H&M offers reward for recycling assistance

The H&M Conscious Foundation, affiliated with Sweden-based clothier H&M, has announced its new Global Change Award, which it calls “one of the world’s biggest challenges for early stage innovation and the first such initiative in the fashion industry.”

The foundation says it is seeking “truly ground-breaking ideas [to] protect Earth’s natural resources by closing the loop for fashion.” Closing the loop for fashion means “finding new approaches in the whole value chain of the industry; changing the way garments are designed, produced, shipped, bought, used and recycled,” says the foundation in a press release announcing the award.

Five winners, chosen by a jury assembled by the foundation, will share a grant of €1 million ($1.15 million) and gain “access to a tailor-made innovation accelerator,” according to the H&M Conscious Foundation. “The global public will be invited to distribute half of the total grant through an online vote [and the result will be revealed at a grand award ceremony in Stockholm in February 2016,” the foundation states in a press release.

“The question for fashion is no longer ‘What is the new black?’ but rather ‘What innovative ideas can close the loop?’ The Global Change Award is looking for ideas that will protect Earth’s natural resources, and I am excited to be part of it,” says Rebecca Earley, a professor in sustainable textile and fashion design at University of the Arts, London, and director of its Textile Futures Research Centre. Earley also is a member of the Global Change Award jury.

Another juror is Dr. Michael Braungart, academic chair of “Cradle to Cradle for Innovation and Quality” at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The H&M Conscious Foundation is a non-profit global foundation funded by the Stefan Persson family, the founders and majority owners of the Swedish fashion company H&M. The foundation says its mission “is to drive long-lasting positive change and improve living conditions by investing in people, communities and innovative ideas.”

Neither the foundation nor the company H&M will take any equity or intellectual property rights in the innovations submitted for the award, the foundation indicates in its news release.

“Ground-breaking, game-changing ideas can come from anywhere, so the challenge is open to anyone,” says Karl-Johan Persson, board member of the H&M Conscious Foundation and CEO of H&M. “Each year the Global Change Award aims to find the truly brave and bold ideas that make change. I’m also eager to see how the fashion industry as a whole will embrace the challenge of closing the loop.”

The innovation accelerator − a collaboration with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm − will expose the five winners to an “innovation boot camp” in Stockholm, provided by KTH Innovation, followed up by guidance from Accenture Strategy on how to develop their ideas further. This includes the provision of a one-year training and coaching program “with a particular focus on [the] circular economy,” according to the foundation.

Applications to enter the contest must be submitted by Oct. 31, 2015.

Additional information about the Global Change Award, including how to apply for a grant and updates on the challenge, are available at www.globalchangeaward.com.