists of prioritized areas which include a focus on water quantity, quality and circularity.