The Ellen MacArthur Foundation Announces H&M as a Global Partner

COWES, Isle of Wight, November 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation today announced that H&M has become its latest Global Partner accelerating the transition to the circular economy. The announcement was made by Dame Ellen MacArthur, speaking at the BSR 2015 conference in San Francisco.  

The partnership builds on H&M's commitment to demonstrating circular innovation within a key economic sector. H&M joins the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's six existing Global Partners: Cisco, Google, Kingfisher, Philips, Renault and Unilever, in driving forward market-leading circular economy initiatives, at scale.

Global Partners work closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to identify opportunities to create value through circular practices, and to develop and implement targeted programmes across their activities. As one of the world's largest fashion retailers, H&M has the potential to fundamentally shift the extent to which the clothing sector restores and regenerates fabrics and fibres for productive use.

Taking the perspective that both the paper and textile industries are fibre-based, with the paper industry already having come a long way in terms of recycling, a substantial opportunity exists for the clothing sector to emulate this success and to take it much further with regard to keeping biological and technical based fibres in circulation, at high quality. H&M is committed to taking a leading role in these regenerative practices. H&M will also explore with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation how to apply circular economy thinking to all aspects of its operations and physical infrastructure, including its store footprint.

H&M is an existing member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Circular Economy 100, a pre-competitive innovation programme established to enable organisations to develop new opportunities and achieve their circular economy ambitions faster. As a Global Partner, H&M will intensify its collaboration with the Foundation over the coming years, to explore further opportunities to apply circular economy principles across the organisation.

Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, commented:

'Operating in a key sector of the global economy, H&M's vision for applying circular models represents a significant opportunity to scale up the transition. We are delighted to be working with H&M to build momentum towards the system shift that our economy needs to work in the long term."  

For more information, please contact: Clare Mucklow, +44(0)7710-966-864, clare.mucklow@ellenmacarthurfoundation.org

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Notes to editors:

1. H&M: H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) was founded in Sweden in 1947 and is quoted on Nasdaq Stockholm. H&M's business idea is to offer fashion and quality at the best price in a sustainable way. In addition to H&M, the group includes the brands & Other Stories, Cheap Monday, COS, Monki and Weekday as well as H&M Home. The H&M Group has more than 3,700 stores in 61 markets including franchise markets. In 2014, sales including VAT were SEK 177 billion and the number of employees is more than 132,000. For further information, visit hm.com.

2. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was created in 2010 to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. The Foundation's work focuses on four areas: insight and analysis, business and government, education and training, and communication. With Knowledge Partner, McKinsey & Company, the Foundation works to quantify the economic potential of the circular model and to develop approaches for capturing this value. The Foundation collaborates with Global Partners and its Circular Economy 100 network (businesses, governments and cities), to develop circular business initiatives and build capacity. The Foundation is creating a global teaching and learning platform on the circular economy, encompassing work with leading universities, schools and colleges, and online events such as the Disruptive Innovation Festival. For further information visit ellenmacarthurfoundation.org.