Sustainablefastfashion

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Sustainable fast fashion - case study of H&M
Thesis · May 2019

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13072.89600
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Ieva Vedeikytė Kamila Lechmanová

Roskilde University Roskilde University
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Supervisor: Jean Paulo Endres
Group n. 21: Mayar Alsawafi (66314), Kamila Lechmanová (66284), Ieva Vedeikyte
(66341), Natalia Kocichová (66691)
Executive summary
This project looks at one of the biggest fast fashion industry giants H&M. The company has
been trying to undergo several improving changes in regards to the sustainability factor of
this brand. This study entails an elaboration about the three main aspects of the triple bottom
line theory in the form of an inquiry of H&M’s balance of the environmental, social and
economic factors. This has furthermore led to the questioning of the reports, business model
and overall performance of the innovations they implemented. Thus, we have used a couple
of theoretical frameworks and methodological tools in order to understand the balance of
these three sustainability factors. Under the theoretical framework resides a Corporate social
responsibility and the Triple bottom line theory. Moreover, in order to deliver a fine
investigation, we have implemented the Critical realism throughout the analysis and an
abductive approach as the main methodological tools and a case study as the base of our
research.
Keywords: H&M; H&M group; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; Sustainability; Fast fashion;
organic cotton; Triple bottom line.
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Table of contents
Executive summary 2
Table of contents 3
Contextualization 5
Fast fashion 5
H&M group 6
Sustainability 6
Supply chain 7
Sweatshops 7
I:CO 8
1. Introduction 9
1.1. Problem area 11
2. Conceptual framework 13
2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 13
2.1.1. Triple bottom line 15
3. Methodology 18
Research plan 18
3.1. Research philosophy 19
3.2. Research approach 21
3.3. Methodological choices 22
3.3.1. Research strategy 22
3.3.2. Project design 23
3.3.3. Time horizon 25
3.4. Data collection 26
3.4.1. Character of data 26
3.4.1.1. Narrative review 26
3.4.1.1.1. Consumer perspective 27
3.4.1.1.2. Society, world and companies perspective 28
3.4.2. Data collection methods 29
3.4.2.1. Secondary data 29
3.6. Delimitations, challenges and self-reflection 30
4. Analysis 30
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4.1. People 30
4.1.1. Employees 31
4.1.2. Code of Conduct 32
4.1.1.1. Wages 32
4.1.1.2. Working conditions 33
4.1.1.3. Feminism 35
4.1.3. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line 37
4.2. Planet 38
4.2.1. Environmental issues of H&M 38
4.2.1.1. Renewable energy 39
4.2.1.2. Consumption of Natural Resources 40
4.2.1.3. Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) 43
4.2.1.4. Waste Reduction 44
4.2.1.5. Recycled Amounts 46
4.2.1.6. Water Consumption 47
4.2.2. Reflection on CSR and Triple Bottom Line 48
4.3. Profit 49
4.3.1. Business model 50
4.3.2 Cost of Conscious Collection 50
4.3.3. Choose and reward responsible partners (Second Commitment) 52
4.3.4. I:CO - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle 54
4.3.5. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line 55
4.4. Final analysis 57
5.1. How is H&M disposing of responsibility towards people and the planet by
cooperating with 3rd party companies? 57
5.2. How is H&M utilizing the 3 R’s to gain sustainable image? 57
6. Discussion 58
7. Conclusion 61
8. Bibliography 63
Books: 63
Articles: 64
Journals: 64
Websites: 65
Reports: 70
Movie: 72
Thesis: 72
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Contextualization
Fast fashion
The “fast fashion” terminology embodies the longing of luxury clothing among people in the
industrialized age. Fast fashion clothing imitates high-end apparel, whilst keeping the price
low, thus maintaining its affordability (Joy et al., 2012). Because of this desire, its
unsustainable nature is being ignored. As the trends change every day, with each new design
challenging the next one, an additional factor is here to add, the inevitable disposability
(Ibid.). While the comparison with the standard usage of goods, being 6 months minimum,
the fast fashion consumer reduces this time to mere weeks before switching to a new one.
Furthermore, fast fashion companies utilize this model in a few steps: rapid prototyping,
small batches combined with a large variety, more efficient transportation and delivery
(Ibid.). W
ith the trends switching every week, a new phenomenon, mass exclusivity begins
(Ibid.). We can describe this as an event which happens due to the unfulfilled desire of
owning a luxury piece, thus buying apparel which is described to be luxurious and limited
fulfills it, while in fact, it is neither. Fast fashion offering new trends every third week or so,
offers not only clothes but also a fast identity change (Ibid.). Young people longing for an
affordable yet stylish piece create an opportunity for fast fashion to gratificate the evolving
temporary identity.
Moreover, when talking about price, lower labor costs lower the overall price of the
manufacturing itself, thus resulting in a higher quantity of goods (Ibid.). Increasing the
consumerism more than it is.
Fast fashion has been referred to as “McFashion,” because of its ability to provide immediate
pleasure (Ibid.).
H&M group
To begin with, the H&M group has been founded in 1947 by Erling Persson (About.hm.com,
n.d.)
. It has started as a small store for women’s clothing, which later on grew into a global
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fashion and design group. The company’s name was Hennes, meaning “Hers” in Swedish,
later being renamed to H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) as it stopped to focus only at female
clothing (Ibid.). The H&M group operates as the retail industry, with headquarters in
Stockholm, Sweden. The group owns several brands, the most known one is the H&M brand.
Except for the H&M brand, the H&M group owns Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday, COS,
& Other Stories, ARKET, H&M HOME and AFOUND (Ibid.). These brands offer new
trends every time, ranging from fashion, beauty, homeware to food. H&M group has been
working on an online integration of their physical stores through social media such as
Facebook, Instagram, and Google advertisement. Through these tools, they have been
operating by making a strong presence with their 8 brands. Their sustainability approach is
presented during the whole project, the basic idea of theirs is, to create a fully circular
approach and renewable energy (Ibid.).
Sustainability
Sustainability has its origin in forestry (Kuhlman and Farrington, 2010). Its meaning was to
never harvest more than what the forest could give. The word “Nachhaltigkeit” (the German
word for sustainability), has been used for the first time in 1713 as an upcoming problem
with the preservation of natural resources for the future generations (Ibid.).
The roots of sustainability also appear to be in a Brundtland Report of 1987 (Ibid.) which
later gave shape and form to the Triple Bottom line theory and the whole CSR approach. The
document is emphasizing the future of human wellbeing and thus the limitation of Earth’s
resources, and the appropriate division of them. This concept has been taken and
reconstructed into three viewpoints, namely environmental, social and economical (Ibid.).
The paper argues about sustainability’s older purpose, which was a conflict between
well-being and irreplaceable natural resources, to rather searching for a way how to balance
these two problematics.
Moving on, the term sustainability has become more and more popular among researchers as
a target of what public policies should act like (Ibid.). As it is operating with resources which
are transformed into goods, it is a natural topic for economists.
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Supply chain
When it comes to business, the supply chain is a system of all the factors involved in moving
a product or service from supplier to customer e.g. people, organization, resources (Rouse,
2013)
. The purpose of supply chains involves the transformation of the raw materials into
finished goods which are then moved to the consumer. The essence of a supply chain lies in
the connection of the demanding party and the supplier within and across companies (Ibid.).
Moreover, it is linking the business processes and functions creating a business model as we
know it. When the supply chain is taken to the advanced level, the system allows the recycled
factor to step in at any point. The supply chain simply connects value chains together (Ibid.).
Sweatshops
The concept of a sweatshop has originated in the 19th century, a sweater directed the rest of
the employees in the production under burdensome conditions (Encyclopedia Britannica,
n.d.)
. The terms “sweater” and “sweat system” were used in the work of Charles Kingsley's
Cheap Clothes and Nasty (Kingsley, 1850). In the 19th century, sweatshops attained heavy
criticisms such as highly crowded, poorly ventilated, prone to fires and rats (Encyclopedia
Britannica, n.d.).
The term “sweatshop” has been used for a workplace (usually within the fashion industry),
which has inhuman, poor conditions. By this, we mean a place where it is dangerous to work
at, a place where is a poor working environment or the workers are underpaid for the amount
of work they provide. Illegal activities such as child labor, minimum wage exploiting, etc.
might be happening as well.
Sweatshops became the main reason why safety regulations and working law has been
founded.
I:CO
I:CO is an extraordinary network in the textile industry as it has a system of reusing and
recycling of old shoes or apparel. This company makes an appealing entrance for cooperation
as it offers several benefits. Firstly, I:CO engages the consumers in a way they feel they can
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benefit, help and be a part of something bigger. Moreover, by I:CO’s take-back system I:CO
became a contributor to the waste reduction society (I:CO, n.d.). I:CO invests into innovation
by cooperating with SOEX and other institutes for new recycling methods (Ibid.). Their way
of catching customer’s eyes is to have a collecting box directly at the retailer’s store and the
next thing is to sort it out (manually) and categorize the quality of the material based on 350+
factors (Ibid.).
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1. Introduction
Mankind nowadays puts a great emphasis on the significance of a green lifestyle. 3 R’s -
Reducing, Reusing and Recycling - became 10 commandments of the 21st century
(Recycling Point, 2015). Power of the current global environmentalism movement helps to
improve the condition of the Earth and the environment every single day. Using renewable
energy, becoming “carbon neutral” or reduction of meat production are doubtlessly important
for saving our planet. However, fashion is defining our identity and its move forward to being
more eco-friendly and sustainable is inevitable to save our planet, because of the current
situation, which indicates that we are producing more than 150 billion garments annually
(Conca, 2015) while around 30% of clothes will never be sold (Rudenko, 2018). But if we
have such a giant production, you might wonder, what happens to those clothes? Well, 253
tons of textile are daily sent to landfill, which means that the fashion industry creates 92
millions tons of textile waste annually (Rudenko, 2018). Hence, there are more
environmental flaws caused by the apparel industry - the second largest industrial polluter
(Conca, 2015), one of the most significant is water consumption. The production of the
average pair of jeans takes 7 000 liters of water (Chung, 2016). Just one T-shirt costs 2 700
liters of water to make, which is an amount that a normal person would drink in 900 days
(Chung, 2016). However, the statistics are just to show the seriosity of the situation. On the
other hand, textile and clothing industry is an overwhelming mechanism, which needs human
force in order to exist, consequently, the industry gives a job to every sixth working person
worldwide (Sustainable Fashion Matterz, 2019). Even though the enormous and rapacious
industry employees millions of people, their conditions and wages greatly vary. While it is
generating tremendous profits for a couple of people as stakeholders and headquarters, the
factory workers in the developing world are paid very poorly (The True Cost, 2015). It all
started with a global outsourcing and global brands explosion of volume in orders, which
happened when factories were not prepared for it (EPRS - European Parliamentary Research
Service, 2014). The fast fashion is known for speed and that requires last-minute changes to
product design, product volume and placing orders at the short notice without accepting
increased costs and adjustments to delivery dates (Ibid.). The stress that it causes usually falls
on the factory workers because of the low prices and tight production timeframes required by
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the customers of garment producers, global brands (Ibid.). Consequently, this led to the
protests and strikes of workers in the countries, where production is the highest, like
Bangladesh, Cambodia or India (Ibid.). Their main achievement was a slight rise in the
minimum wage, which still remains far below a living wage (Ibid.). Low wages, working
conditions and unfollowed safety rules in sweatshops are the opposite of following human
and labor rights, which means that fast fashion is not able to become socially sustainable
while keeping their production standards, low costs and low prices (Ibid.). So how is it
possible that the business model that encompasses so many social and environmental
controversies still continues to flourish? Indisputably, the fast fashion principle of offering
trendy clothes, like the ones from catwalks, to people, who cannot afford to buy them from
luxurious brands, is simply irresistible. The business model of companies such as H&M,
Primark, Zara or Forever 21 is all proving that by focusing more on the masses instead of the
quality, the profits get giant. However, people are getting informed, interested and horrified
by this reality. Just 100% increase in a google search of the term “sustainable fashion” in
2017 stresses the interest of people in the change of the system (Sustainable Fashion Matterz,
2019)
. This caused interest of fast-fashion brands as well, that used awareness of this fact in
order to create their sustainable collections, e.g. Zara & Join Life Collection, Mango &
Committed Collection or H&M and Conscious Collection. Those collections aim to retain the
eco-friendly shopaholics and subsequently keep the brand’s profits in this $3 trillion global
industry (Conca, 2015). Regarding the reasons, the interest of fast-fashion brands in
environmental issues is certainly a step forward. The question is, should not we be concerned
and critical about the fast-fashion companies sustainability claims if they are still boosting the
production in order to get higher profits and therefore harm the environment?
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1.1. Problem area

Fast fashion is a business model generating low-cost affordable clothing collections based on
luxurious high-end trends (Joy et al., 2012). Even though the business embodies
unsustainability, its profitability is based on society’s desire for luxury fashion in the
industrialized world (Ibid.). Therefore, the formula of fast fashion is based on fast cycle:
rapid prototyping, fast production thanks to outsourcing from developing world, efficient
transportation and delivery and new merchandise that is weekly “floor ready” on hangers
with price tags (Ibid.). This system of outsourcing production from developing world is
beneficial for the economic side of fast fashion companies as well as for the development of
those countries by providing more job opportunities that can eventually lead to the rise of
living standards, higher wages and better working conditions (The True Cost, 2015)
.
Furthermore, lower manufacturing and labor costs result in affordability of goods what is
equal to a higher volume of production (Joy et al., 2012). Despite economic and social
benefits that fast fashion generates, it is also responsible for negative impacts that affects the
quality of the environment and human well-being, in a form of high levels of carbon
emissions, poor labor conditions, enormous water consumption, excessive waste, and
chemical usage that their unsustainable conduct causes (Han, Seo and Ko, 2016). Fortunately,
to address these concerns, some fashion companies are proceeding from fast fashion model to
sustainable fashion movement by applying sustainable business practices and manufacturing
sustainable products or products made from recycled materials (Ibid.). One exemplary
company that developed a sustainable collection from fast fashion model is H&M. Hennes &
Mauritz Group AB is a Swedish multinational retail company, the second largest clothing
retailer worldwide, that shows significantly more efforts than its main competitors in being
perceived as a sustainable and transparent company (Zellweger, 2017). The influence of the
company on the market is colossal because as one of the biggest players in the game, they
operate on 71 markets and own more than 5000 stores (H&M, 2018). With this influence, the
company is able to accomplish a change in the industry, where social and environmental
challenges are persisting since the birth of the fast fashion industry decades ago (Ibid.). Their
strategy of becoming a company known for being offering sustainable fashion instead of a
fast fashion includes a Conscious Collection, made from organic cotton and recycled
materials, offered in their biggest brand - H&M and their Reuse, Reduce and Recycle
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initiative can be found in different ways in all brands of H&M Group AB (Ibid.). Their
initiative can be seen in publishing extensive annual sustainability reports and presenting
some of the most known celebrities, like Gisele Bündchen, Madonna and David Beckham,
also known for their social and environmental activism, as the brand ambassadors (Zellweger,
2017). On the other side, H&M’s sustainability efforts can be also perceived as a tool to reach
more customers by using the simplification of the green movement message (Knight, 2013).
Consequently, questionable issues about the presentation of the sustainable fashion by the
company are valid, because their commercialization of sustainability might seem more as
their tendency to persuade, not just inform (Ibid.). The way that complex and comprehensive
environmental issues are communicated to the public through the limited and incomplete
vocabulary that H&M uses in their campaigns caught our attention in their relation to the
corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line that the company, according to their
Code of Conduct, should adhere. The first sub-question is thereupon connected to the way
that H&M company takes advantage of their sustainable campaigns:
How is H&M company utilizing the 3 R’s to gain sustainable image?
Like most of the other fast fashion companies, even H&M Group does not own factories on
their own but cooperate with 1,269 independent suppliers and their 2,383 factories employing
about 1.6 million people (H&M, 2018). This requires credible and reliable contracts with
suppliers mainly in the developing world, that are capable of keeping the social and
environmental standards as high as Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct: Sustainability
Commitment declares (Ibid.). The reliability on their suppliers is substantial, which provides
H&M Group with an ability to pull through incidents without taking the responsibility.
Hence, the second sub-question is related to the extent of the company’s ability to operate
with the responsibility towards nature and society:
How is H&M disposing of responsibility towards people and the planet by cooperating with
3rd party companies?
The two sub-questions are supposed to lead to the answer to the research question, which is
based on the two theories used in the project, corporate social responsibility, and triple
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bottom line. The theories are base for answering how profitable and sustainable business is
through answering 3 main aspects: economic, environmental and sociological performance of
a company. In this case, theories are used in order to answer how is H&M Group balancing
their sustainable fashion initiative while keeping high profitability, lowering effect on the
environment and providing growth for society:
How does H&M’s sustainable fashion strategy balance different aspects of the triple
bottom line CSR approach?
2. Conceptual framework
In this section, we will introduce two theories - corporate social responsibility (CSR) and
triple bottom line - to thoroughly comprehend our research question. Due to the question
formulation, picked theories will outline every firm’s obligations and its effect on specific
aspects, such as society, environment and the firm itself. First, with the help of CSR, we will
delineate 3 main business responsibilities while the triple bottom line will give a brief
explanation of 3P’s rule and responsibilities implementation to it.
2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
To comprehend our research question, we decided to investigate the firm’s corporate social
responsibility conceptions (CSR). At first glance, CSR might be seen as a firm’s method to
improve a business, however, it can also be understood as a theory, explaining how
surveillance or ignorance of being socially responsible can bring improvement or a
diminishment into corporation’s existence (Schmitz, 2012). In general, the notion of
corporate social responsibility was already studied during the second half of the 20th century.
One of the first scholars, who approached to define CSR was an American economist Milton
Friedman. In his concerns, the only one businessmen’ ‘social conscience’ is about increasing
profits (Friedman, 1970).
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‘’There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use its resources
and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within
the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition
without deception or fraud.’’(Ibid.).
However, a name for the theory was given by another American scholar and Grinnell college
president Howard Bowen. In the book, ‘Social Responsibilities of the Businessman’ B
owen’s
(1953) made assumptions connecting corporation responsibilities with the impact not only for
their own sake but to the society as well.
‘’(...) businessmen must acquire a strengthened sense of vocation. They must

accept the social implications (...). They must recognize that ultimately business
exists not for profits, for power or for personal aggrandizement, but to serve
society’’(Bowen, 1953).
Subsequently, professor Archie B. Carroll (1979) was seeking to explicitly distinguish CSR
into the smaller responsibility branches, which are still relevant nowadays: first, economic
responsibility was perceived as the most important one since business must be profitable to
provide a benefit for both themselves and the society; second, legal responsibility which
clarifies the significance of regulations (e.g. fair employment, safety, and health); third,
ethical responsibility which is concerned between being legally and socially correct; and
fourth, philanthropic responsibility which is bounded up with the liability regards to society's
needs.
Nonetheless, contemporary scholars keep improving an understanding of the CSR concept.

Now there are known three crucial theory’s parts: corporate social responsibility as an aspect
itself - basically with the same obligations formulated through decades; CSP is known as a
corporate social performance which can be ‘measured and evaluated’ (Husted, 2000).
Essentially, CSP seeks to evaluate the relation between the corporation’s social and financial
performances, i.e. it considers inputs, throughputs, and outputs (Ibid.); and benefits of CSR.
CSR itself represents a commitment to organizational stakeholders for obtaining the profit in
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an ethical manner with respect for individuals, community, as well as the natural setting
(Gligor et al. 2015) and therefore can bring several benefits, such as better firm’s image,
profitability, customers loyalty, etc. (Ibid.). Overall, all parts are linked to each other and
might be seen as one, however, particularity is crucial here to make the theory easier to
perceive.
Moving forward, this theory’s application plays a substantial role in our project since it
guides us into the H&M and its sustainability policies comprehension direction. Owning a
global clothing brand, it is very likely to face social and environmental sustainability
challenges (H&M, 2018). Our interest here is to observe how H&M maintains or at least
states about successful sustainability, respectful working environment, and conditions
maintenance. With the help of CSR concepts, we will be able to contemplate how the H&M
AB coordinate between following and executing responsibilities and maintaining a
prosperous firm's image. Moreover, we will be able to measure this firm’s social performance
and organizational effectiveness using CSP principles and lastly, to evaluate its benefits
through the outcome amounts and utility to individuals and society.
Consequently, our main goal is not to justify or convict H&M business strategy, rather to
subjectively evaluate it through both sides: the way it is presented by the firm itself and how
its reality is portrayed by other reliable researchers.
2.1.1. Triple bottom line

We want to approach our research question with the help of the triple bottom line as we find,
in our case, H&M’s concept relevant to this theory. We want to look deeper into whether or
not H&M’s interest is primarily based on profit, or if it is based on the social and
environmental aspect too, as they claim. This theory helps us to investigate deeper into the
issue.
The triple bottom line theory is a concept which looks beyond the traditional business bottom
line but rather includes three aspects which are the economic, environmental and
15
sociological. When using the Triple Bottom Line, it is easily shown how profitable and
sustainable the business is. These bottom lines consist of ‘social sustainability,environmental
sustainability, and economic sustainability’ which is also referred to as ‘three P’s - people,
planet, and profit’ (Wisconsin, 2019). P is for people which is social sustainability, a planet
which is the same as environmental sustainability and profit which also can be referred to as
economic sustainability (Ibid).
Also, the triple bottom line can be compared to the Brundtland Commission, which is briefly
about a concept that describes how sustainable development can be achieved. With the help
of Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Prime Minister in 1987 and the UN they explored the
reason behind environmental degradation, and thereafter tried to understand the connection
between economic growth, social equity, and environmental problems, and created a solution
that included all three aspects (Jarvie, 2016), just like the triple bottom line theory.
Social sustainability
The social sustainability is described as a way business earns profit by human capital, by also
including the business’ position in the local society. The increment of the social bottom line
happens to occur when having beneficial and fair labour throughout corporate involvement
from the community (Chamberlain, 2013). This theory looks into whether or not the company
benefits society. In our case, we will see whether or not employers get a fair wage and work
under human conditions. Companies that implement a triple bottom line, will benefit the
society because they make an effort to give back to society (Wisconsin, 2019).
Questions that could be asked when measuring social sustainability according to Chamberlain
would be for example if the business supports local initiatives, or if the business implements
fair hiring standards if the business gives back to the community and so on.
Environmental sustainability
The approach to the triple bottom line within sustainability argues, that the less natural
resources a business consumes, and the smaller impact a business has on the environment, the
more successful and longer a business will turn out (Chamberlain, 2013). When controlling
the environmental bottom line, the business has to manage, report and monitor the waste,
emissions, and consumptions (Ibid). Triple bottom companies will make sure that their
products are environmental-friendly, such as reduce waste, renewable energy, using
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renewable resources (Wisconsin, 2019). It is certainly possible to measure and report the
environmental bottom line, and the size of the business, of course, plays its role for making it
easier or more difficult since it is a time-consuming process. There is corporate sustainability
software that can help make the process easier and less expensive (Chamberlain, 2013). In
our project, we would like to focus on the amount of material that is and has been recycled,
the amount of water used to produced clothing, the water amount from local sources, and
lastly the quantity of greenhouse emissions (Chamberlain, 2013).
Economic sustainability
In the economic bottom line, the economic capital should be measured by the impact a
business has on the economic environment and not only by the traditional corporate capital
(Chamberlain, 2013). If a business has a strong economy, it will help the business in
continuing a successful future, in a sense that it contributes to the overall economic health for
the community and support networks (Ibid). Every company or business organization wants
to pursue surplus, however, the difference between with every other company and companies
that follow the triple bottom line theory, is that they see it as one part of the business plan
(Ibid). Companies that advocates sustainability claim that profit is not directly opposing
planet nor people, they feel as if these three subjects go hand in hand and can work well
together
(Wisconsin, 2019). However, the triple bottom line accounts for a business to earn a
traditional profit (Chamberlain, 2013).
Questions that can be asked for this approach according to Chamberlain (2013) is for
example whether or not the business help the local suppliers in business and help them to stay
innovative, or does it have a negative effect? Does the business pay employees for spending
and economic growth? And does your business choose materials and products that are good
in investment or does the business choose to buy cheaper materials that might end up being
an issue in other areas? And so forth.
We are, in this project, going to look at H&M group, however as the primary target the H&M
branch, through this theory to see the profit they are having, whether it decreases or increases,
though not so deep into this aspect. Nonetheless, we are going to look more in depth into this
theory at the environmental aspect, to see if there are improvements, whether it is recycling,
17
the amount of water used for clothing production, or something else. Lastly, we are going to
use this theory to answer the social questions, which can, for example, by outsourcing and the
working conditions for the employees, which can be whether or not they are getting fair
wages amongst other things.
3. Methodology
In this section, we will briefly introduce you to the structure of our project, including the
tools used and our reasoning behind them. These actions lead us to the decisions in this
project, thus they will be thoroughly explained.
Research plan
To illustrate the steps we have taken, we have decided to utilize the “onion” research
(Saunders et al., 2014) strategy, which has proven to be an effective approach to the
methodology section. In the consecutive chapters, we will ‘peel’ off the layers of our ‘onion’
explaining our reasoning behind the selection of choices and their possible impact on the
research.
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Figure 1. The ‘Onion’ (UKEssays.com, 2018)
3.1. Research philosophy

We take upon our study driven by the research question, as we make an inquiry on the
progressive sustainable personality of H&M. After the sustainability campaign which began
in 2015
(About.hm.com, n.d.) the earnings began to decrease over the years. Moreover, we
are here to analyze H&M’s sustainability goals and their execution. Analyzing the conflicting
discourse of ‘Conscious fashion’ policy as well as other aspects of this company. As we
perceive this as a real-life phenomenon, we take on the critical realism as the philosophical
and methodological approach to analyze and look beyond the H&M situation with the
endeavour to provide alternative solutions on our path to useful knowledge.
To begin with, critical realism came to be as a critique of positivism as well as hermeneutics

(Egholm, 2014). Moreover, it matured as a corrective to social constructivism (Ibid.). The
father of this approach is widely known, the name is Roy Bhaskar, along with him Margaret
Archer, Rom Harré, Tony Lawson and Andrew Sayer (Ibid.). Just like the structuralism,
critical realism emphasizes that the body of the science is divided into layers (Ibid.), the
surface and the depth, thus both shall be studied in this way. These layers reflect the
relationship between an individual and the structure. The individual continually interprets the
structures through his or her actions, which can potentially change them (Ibid.). Furthermore,
critical realism is portrayed as a methodological pluralism (Ibid.), we can interpret this as a
vivid usage of different kinds of sources in our research paper. To continue, critical realism
views the world as a layered space (Ibid.). Bhaskar (Ibid.) describes three levels, the first two
levels form intransitive dimension, i.e. what the world without any kind of analysis or
discussion is. We shall elaborate more on these layers by describing all of them separately.
The first level is the real level (Ibid.), the structures and mechanisms which create
phenomena. In our case, we see the H&M group as the structure which created an input of the
sustainability mechanisms which created phenomena. The second level is the actual level
(Ibid.), the actual layer represents the phenomena and events which were created by the first
level structures. The connection between the first and second level is very contextual. This
means that it can be described and explained, however, it cannot be used to predict the future
19
outcome e.g. the future phenomena or events (Ibid.). The last level is the transitive level, this
level describes the phenomena and events which we experience and observe (Ibid.). We
perceive this level as the epistemological part of our analysis. At this level, we develop our
theories and analyses under the light of our beliefs and perceptions. Withal this does not
mean there is not a real world, ( the first and second layer), we still must try to explain and
describe it.
Figure 2. Critical realism (Egholm, 2014)
The utilization of critical realism is significant for our study. Firstly, our research is not
concerned with the absolute truth, rather a “qualified guess” with the best explanation
derived from our inquiry about this phenomenon (Ibid.). To comprehend the situation in
which H&M finds itself, we must take into consideration the context of this company,
namely, the annual reports and annual sustainability reports, as well as the external influences
such as media. The primary paradox is the knowledge is highly dependent on people who
create structures, which is where the paradox begins as the scientific knowledge is
independent of the production knowledge (Ibid.). Based on this presumption, we are utilizing
the ontological realism, the objects which exist independently of the observer, and
epistemological subjectivity, which means the observation is always subjective (Ibid.).
3.2. Research approach

“Truth is not universal, therefore, but is related to - and therefore changes with - specific
situations.”
20
- Egholm, 2014
Interestingly, the concept of acquiring knowledge when it comes to critical realism comes
with a few implications. Critical realism introduces a reduction m
ethod, which is on equal
terms with Pierce’s abduction. For our project, the abductive method is more than suitable.
To begin with, the abductive method is also understood as a “qualified guess” (Pierce 1932 in
Egholm, 2014), as “qualified” refers to prior knowledge and experiences which permit us to
create hypotheses about the world, and “guess” presents us as seekers of new knowledge
which doesn’t follow strict logic (Egholm, 2014). This approach makes connections between
previous experiences and knowledge plus the phenomenon to understand different concepts
(Ibid.). Thus, the interesting thing about abduction is its determination to reveal new or
unknown phenomena. Taking on Pierce’s idea of abduction, we shall look at it as an extended
deduction and induction (Ibid.). Deduction being the progress from theory to result,
establishing observations. On the other hand, induction is the movement from result to
theory, in other words, we observe the reality and with our previous experiences develop a
probable theory. However, we do not pursue after a linear progression - from one part to
theory, rather, we build upon many hypotheses based on our gathered peer-reviewed
literature (Ibid.). All possible probabilities and theories are being tested again and again,
which resembles deduction. The deep layer cannot be directly observed, we have to assume
that there always is a deep level and a structure connected to it. Otherwise, we can build
hypotheses on other concepts and then test these hypotheses with the empirical data we have
(Ibid.). If these hypotheses prove to be usable, the underlying structure - hypothesis’ base - is
real and thus it exists (Ibid.).
3.3. Methodological choices

With critical realism as our approach, the data collection is importantly recommended to be
under the wing of methodological pluralism (Ibid.). Furthermore, it does not matter if the
knowledge is value-free, as it is based on the researcher’s interpretations and qualified
guesses (Ibid.). Researchers try to be always objective, however, bias is always present and
necessary, as we must evaluate and judge the relevant factual material so to speak the “facts
of the case” (Delanty and Strydom, 2003). In the next subsections we will present project
design, research strategy and data we believe to be credible and relevant for our research.
21
3.3.1. Research strategy

To begin with the research strategy section, we must realize there are a lot of research
strategies. Each choice made during the data collection or data analysis leads us to a specific
research strategy. As for our research strategy, we see the Yin case study research
methodology as the most fitting one. Based on Yin’s explanation of different strategies
during various situations, our research fits into the Case study field. This methodology
emphasizes the phenomenon of real-life context while its boundaries are merging with its
context
(Yin, 2003).
Figure 3. Yin strategies (Yin, 2003)
This type of research has been highly used in many fields, in many social observable
phenomena, and in our case, will be used to investigate the structure of H&M industry.
Moreover, with Yin case study, we will be enabled to maintain holistic characteristics of the
events. Whilst Yin case study characterises with three types, i.e. exploratory, descriptive and
explanatory (Yin, 2003),our project is noticeably fitting into the explanatory area. The reason
behind our thinking is the fact that, unlike the exploratory case study, our research required
data collection from 5 years, thus we can say if one is doing research with events happening
over time, the explanatory case study is the way to go (Yin, 2003). Whilst being able to
observe, we have absolutely no control over the contemporary phenomenon. Moreover, our
research focuses on the “How” rather than “What” or “How many”, which is one of the
requiring factors (Yin, 2003).
22
3.3.2. Project design

While looking at our choice of research strategy, when it comes to Yin case study five factors
are of significant importance (Yin, 2003).
1. Study question;
2. Its premises, if any;
3. Its unit(s) of analysis;
4. The logic connecting the data with the propositions;
5. The criteria for interpreting the findings.
23
Figure 4. Design
The movement of our notions is represented in the Figure 4, where the path to answering our
main inquiry is accompanied by two sub-questions, which are there to prevent us from going
astray from the topic. Furthermore, our inquiry will be analysed by two theoretical
frameworks. Firstly, CSR is there to serve as a broad tool to determine how H&M takes its
sustainability in terms of responsibility. Afterwards, we have introduced the Triple bottom
24
line as our specifical lens which works as a spine of our analysis. Hence, we have divided our
analysis into 3 parts, each part represents one feature of the Triple bottom line. Moving to the
methodology part, our research had started with a literature review at first. Based on several
pieces we have read, we were able to make several hypotheses which are thoroughly
explained in our Literature review section and further discussed in the Discussion. What’s
more, utilizing critical realism we could understand the perception of reality of various
subjects and comprehend the actual situation better. Everything is resolved in the Conclusion
where the final thought obtains its shape.
3.3.3. Time horizon

The resolve of our inquiry continues with the time horizon of the project. While observing the
H&M sustainable growth during its prime and now, we consider our research to be of a
longitudinal character. With an emphasis on our data collection which has been gathered
from the year 2012 up until 2018, we wanted to assemble the best variation for the
understanding improvement of various influences overtime. Bryman (2016, p. 57)
acknowledges the longitudinal design as better a layout for ambiguous influences. In our
case, our only observable is H&M group and their H&M branch during a longer period of
time. To elaborate on our time frame decision, the year 2012 has been a time of a significant
change in H&M with the implementation of sustainable policy. We have decided to extend
our reach up to the latest data we could collect and compare it with the changes since 2012.
25
Figure 5. Longitudinal design Triple P
3.4. Data collection

Our data collection section contains the most important information about our primary and
secondary datas. We have included the literature review as a character of data, data collection
method used along with primary and secondary layout and its credibility and validity.
3.4.1. Character of data

Before the start of the research, literature research is in demand. As research can prove to be a
time-consuming and onerous activity, a literature which has already gone through the
research of the same topic can give us an insight into the problematics and reward us with the
desired knowledge and tools used in order to finalize the new perspective on the matter
(Bryman 2016, p.6).
3.4.1.1. Narrative review
The idea of sustainability has become more and more popular over the years. Sustainability
has become our main objective to research as it has characteristics of innovation and
attraction in the eyes of the investors. Companies have become the leading powers towards
the changes of renewable energy, better environment, and equality towards their employees.
26
Fast fashion industry appears to be in a more difficult position as the demand for its goods
grew enormously (BBC News, 2018). In this way, you can notice a lot of fashion bloggers
and influencers raising awareness about the clothing industry and our over-consumption,
which leads to the damaged environment and injudicious utilization of planet’s resources
(Ibid.).
In the last decade, fast-fashion problematics became a popular academic discipline. Various
researchers focused on the subject from different perspectives. We could divide most of the
existing research into two groups.
3.4.1.1.1. Consumer perspective
In this kind of research, most analyses were done by surveys and interviews. One of the most
substantial studies we were inspired by is “Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical
Appeal of Luxury Brands” (Joy et al., 2012), which is also using interviews as a tool in their
research, where the focus group is primarily consisting of young adults, both male and female
customers of specific brands. T
his study, done by multiple researchers from Canada, USA
and Hong Kong in 2012, could be considered a bit old for such a young discipline, but we do
like the fact that their study examines the whole industry in two places - Canada and Hong
Kong before the boom of the fast-fashion sustainable collections. For the overview, this study
gives a basic distinction between Luxury Brands and Fast Fashion, explaining the logic
behind the success of fast fashion industry, while emphasizing the importance of
sustainability and CSR in the industry in order to keep its profitability. The result of this
study was interestingly showing how people perceive fashion industry and sustainability as
two different things, thus it is not a priority when shopping.
A bit different study about sustainable fashion was done by Henninger, Alevizou, and Oates

(2016) - “What is sustainable fashion?”, w
hich is qualitative research, utilizing a
multi-methods case study approach about the understandings of the term “sustainable
fashion” by micro-organisations, experts, and consumers in the UK. The result of their
inquiry has indicated that the interpretation of “sustainable fashion” is context and person
dependent (Ibid.). We consider it to be essential mainly for our own understanding of various
meanings of sustainable fashion.
27
3.4.1.1.2. Society, world and companies perspective
Another influential study for our research was “Refashioning the Green Movement: The
Commercialization of Consciousness through Greenspeak in Fashion Discourse”, w
hich is
exceptional in its focus on the greenspeak problematics (environmental discussions) in the
fashion industry, specifically brands websites, annual reports, and in-store communication.
This study of Knight (2013) also contains a vital discourse analysis of H&M and their claims
that is very relevant to our research of their current claims and their adherence. Her study
together with Arrigo (2012) and her “Corporate responsibility management in fast fashion
companies: the Gap Inc. case”, belong to the second group of research, which is much more
associated with analysing the problem area from the viewpoint of the whole society, world
and companies, regardless customers opinions. For our research, these works are supremely
significant, especially the study of Arrigo (2012), because her research question and design is
very alike to ours. Even though her case study examines another fast fashion brand, her use of
CSR in relation to the fast fashion sector and its sustainable development set a beneficial
example for our research.
Hence, based on our literature review and the knowledge gained through the first step of our
research process, we have made a few hypotheses which answer our main inquiry:
1. H&M uses Corporate Social Responsibility to create Conscious Collection and

partnership with I:CO to balance the triple bottom line, resulting in employee
attraction and motivation, keeping the power of their brand on the market, enhanced
consumer’s perception and securing profitability;
2. With H&M’s fast fashion business model, the brand balances the over-consumption
of their goods by investing in their recycling system, hence, creating more working
positions;
3. H&M balances different aspects of the triple bottom line by simplifying sustainability
in regards to fast fashion to consumers.
28
3.4.2. Data collection methods

During our research, data collection was a necessity. To begin with, our data collection
contains mainly documents which were not created at the request of any researcher, thus a bit
of an interpretative skill was needed in order to understand their meaning. Furthermore,
documents have their own kind of focus target, hence a time-consuming exploration was
needed in order to find the kind relevant data.
Our definition for documents is based on Bryman (2016, p.546) and his criteria. First of all,
the data needs to be readable. i.e. the document can range from a picture to a report.
Secondly, the documents were not publicized for research. During this time our interpretation
and further investigation of the data was needed. Lastly, the data needs to be relevant to the
research. As we have searched for the data a variety of sources were searched through, thus
our perception of the problem was the deciding factor of the data selection. The main source
of our data collection was the internet. Our data contain a massive portion of annual reports
and statements of H&M, this kind of information was of high importance to our case study of
this company and their brand. Moreover, data from the briefings of the European Parliament
and reports of the International labor organization were used in order to gain more variability.
Lastly, non-peer reviewed sources were used in order to explore new and old findings of the
brand.
3.4.2.1. Secondary data
Our project’s weight has been carried by the secondary data collection. It primarily composes
of the H&M statements, these data have been used to access the view from the company’s
side. However, the next data comes from websites which either brought arguable arguments
against H&M or rather a supportive attitude towards sustainability. Moreover, several articles
and journals had been used to compare the findings and clarify several objectives. Finally,
movies which composed of documentaries which served as a pillar of the fast fashion’s
model.
29
3.6. Delimitations, challenges and self-reflection

In this section of limitations, delimitations and self-criticism we’d like to elaborate on few
things which could be done differently, but we either decided not to or found it impossible to
access the information needed in order to provide such result.
Firstly, it is necessary to mention this project has been done without any contact with the
H&M Group AB. This happened due to the accessibility and the time-consuming factor of
this step. However, as the H&M is a public company all information should be present on the
internet, thus a direct contact might prove to be pointless. Moreover, as our project
time-frame continued, its shape became more and more constricted, so the dependence solely
on secondary data became our priority. Furthermore, firstly we had in mind to closely
observe H&M’s profits and thus their stock prices. However, we have encountered a massive
setback in the form of the H&M group stock market. This publicly accessible information
does not differ between the brand stock market and the company stock market, this results in
a not objective perception which we were not looking for, and in such manner, we could not
include such information in our research.
30
4. Analysis
Importantly, in our analysis section, we will take on several aspects of H&M. Divided by the
triple bottom line theoretical framework, People, Planet and Profit, each of these paragraphs
are divided into sub-paragraphs with an in-depth insight into the problematics. Hence, when
it comes to the analysis itself, we are utilizing the theoretical and methodological tools we
have chosen for our inquiry to be best understood, argued and answered.
4.1. People
This section will concern H&M implemented policies towards people and society. It will
consider both - the firm’s utterances and stated executions while providing the same
assertions perceived through the reality lenses. The main H&M business motive stands on a
notion to provide affordable and fashionable garments to everyone (H&M, 2018) thus, people
play a significant role in the enterprise - from consumers to employees - all together they
compose a successful firm's vision. However, managing such a huge business corporation
requires special attention to possible challenges regards to social sustainability (Ibid.). A
multitude of data was investigating the firm's social commitments and it asserted that not far
every allegiance was followed the way the enterprise stated it did.
4.1.1. Employees
The biggest Swedish retailer H&M perceives people as one of the most fundamental business
motives:
Affordable and fashionable garments to everyone! (H&M Sustainability Report,
2018) - words which H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson annually commemorate in every report.
Right now it is known that enterprise operates more than 170,000 workers globally (H&M
Annual Report, 2017), who are dispersed in around 5000 stores and their management (H&M
Annual Report, 2018). However, garments which appear to the shops whilst later on in our
closets are mainly produced from developing countries, that propose valuable working skills
and are recognized as greatly proficient, such as Bangladesh, China, and India (Ibid.)
Outsourcing to developing countries, as H&M entrepreneurs claim, enable to confer
numerous working positions and make refinements bounded up to working qualifications in
the textile industry as well as employees living conditions (H&M Annual Report, 2012).
31
‘International trade plays a crucial role in the development of countries since it

provides economic growth and helps to lift individuals and nations out of poverty.
H&M contributes to more than a million jobs’ (Ibid.).
Despite facts, found in the annual reports, many scholars have investigated the H&M
production outsourcing case to see if the firm really execute its obligations. Eventually, the
majority of H&M apparel factories workers earn approximately 39 takas (50 cents) per hour
(Stuart, 2019). The following sections will inquire about this topic to a greater extent.
4.1.2. Code of Conduct

H&M, like every other business corporation, has released a multitude of regulations,
precisely to their garment suppliers to fulfil enterprise commitments (H&M Code of Conduct,
2010). Moreover, regulations are based on internationally approved organization settings,
such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child and applicable ILO Conventions (Ibid.). Several crucial terms concerned about legal
requirements, child labor, fair wages, safe working environment, and etc are taken into
consideration.
4.1.1.1. Wages
H&M conceives the significance of respect towards employees - starting from fair wage,
rational amounts of working hours and the workers' consciousness and self-improvement
progress (Ibid.). Nevertheless, annual reports constantly emphasize equitable conduct towards
H&M group employees, apparently a plentiful of developed countries workers circumstances
are far from the given contentions. Initially, even though the Code of Conduct is addressed to
the supplier, H&M is outright responsible for factories where their apparel is made (Ibid.).
Regulations highlight the importance to pay a regular salary to every worker or pay at least a
minimum wage that would be enough to fulfil employees 'and their families daily needs
(Ibid.). Notwithstanding the foregoing, multiple researchers analyzed the wage rates in
different regions, where one of the main job proposition is to manufacture goods for H&M.
For instance, in Bulgaria Koush Moda factory, also known as H&M ‘gold supplier’ workers
32
notify that to get a statutory minimum wage, they are pressed to work 12 hours per day, 7
days per week and even though without an apparent confirmation that the amount of salary
will be accounted for (turnaroundhm.org, 2018). Important to note that in 2018 Confederation
of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria calculated that a fair wage amount to grant decent
living conditions is 1192 EUR. However, workers who working hours include overtime are
able to earn only 4 times less (around 260 EUR) (Ibid.). In a need to earn a minimum wage,
workers from Pameks Giyim factory, located in Turkey, have to work 23 overtime hours per
week, though they are expected to extend the amount to 45 hours. This is a harsh Turkish law
violation which invokes that 78 hours per month as a legal quantum (Ibid.). Overall,
researchers have found out that approximately only 3% of the retail prices are directed to
workers wage, thus, for example, if you will purchase a sweater, that costs 25 USD,
production workers will earn solely 0,75 cents (International Labor Organization, 2018).
Despite that, H&M seems to be conscious of wages ratios in manufacturing countries,
therefore arrangements with the governmental forces might be counted as a move forward to
change such a rigorous situation. In 2012 H&M's CEO met Bangladesh prime minister
Sheikh Hasina to execute increases and review annual wages in the textile industry (H&M
Annual Report, 2012). Thus no more evidence is provided that the meeting brought any
positive change.
4.1.1.2. Working conditions
As like as wages and working hours, the environment where production is being made
appears as another fundamental requirement to H&M suppliers. The Code of Conduct
demands that H&M business partners will ensure a safe working environment for every
employee. More specifically, buildings' safety has to be prioritized all the time. As H&M
state: ‘n
o hazardous equipment or unsafe buildings are accepted’ (H&M Code of Conduct,
2010). Delineation of the healthy and safe working place seems prominent as well - premises
have to be cleaned regularly and maintained well (Ibid.). Nevertheless, although H&M
provides an impression that regulations are followed thoroughly, there is always an urge to
improve to the safest level. One of the events which created awareness of possible dangers
was the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapse. The collapse, happened in 2013 and
killed 1129 textile industry workers, was named as the worst CSR crisis of Corporate History
33
(Corbera, n.d.). Well-known brands, like Mango, Primark and Benetton Group were the ones
which apparel was produced in the factory, yet the H&M group was either influenced since
according to the H&M group respondents (2015), the accident affects not only specific textile
brands but the whole Bangladeshi manufacturing. Poor building materials, irresponsible
building's expansion process, ignorance of overweight and hazards led to a massive disaster
with numerous victims (Corbera, n.d.). H&M acknowledged that proactive work towards
safer manufacture environment was proceeding even before the collapse, although
afterwards, the Accord with institutions like the International Labor Organization (ILO),
Bangladeshi trade unions, and the global unions (IndustriALL, UNI Global) was signed to
secure safe working place for every worker in a sustainable way (H&M Group, 2015). The
Accord included commitments, such as fire safety improvements and collapse gates exposure
(International Labor Rights Forum, et al. 2015). H&M reports that factories which do not
fulfill the Accord requirements, will not be available to continue supplying production (Ibid.).
In accordance with H&M self-assessment provided data (2015), 100% of their business
partners have followed basic safety compliances: implemented collapsible, rolling shutter,
sliding doors and locking features. However, current researchers came up with distinct
findings: 9 out of 54 H&M Group AB suppliers admitted that sliding doors and collapse gates
remain the same as were before the tragedy and two suppliers referred on at least one
lockable doors in the building that would shatter safe exit in case of fire (International Labor
Rights Forum, et al. 2015). Besides the fact that sweatshops are not guarded against possible
demolition, the usage of dangerous chemicals and dyes is not safe as well. In 2018, the H&M
Group released a Chemicals Restriction report, which served a list of colourants, chemicals,
solvents, and amounts of its consumption without harming the environment, putting
customers into the precarious circumstance and securing safety for the supply chain workers.
As known, the firm's policies bound to working with chemicals are one of the strictest in the
whole textile industry (H&M Annual Report, 2012). H&M demands that requirements would
be adhered to and implemented to every suppliers' manufactory. However, the International
Labor Organization's (ILO, 2018) made research, investigating working conditions in several
H&M suppliers' factories, revealed that due to poor ventilation systems, high temperature in
the building, as well as a high level of chemical substances, cause daily fainting incidents.
34
In 2017, the Cambodian National Social Security Fund identified 1,603 cases of
fainting across 22 factories, including H&M suppliers (International Labor
Organization, 2018).
Overall, conditions under which workers need to contribute, are far below that are expected
by the firm. Promotion of the regulations would be more felicitous and would proclaim
preferable concern as well as the consciousness of being responsible if it would be
implemented fairly.
4.1.1.3. Feminism
1,6 million people work in the textile industry, making garments to the H&M group, while
63% of them are women (H&M Annual Report, 2017). The 4th section of the Code of
Conduct outlines adjustment due to workers' rights. More precisely, it highlights that every
employee deserves to be treated under the human conditions, with respect and dignity (H&M
Code of Conduct, 2010). Any kind of discrimination on workers occupational or personal
traits (gender, race, ethnicity, disability, etc) is not allowed and not supported by the firm
(Ibid.). Unfortunately, thousands of women working in the textile industry in Asia face
gender-based violence. Physical violence, sexual harassment, assault and mental harming -
circumstances to which females from India, Cambodia, Bangladesh need to live up
(International Labor Organization, 2018).
‘Barriers to accountability—including unauthorized subcontracting, denial of

freedom of association, failure to require independent monitoring, and gendered
cultures of impunity among perpetrators of violence prevent women from seeking
accountability and relief’ (Ibid.).
Women are abused by their superiors and are afraid of revealing their working conditions.
While living in a poor economic country, the textile industry is usually the one which will
provide jobs for thousands, thus women have to maintain their spot. Moreover, supervisors
and managers frequently know their cooperative well enough to assemble information about
any employee talking about mistreatment or threat in the job, and can certainly fire them
(Ibid.). Moving on, when searching a word ‘feminism’ in relation to H&M, firstly a decent
35
amount of trendy black and white sweaters with a cue ‘Feminism: the radical notion that
women are people’ photos will appear. A cheap garment (less than 20 USD) - is used as not
only to awoke every individual self-esteem but to promote the firm’s perception of feminism
(Finster, 2015). A notion that you can expose yourself as a feminist through your style, and
most importantly, it does not require a huge budget, helps the enterprise to gain bigger
society’s support (Ibid.).
Figure 6. H
&M Kills Feminism (Greschkow, 2016).
The irony here lays after comprehension of how ignorance of huge gender-based issues
outweigh an establishment of the prosperous and sympathetic business view.
The ILO (2018) organized an initiative to analyze the H&M Group's suppliers and workers
environment, particularly female workers role, and, consequently, researchers interviewed
women from different regions, mainly in Asia, to share proficiency and daily occurrences.
Answers were kept anonymous due to workers' protection. Apparently, equality and respect -
a requirement that was not fulfilled. In sweatshops, women are hired through a 'manpower'
and usually are vulnerable to any kind of abuse (International Labor Organization, 2018). For
instance, young and unmarried girls are always targeted by supervisors: from late night calls,
unasked touches during the work to promises about promotion if the girl agrees to go out with
her manager (Ibid.). In contrast, older women are not treated in a nice way and usually
receive more unbidden violence. A woman from H&M suppliers’ factory in India narrated
about the abuse she received for being elder and widow:
36
‘My supervisor came to my workspace at 5:30 pm. He told me to get up from the
chair and not to come to work from the next day onwards. “Go and die at home,”
he shouted. Another staff member joined in and asked, “Why do you come to work
if you are so old?” (Ibid.).
Being pregnant and keeping the same job position is certainly inconceivable. Pregnant
women are fired with an opportunity to come back, however, the old job contracts are not
valid anymore which affect their seniority - it is not valid either. Regarding this, many
women risk terminating pregnancies to maintain a job (Ibid.). Indeed, empowering women,
these days, is not only a trend but importance. With the feminist illustrations printed T-shirt is
one of the groovy tools, helping girls to express themselves and demonstrate their support
towards other females (Finster, 2015) but, surely, the company's indifference to women,
working on the T-shirt production process, once again approves that the image is valued more
than responsibility regards employees.
4.1.3. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line

According to the chosen concepts, people perform a significant role in social sustainability
management. One of the triple bottom line branches, analyzing social sustainability,
straightforward delineate firm’s responsibility to benefit society; and CSR, which occurs in a
more complex way - when analyzing firm’s social performance and weighing results of being
responsible. In this case, the H&M group claims about social sustainability seem as very
superficial. No doubts that the company is aware of challenges since they are not
manufacturing production by themselves, rather produce clothes through a supply chain from
developing countries, and this does not allow them to manage manufacture directly.
Thereupon, regulations, to retain basic requirements concerned with human rights, working
conditions, and wages, have been released. In accordance with the CSR and triple bottom
line, companies need to act ethically, feel empathy towards others' needs and bring the best
outcome to society. When considering H&M business strategy, which stems from the
perception that fashion does not have to be expensive and it should be available to everyone
(H&M Annual Report, 2018), an intention to benefit customers is visible. In contrast, another
branch of the community - supply chain employees cannot conceive appropriate conduct
from the firm. And, indeed, we would not be able to declare that H&M does not deliberate
37
any of the events befallen in sweatshops. The H&M group provides millions of working
positions and by this, they help low-economy countries slowly step forward out of poverty.
Nevertheless, working conditions, including wages and the manufacturers conduct towards
ordinary workers, appear as a tremendous issue that that goes opposite than CSR's claims. A
set of regulations, i.e. the Code of Conduct should be comprehended as a mean to maintain an
ethical working environment and, simultaneously, ameliorate the firm's image, perceived by
the other side of society - supply chain employees. Generally talking, to uphold consonant
social sustainability is a delicate procedure and the firm has acknowledged that, however, an
effort that was put into improvement was more theoretical rather than realistic - it is little or
no evidence at all that long-term changes, frequently iterated in the H&M Group's reports,
were executed or made any significant alteration in a matter of society-based concerns.
4.2. Planet
The Triple bottom line theory as stated by Chamberlain is the theoretical background for our
whole analysis and this part of the analysis is concerned with the environmental aspect of the
theory. This includes looking into environmentally friendly products, reduction of waste,
renewable energy and monitoring and reporting the waste emissions and consumptions.
As background information, it is important to notice that according to different sources the

production of textile is the second largest water polluting industry (Anguelov, 2016). Also,
the production of organic cotton is far more water polluting because of the process of turning
traditional cotton into organic needs more freshwater to make since it takes approximately
10000 liters of water to produce 1kg of organic cotton, which is around 2700 liters to create
one t-shirt (The World Counts, 2019). This fact leaves that even though cotton is organic, it is
somehow still damaging in a sense that it needs more water for production (Bin, 2017).
Sustainable clothing can be challenging due to the geographically and dual pressure of cost
and time. The process of finished garments out of raw materials has a negative effect on the
environmental aspect and social implications such as water and air pollution, and also
exploitation of human resources, especially the places where production is outsourced due to
lower labor cost (Shen, 2014).
38
4.2.1. Environmental issues of H&M

Since 2014 the global textile production exceeded 30 million tons a year, thus various
researches had been made to search through the causes of this phenomenon (H&M Annual
report, 2014).
Bin Shen has made research on H&M at Donghua University in 2014, where he discovered
that the global textile consumption is more than 30 million tons a year (Shen, 2014).
Sustainability is essential for the fashion industry because it will prevent harm to the
environment. H&M has a sustainability program called “conscious action” which is a
program that focuses on more job opportunities in the developing countries, more recyclable
materials in the clothing production and consumers being more ethical (H&M, 2018). The
result should be a more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable market and
chain supply. As far as the environmental aspect is concerned the recycled clothing will not
end up harming the earth, because it will not produce greenhouse gas emissions, conserves
energy, and saves landfill spaces (Planetaid.org, 2016).
4.2.1.1. Renewable energy
H&M has a wide range of sustainability work which includes use of renewable energy, water
management, increased energy efficiency in stores, and also offering customers in selected
stores, globally, to hand in old garments for reuse (H&M Annual report 2012) as seen in the
different annual reports throughout the years. Like many other businesses, H&M has set a
range of goals for their business. When it comes to energy, H&M had back in 2012 set a goal
for reduction of energy consumption by 20% per square meter by the year 2020 (Ibid).
In 2013, H&M 18 percent of its electricity consumption came from renewable sources. In the
following year, a clear increase had occurred since 27 percent of their electricity consumption
were from renewable resources (H&M Annual Report, 2013). However, it was not enough
with renewable sources due to a decrease that had occurred between the years 2007-2014 by
14 percent. That was due to big screens in stores, to give the customers a better shopping
experience (H&M Annual Report, 2014). This indicates that H&M has been honest telling
about the fact that they decreased, but after that, they, in this case, it seems as if they want
39
more profit, than actually caring about the electricity consumption. That is seen due to the
fact that they have installed big LED screens for better shopping experience for the customers
that shows models walking on a catwalk with fashionable clothing (Ibid). This leaves the
conclusion that H&M want their customers to desire the clothing and therefore buying them,
which makes H&Ms profit to increase. Speaking of increase of renewable sources of
electricity, in 2015, H&M had 78 percent renewable electricity (H&M Annual Report, 2015),
and by 2016 they used a whole number of 96% of renewable electricity (H&M Annual
Report, 2016). Renewable energy has its potential side effects and therefore can cause
problems sometimes. It depends on specific weather conditions which therefore can affect the
constant energy supply (Solarschools.net,2018). It can be the fact that hydro generators need
rain to function, the wind turbines need wind, and the solar panels need sun so the heat can
generate electricity (Ibid.). Another disadvantage of this system is that it is difficult to
produce the same amount of energy as the traditional produced fossil fuel generator (Ibid.).
One may think they are after the profit and demand its increase by putting up big screens but
in fact, their energy sources have risen during the 2 years to 96%. It might indicate that their
electricity bill has raised, but thanks to the usage of bigger turbines, they have more
convenient access to this amount of energy now. Since 2016 there have been no new numbers
signifying increase or decrease, however, the last accessible data outlines progress. There is
no new research about this matter from the year 2016 till now. The reason might be because
of improvement or the opposite. Also, there has not been a sudden decrease throughout the
given years of that could indicate that H&M is going in the wrong direction. Consequently, if
they keep using different kinds of renewable energy that suits different kinds of weather
condition, they will succeed in their improvement.
4.2.1.2. Consumption of Natural Resources
The information given to us by Textile Exchange data shows that since 2010, H&M has been
the largest consumer of organic cotton (H&M Annual Report, 2012). As mentioned earlier,
organic cotton is far more polluting than traditional cotton due to the significant usage of
freshwater. H&M is, therefore, trying to do something about this issue, due to the fact, that
their goal by 2020 is to produce garments with more sustainable cotton (Ibid.). There has
40
been an improvement since the usage of sustainable cotton increased from 7.6 percent to 11.4
percent by the year 2012 (Ibid.). Also, the improvement of cotton from sustainable sources is
shown by the fact that it increased from being 11.4 percent in 2012 to be 31% by the year
2015 (H&M Annual Report, 2015). The closer they get to the year of 2020, the more
improvement by using sustainable cotton they are getting as they have promised they will.
The improvements continue to go on as seen in 2016. Whereby 2016, the sustainable sources
made 43 percent of H&M groups’ total cotton use, which is an improvement of double
volume since the year 2014 (H&M Annual Report, 2016). However, according to Textile
Exchange, H&M is the biggest organic cotton consumer since 2014 (H&M Annual Report,
2014). Thereafter, sustainable sources of total cotton use went from being 43 percent in 2016
to 59 percent in 2017 (H&M Annual Report, 2017). H&M’s aim is to be 100% by 2020,
which is becoming a reality since they reached sustainable cotton in their assortment by 95 in
2018, which is a terrific increase from 2017 when organic cotton only formed 59% of their
cotton clothing production (H&M Annual Report, 2018). By continuation of this way, H&M
can actually prove a possible change of the usage of unsustainable materials to sustainable
ones in fast fashion.
H&M has the strictest chemical restrictions in the industry (H&M Annual Report 2012).
Therefore, another goal for 2020 is that there will be no chemicals in the production process.
Since they are working closely with other apparel industries to eliminate that issue in
manufacturing (Ibid). In 2015, it was only possible for H&M to recycle 20 percent of textile
fibers into new clothing without ruining the quality of the garments because of no new
methods that could be used to recycle without doing damage to the quality of the clothes
(H&M Annual Report, 2015). H&M had an idea of replacing mechanical recycling by
chemical recycling, which would make the easier process of mixing recycled fibers into the
clothing (Ibid). Therefore, H&M collaborated with various experts and innovators to find a
new technology that would help to solve this issue (Ibid). In 2015, H&M made a
collaboration with Hong Kong Research Institute of Textile and Apparel to find new
techniques within four years to recycle clothes made out of mixed fibers (Ibid). It succeeded
AB by the year of 2017 H&M and Hong Kong Research Institute of Textile and Apparel
(HKRITA) found a new way to separate and recycle textile blends (H&M Annual Report
2017). The new method included a hydrothermal chemical process, which allowed new
41
material to be made out of blend materials (Ibid). Because of some failed chemical tests, or
any other issues during transportation, for example, in 2018, 0.052 percent of the total
product assortment was ruined because of mold (H&M Annual Report 2018). As what it
seems like now, there is an improvement of H&M’s chemical banishment goals, but their
product assortment needs to go through all chemical test, even though the percentage of 0.052
is not directed in a negative path.
Electricity consumption decreased from 2007 to 2016 by 8% (H&M Annual Report 2016). In
fact, electricity consumption per square meter in H&M stores decreased by 14 percent
between 2007 and 2013 which is a good starting point (H&M Annual Report 2013). Also,
there has been a decrease in electricity consumption by 12% between the year 2007 and 2014
(H&M Annual Report 2014). The reason behind the fact that the consumption did not fall as
quickly is due to LED mood lighting and video screens in store to give the customers
inspiring shopping experience (Ibid). Thereupon, it affected the sales, since in 2014 an
average person bought around 60 percent more clothing than the customer in 2000, while
only wearing half as much (Boggon, 2019). In 2015, the decrease of electricity consumption
between the years of 2007 to 2015 was 8 percent, which is lower than the previous, due to the
fact that H&M added more video screen in the stores (H&M Annual Report 2015).
Nonetheless, it is still an improvement, and H&M is going the right direction following both
the new technology and keeping up with holding down the electricity consumption.
Natural Resources Defense Council's director of health program, Linda Greer, stated in an
interview with Quartz that she has had a time when she worked with H&M regarding
cleaning up the process of dyeing textile because it is an intensive process (Bain, 2015). She
gives H&M credits and applaud them for their efforts in recycling and reusing resources.
However, she admits that there is an inconsistency between its goals and its practices since
selling a huge amount of garments and trying to be sustainable is a controversy (Ibid). The
core problem is, that fast fashion companies and their business models do not go hand in
hand, and is not changing anytime soon according to Bain (2015).
Also according to Boggon (2019), when having fast fashion businesses you will need
factories that can produce a huge amount of clothing rapidly all the time. Therefore, when
having these factories, there will automatically appear consumption of electricity, because of
42
machinery that needs to run such as air pumps, and sewing machines (Ibid). Also, an
extensive amount of heat is needed for clothes washing, drying and dyeing. Most of these
factories, therefore, need coal for energy production so all the thing can run properly (Ibid)
4.2.1.3. Sustainable consumption and production (SCP)
When it comes to sustainable consumption and production, we have to think whether the
Earth's resources are accordingly. SCP is enormously crucial as humans exceed these norms
most of the time (Lama, n.d.). We can label these as goods which have minimal impact on
the environment but are still viable worldwide while meeting the basic needs of humans.
H&M view on this issue is the fact that the greatest challenge globally is climate change, thus
H&M is trying to do their best to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from their own
operations (About.hm.com,2018). Nevertheless, there is unavoidable emission in H&M's
supply chain even though they are focusing hard on renewable energy and energy efficiency
(Ibid). The definition of unavoidable emission is the greenhouse gas emission that remains
after a concentrated increase in energy efficiency and renewable energy, that could include
fossil-based emission that occurs at a household when for example a customer washes their
clothing (Ibid). In 2013, H&Ms greenhouse gasses went up to 356,000 tons. However, there
has been a reduction of greenhouse gasses from the year 2014, which was 342,000 tons,
compared to 356000 tons by the year 2013 (H&M Annual Report, 2014). In 2015, the
company had 56% fewer greenhouse emissions since the previous year (H&M Annual Report
2015). Mainly thanks to the switching to renewable electricity, emissions were cut down to
151,753 tons from 341,651 tons in 2015 (Ibid). In 2018, H&M reduced yet another emission
from their operation, which is CO2 by 11% (H&M Annual Report, 2018). This indicates that
H&M is on the right path for their goal to try to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, which is
seen year by year. H&M wants to reach climate positive value chain by the year 2040
(About.h&m.com, 2018), which gives them plenty of time to achieve their goal, if they
continue to try to solve this issue.
However, there is an issue H&M has not stated. It has been proven that other materials fast
43
fashion companies use in their garments release greenhouse gas emissions like synthetic
polymers, that are manufactured and not grown like cotton (Boggon, 2019). Nylon is an
example, and this material releases a greenhouse gas that is nitrous oxide and is 300 times
more intense that carbon dioxide (Ibid). The production of polyester, however, emits around
1.5 trillion pounds of greenhouse gasses annually (Beeler, 2017). In addition to these facts,
when nylon and polyester get in the washing machine they break down in a form of
microplastics, which will get in our water systems, and are slowly getting into our food as
well (Boggon, 2019).
Since fast fashion is a rapid production of clothing that has to be the latest trend, it is a matter
of course, that they need factories. The issue with the factories is the fact that they are
massive energy consumers and therefore emits greenhouse gases (Ibid). Nonetheless, when
shipping the clothes, the majority of the time it happens by ship and therefore emits CO2
(Ibid). Another fact about ships pollution is that they burn bunker fuel, and compared to
regular vehicle fuel, it contains 1800 times more sulfur (Ibid). This goes against the
environmental aspects of the theories. In CSR, one of the many things in the environmental
aspect is stated that a company has to set environmental policies within the company to be
more environmentally friendly, and so they can achieve their goals (Meliton, 2009). As we
know by now, H&M is all about sustainability, and therefore also under greenhouse gas
emission (about.hm.com, 2019). In this matter, it seems like H&M is hiding some
information in their annual report, which also goes against another part of the CSR,
environmental disclosure (Meliton, 2009), which is about a company being reliable and
giving out their annual report with genuine facts.
4.2.1.4. Waste Reduction
“Towards a sustainable future” (about.hm.com, n.d.)
During our research, we have noted how H&M looks at their problems, including the waste
amount caused by the enormous consumption.
44
Figure 8. Recycling (about.hm.com, n.d.)
The willpower has led H&M towards recycling programs of several sorts. The first step has
begun with garment collecting (about.hm.com, n.d.). The purpose of the garment program is
to take your old clothes and use them in order to create new clothes (Ibid.). This program
rewards the customer with a voucher which can be redeemed at any H&M store. This model
will be further elaborated on in the Profit section, as well as the recycling in the Recycled
section. H&M shows their support in other ways, in forms such as, supporting other
companies i.e. re:newcell, which recycles cotton and viscose and forms new fibers
(RE:newcell.com, n.d.). Their bewitching doesn’t end there. The surplus H&M group makes
goes into recycling research and support of marginalized groups(about.hm.com, n.d.).
H&M in 2012 Collaborated with World Wide Fund (WFF) and signed a three-year
partnership with the hope to contribute to responsible usage of water in every aspect of the
product life cycle (H&M Annual Report, 2012). World Wide Fund is an organization, whose
purpose is to have a future where people can live with the nature in harmony by stopping
ruining the planets natural environment (Wwfadria.org., 2018). In 2015 WWF and H&M
began a five-year global partnership that builds on the earlier water stewardship (H&M
Annual Report 2015). At that time, they had improved the corporation by including climate
action and strategic dialogue on sustainability challenges in the industry of fashion, such as
45
future materials and circularity (Ibid). According to Cotton different (2018), by the year
2017, H&M has set a goal, that by 2030, 100% of their materials should be sustainable. In
that way, they will reduce waste. If they keep to corporate with other businesses or
organization that advocates waste reduction and sustainability, the brand has a possibility to
reach their goals by 2030, which in fact, is in a long time from now on, and new technologies
might appear by then (H&M Annual Report, 2017). An example of it was when H&M found
a solution with the help of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textile and Apparel for a
way to separate and recycle textile blends.
4.2.1.5. Recycled Amounts
H&M cares immersively about recycling, and that is seen by the fact that they were the first
in the world to offer clothes collection globally for recycling (H&M Annual Report 2012).
That has become one of the reasons why H&M in 2014 accepted garments in any condition
for recycling worldwide resulted in an increased garment collecting and therefore H&M
collected 7,684 tons used clothes that year (H&M Annual Report 2014). The following year,
2015, 12,341 tons of clothing were collected for recycling and reuse, which is 4663 tons more
than the previous year (H&M Annual Report 2015). This fact indicates that people are
handing in more used clothes for reuse and recycle program. The following year, 2016,
appears to be another increase of clothes handed into H&M because 15,888 tons were
collected that year (H&M Annual Report 2016). In 2017, 17,771 tons of clothing were
collected for reuse and recycle so the improvement is clear to notice (H&M Annual Report
2017). Since 95% of the cotton by H&M group is sustainable or recycled (Ibid), they
encourage everyone to hand in their old garments to increase the percentage and therefore
achieve their goals by 2020. When they hand in their old garments, H&M will give a voucher
to the ones that do it as a reward.
However, according to Siegle, who wrote an article in The Guardian about this issue,
observed that it takes 12 years to recycle 1000 tons clothing, with the current technology we
have nowadays for textile fiber, which is the same amount H&M sells within 48 hours (Siegle
2016). Taking the fact, that customers get a voucher every time they hand in garments, will
leave this in a clothing cycle. People will buy more with a voucher and leave more
consumption.
46
Yet, looking at this issue and H&Ms goal, it looks like they are likely to find a solution for
solving this problem since they are improving a lot in order to become a sustainable brand.
4.2.1.6. Water Consumption
Back in 2012, H&M made a Water beach collection to raise funds for people to get access to
clean water (H&M Annual Report, 2012). 25 percent of sales went to WaterAid’s water and
sanitary projects in Asia (Ibid.). In the same year, H&M made a partnership for the following
three years with to help and contribute water use in a responsible way in the product life
cycle (Ibid.). The fundraising seemed to have had an impact due to the following year, 2013,
H&M has helped around 230,000 people gain access to clean water, due to the fact that 25%
of H&Ms annual sales for Water collection has contributed to WaterAid’s water and projects
(H&M Annual Report, 2013). According to the theory CSR, a firm's way to be socially
responsible is a way for a company to either improve or diminish (Schmitz, 2012). In this
case, it seems like H&M has done a great job in improving their business by being socially
responsible, by fundraising 25% of their water collection sales, to give people access to clean
water. However, some researcher has found, that H&M, among other global brands, have
been buying viscose form water polluting factories. Viscose is a fiber that is plant-based, and
therefore consumers think that it is somehow beneficial for the environment (Champman,
2017). However, this fiber undergoes a chemical process before it produces and therefore is
damaging (Ibid.). This leaves, that factories that produce viscose, dump untreated wastewater
in the lakes and water supplies, and leave locals to drink the polluted water. This polluted
water is
carcinogenic and toxic, which lead to investigators forbidden locals to swim at the
lake (Ibid.). The polluted water also leads to fish and shrimps at the lake to die, turned black,
and locals that drank the water got cancer or were born with birth deformities (Ibid.). This
issue will only get worse if the garment factories using the viscose is not treating this
themselves (Ibid.). H&M addresses that they are trying to improve water consumption, also
by raising 25% of their water collection sales. Unmentioned part in their reports is that
production of dyed clothes results in pollution of water that is beyond dangerous to be around
in the developing countries (Schmitz, 2012). H&M’s social responsibility might therefore be
seen as ignorant and leads to a degradation of the company image (Ibid.). Also according to
CSR, they do not follow the environmental policies given in H&M to be more sustainable
(Meliton, 2009), nor are they following their environmental disclosure (Ibid) about them
47
being honest in their annual reports since they leave out the fact that they use the material that
harms people.
H&M also managed to produce Conscious Denim collection jeans with less water use, around
56% water saving. The labels were designed to inspire people to save energy and water
thanks to the partnership with WWF as explained further in the previous section “ Waste
Reduction” (H&M Annual Report, 2012).
4.2.2. Reflection on CSR and Triple Bottom Line

It’s clear that H&M has been aware of the same challenges that are addressed in the Triple
bottom line model. Where the most important challenges covered are ‘renewable energy’,
‘consumption of natural resources’, ‘sustainable consumption and production’, ‘waste
reduction’, ‘recycled amounts’ and ‘water consumption’.
If looking into the chosen theories, the importance of the environmental aspect is noticeable,
especially in evaluating relation to the CSR theory, where one must take water and energy
usage, and climate change into consideration (Meliton, 2009). Also, the environmental CSR
has its effect on different levels of corporate structures, which can be environmental
disclosure, which is described as the company displaying their improvements (Ibid). In that
matter, H&M has done its job by presenting their annual reports. Also, they are being honest
in their report when showing a decrease in some of the matters. However, looking throughout
the analysis, it is visible that H&M hides some issue like the viscose material that is polluting
(Champman, 2017), or the fact that organic cotton is far more water consuming. Also, they
forget to mention in their reports that it takes approximately 12 years to recycle 1000 tons of
garments (Siegel, 2012), or that when being a fast fashion company, it will lead to more
factories, and therefore more electricity consumption and emission of greenhouse gasses
(Ibid). The environmental policy, which is an aspect within CSR (Ibid) is described as
environmental policies within the company, that is a part of a company's policies for a reason,
and that is to achieve certain goals (Ibid). In that case, H&M has a lot of policies they have
implemented to achieve their goals, which include the chemical restrictions and material ethic
policies. They have improved a lot according to their annual reports, but not according
48
Chapman, who is arguing against fast fashion and their usage of the material called viscose
that is not ethical nor non-chemical. Lastly, environmental performance is described as a
certain key number that determines whether the goals of the company are set or not (Ibid).
It can be difficult to be sure about the actual environmental impact, because it is challenging
to measure the effectiveness of the environmental initiative whether locally or nationally
speaking, especially with no standard scale to measure the impact on (Ibid). However, by the
numbers given in the annual report, improvements are clearly visible in the majority of the
aspects, which lead to H&M becoming 100% sustainable in the usage of only sustainable
materials by the year 2030. However, they miss out on putting any number about how much
they pollute, in for example lakes, that affects locals and their water systems.
It is important to be aware of the complexity in this area. We have discovered that adjusting
one of the aspects do not necessarily result in a more environmentally friendly approach.
Therefore, a whole system of actions is needed in different aspects, from the environmental
part of the triple bottom line model, to accomplish an environmentally friendly change.
4.3. Profit
When looking at a profit from the Triple bottom line standpoint, besides rising the stocks,
profit needs to be taken as an empowerment of the community as a whole. Thus, the main
focus is on continuously growing sustainability and profitability at the same time
(Chamberlain, 2013). On the other hand, when talking about what can decrease sustainable
advancement, we can interpret it as a lack of resources or a poorly prepared sustainability
plan.
4.3.1. Business model

Since the store’s opening in 1947, the company’s main idea has been to always surpass the
customer’s expectations by delivering quality and fashionable clothes while keeping the price
real (about.hm.com, 2012, p.5). Their business concept is built on offering a wide range of
clothes with H&M always being the more sustainable choice (Ibid.). By becoming the
49
sustainable actor, H&M does not own any factories but instead utilizes the offering of other
independent suppliers (Ibid.). Their influence ranges from in-house design, no middlemen,
large purchasing volumes, to the logistics and sustainable consciousness (Ibid.). Moreover,
the addition to their model is an expansion of their branches which is required to be 10-15
percent every year with an increase of sales in other units (Ibid.).
4.3.2 Cost of Conscious Collection

An average household spends about 5% of expenses on clothes and footwear in the area of
the European Union (EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2019). Which means
that back in 2015, 6.4 million tonnes of new clothing was bought just by EU citizens (Ibid.).
Economically speaking, according to the EEA report, the prices of clothing increased by 3%
between 1996 and 2012, while consumer prices rose by about 60% in the same period (Ibid.).
This accessibility of clothes caused the increase in clothes bought by a person by about 40%
between 1996 and 2012 (Ibid.). Consequently, the business industry that would take
advantage of this increase in consumption was developed (Ibid.). The industry based on
multinational retail chains, relying on mass production, low prices and large volumes of sales
or so-called fast fashion. Due to the rise and success of fast fashion, European apparel
companies has gone from producing 2 collections per year in 2000 to five in 2011 (Ibid.).
Nowadays, for instance, Spanish company Zara offers 24 new clothing collections each year
and H&M produces between 12 and 16 new collections annually (Ibid.). So those “nearly
disposable” clothes that fast fashion brands produce are thrown away after wearing them for
only seven to eight times (Ibid.). This creates a complex lasting system for the companies to
produce new collections and keep a secured profit.
On the other hand, there are plenty of environmental issues, like 79 billion cubic meters of
water consumption, 1 715 million tons of CO2 emissions and 92 million tons of waste, that
this system caused in 2015 globally (Ibid.). Hence, if this unaltered business scenario will
continue, these numbers could increase by at least 50% by 2030 (Ibid.). Fortunately, H&M is
aware of it and developed a business strategy to improve the current situation and influence
possible future. Some of their goals are also targeted to the year 2030 and include using
100% recycled or other sustainability sourced materials, reduce electricity intensity used in
stores by 25% as well as use only packaging material from recycled or other sustainably
sourced material (H&M Group Annual Report 2018, 2018). The peak of sustainable fashion
50
in H&M Group AB is a sustainable fashion Conscious Collection introduced in H&M stores,
for the 10th time in spring 2019. The collection is made not only to combine fashion and
quality for a good price, but it is made to bring sustainability and affordability as a package of
the future of the fast fashion (H&M Conscious Collection, 2019). According to H&M, all
Conscious collections are made from sustainably sourced materials and/or with sustainable
methods (Ibid.). In 2018, H&M states that the use of sustainable materials is 57 percent,
while 95% of their cotton products are made from organic cotton (Ibid.) Whether or not the
used materials are actually from recycled or organic materials can be questioned. Back in
2010, an independent testing laboratory Impetus in Bremerhaven, tested H&M’s organic
cotton and discovered that 30% of the tested samples of organic cotton fabric contained
genetically modified (GM) cotton (Mowbray, 2010). Even though there was not any other
evidence of H&M selling organic cotton that was genetically modified, their sustainability
campaign also arouses questions. The H&M’s advertisement says that 95% of clothes can be
re-worn or recycled, but their actual proportion of the recycled fibers versus new fibers in
recycled collections is only 20%, because according to H&M’s research, if they used more of
the recycled fibers, they could not maintain the quality (H&M Group Annual Report 2018,
2018)
.
Reinventing the fast fashion business model sounds appealing and thanks to H&M reports
and advertisement it even feels like a reality. But if we look at the offer and see that one
white T-shirt in H&M made 100% from conventional cotton costs the same price as one
H&M’s white T-shirt made 100% from organic cotton (H&M, n.d.), there must be an
explanation of how is H&M capable of keeping the price low while enhancing the materials.
The most important difference, in this case, is that by research done by United States
Department of Agriculture in 2018, the price of organic cottonseed ranges from 500 to 550
dollars per ton, while it is only 80 to 175 dollars per ton for conventional cotton (United
States Department of Agriculture, 2018). Ergo, the material is more expensive and the selling
price is the same, so the only factors that might be changed are profit, production costs or
transportation (The True Cost, 2015). Firstly, today’s system is based on the real economy,
not nature or human economy, which means that companies have a little initiative to focus on
something else than making this quarter better than the last one (Ibid.). Secondly,
transportation of H&M clothes is already done by ships and trains, which is cheaper and more
environmentally friendly than planes, which means the cost cannot be lowered (H&M group -
51
Value Chain, n.d.). Consequently, only one point on the list stayed, which means that in this
global market H&M needs to find a factory, that will produce clothes for price low enough so
the company can keep their profit high (The True Cost, 2015). Thereupon, it is presumable
that the most vulnerable and worst paid group of the model will suffer (Ibid.). As the CSR
theory indicates, the relation between corporation’s social and financial performances needs
to be balanced in a company (Husted, 2000) and therefore, H&M with its use of recycled
materials and keeping affordability does not follow the corporate social responsibility same
way as it does not follow it in securing a fair living wage for their workers. To conclude, we
do not convict that H&M’s business ideal of offering fashion, quality and sustainability for
affordable prices is impossible or unrealistic, rather just point on the possible another side of
the story that is not visible in their reports.
4.3.3. Choose and reward responsible partners (Second Commitment)

H&M has set seven commitments - the H&M Conscious Commitments - in order to enhance
their pursuit of producing sustainable fashion (H&M Annual Report 2012, 2012). All of them
are focused on changing the industry by ensuring the company has a responsible, ethical and
environmentally friendly approach to production and sales of the clothes (Ibid.). One
particular commitment, the second one - choosing and rewarding responsible partners - is
significant regarding their business model. H&M’s objective of offering good-quality and
fashionable clothes at the best price (Ibid.) means that the design, production, transport and
sales costs must be low enough to sell clothes for a minimum price. All of it has to be
managed while keeping sustainable business principles. Consequently, without having any
own factory, they have to choose the right suppliers in order to live up to their goals and
commitments (H&M CONSCIOUS ACTIONS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2015, 2015).
The key sourcing markets for H&M’s garment production is China, Bangladesh, India,
Cambodia, and Turkey (Ibid.). Even though all countries had great improvements over the
past few years, for example, reduction of child labor in the textile industry to almost
minimum, there is still a lot of space for enhancement (Ibid.). Some of the challenges are
long working hours, a lack of functioning industrial relations, workplace safety as well as
workers low wages (Ibid.). H&M is one of the brands that developed a plan to solve the
problems by using various canals. Their goal is to ensure human rights and reduce the
environmental impacts of their value chain (Ibid.). Providing wages high enough to secure a
52
decent living for garment workers also coheres with the H&M goal, therefore, the company
decided to take action and developed a road map for ensuring fair living wage in the textile
industry (Ibid.). The roadmap consists of 4 parts, beginning with the importance of company
role, that needs to be sure that they pay enough to their suppliers for them to pay wages for
their workers (Ibid.). The second part is targeted on the role of factory, for this H&M
established a role model factory, that provides a place to practice dialogue between
management and workers (Ibid.). The third step concentrates on teaching workers about their
rights and letting them vote for their representative (Ibid.). The last part is about coworking
with the government to develop and implement fair living wages and secure freedom of
association (Ibid.).
Same as fair living wage, human rights and reduction of environmental impact are crucial in
establishing a partnership with H&M’s suppliers (H&M CONSCIOUS ACTIONS
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2015, 2015). Every supplier must pass the verification of
entry-level requirements and sign Code of Ethics and Sustainability Commitment to supply
H&M (H&M GROUP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2018, 2018). If they meet all the
requirements they are able to become a part of a rewarding system, made by H&M to
maintain good sustainability performance. The determining factor is Sustainability Index
score that rates performance of factories, which H&M uses to choose strategic partners - ones
that are main suppliers for next few years (H&M CONSCIOUS ACTIONS
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2015, 2015).
The whole choosing and rewarding system based on only making partnerships with factories
that meet minimum requirements and commit actions in order to become more sustainable
are a prove of H&M’s engagement in obtaining profit in an ethical manner, which is exactly
what CSR is based upon. Their fight for a fair living wage can be displayed as a commitment
to CSR, which according to the theory should bring several benefits to the company, like get
the attention of more customers, improve their firm’s image or secure high profits. However,
over the past few years situation changed dramatically, the profits of company were
increasing since they introduced whole CSR and seven commitments policy until year 2018,
which should have been a year of accomplishing various goals, like having 100% strategic
suppliers with improved pay structures implemented, ensuring democratically-elected
workplace representation at all strategic suppliers factories and engage suppliers in social
dialogue project in China and India (H&M CONSCIOUS ACTIONS SUSTAINABILITY
53
REPORT 2015, 2015). Thus, the year of achieving half of the planned goals of second
commitment turned out to be the contrary moment, when H&M’s profits went from SEK
20,809 million in 2017 to SEK 15,639 million in 2018 (About.hm.com, 2018). In this case, it
is evident that even though H&M improved their ethics, respect for individuals and
community, they ended up with profit decrease. To clarify, the profit decline might not be
caused by their initiative to produce sustainable fashion and actions connected to it, but
according to the CSR theory, establishing social and environmental sustainability should not
allow almost 25% profit loss.
4.3.4. I:CO - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

H&M was the first company that introduced a global clothing collecting initiative in 2013
(H&M Annual Report 2012, 2012). By this initiative, they offered people an opportunity to
bring their clothes - regardless of brand or condition - to their stores in all 48 countries they
operate (Ibid.). As a reward for contributing in closing the loop by recycling the clothes,
H&M offers a voucher towards their next H&M purchase (H&M Group Annual Report 2018,
2018). This all is possible thanks to the company I:CO, H&M partner, that buys collected
clothes from H&M and after material identification and separation of all garments, they are
able to divide them into 4 groups (I:CO, n.d.). So the clothes that were donated to H&M and
customers got a voucher for them were sold to I:CO, which is now able to resell the wearable
items to second-hand stores and find a way to recycle the ones that are unwearable (Ibid.).
There are 3 options for the rest of the clothes, they might be kept in a closed loop and
consequently used for production of clothes or shoes again, cut into fibres and spun into yarn
to produce new clothes or kept in open loop cycle, which means that the renovated fibers are
used in various industries (Ibid.). All of the options that I:CO offers are clearly better than
letting those 150 million tonnes of clothing and shoes, that are sold worldwide annually, to
end up in landfills or being incinerated (I:CO, n.d.). Hence, we should not question H&M’s
partnership with I:CO, but rather the fact they use it as a marketing move by offering a
voucher in a return for old clothes. The complexity of the issue is vast because H&M actually
helps to recycle the clothes, that would normally be sent to landfill, but their presentation of
closing the loop on fashion is far from reality (Scheibler, 2017). The fact that they offer
vouchers as a reward for not throwing away clothes is appealing, but their initiative can be
also displayed as a motivation for potential customers to throw away needless clothes and
54
replace them with new goods from H&M thanks to getting a voucher, which causes an
opposite of consciousness. Thereupon, analysing H&M global clothing collective initiative
from the point of corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line is fundamental in
finding the ratio between social, economic and environmental aspects of the company. In this
case, the first formulations of CSR could indicate that H&M presentation of reuse, reduce and
recycle rewarding system is in harmony with CSR, because H&M is just using its resources
and engage in activities - promotion of sustainable fashion - in order to increase the profits.
But it can also be considered as a misuse of the resources, which is against philanthropic
responsibility that the company has towards society. Yet, the triple bottom line provides
another view, which suggests that in a sustainable business, profit is not opposing planet or
people (Wisconsin, 2019). H&M actually is effective in environmental and social aspects, if
we consider the system a solution for clothes that would normally go to landfill and in
addition, H&M offers vouchers for people to bring their clothes and help the whole society
and environment to become more sustainable. According to this, we can consider the profit of
the company from people’s next purchase as a great reward for the corporation. But another
viewpoint of implementing the triple bottom line on this issue is that the vouchers cause a
new purchase of non-recycled garment which will cause even more waste in a few years time.
Hence, H&M promotes the system as closing the loop, but their production and sales of new
clothes thanks to the vouchers will just worsen the number of unrecyclable clothes in the
loop. In this case, H&M can be considered as socially and environmentally irresponsible and
therefore the possibility of that their claims are mainly based on the profit they can get, rather
than social responsibility.
4.3.5. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line

Economic responsibility is one of the three pillars of CSR and sustainable development in
corporations (CSR and Sustainability within companies and nonprofits: e-CSR.net, 2019)
.
The socioeconomic inequality and business ethics are the main subject matters relevant to
corporate economic responsibility (Ibid.). While the demanding consumption in the world
economy is putting firms to function both profitably and sustainably in an ethical and
transparent manner, they also need to react swiftly to new trends and needs of the market
(Ibid.). Sometimes even following the formula, as H&M Group AB does by offering a wide
range of clothing to meet the consumption demands, sharing their annual sustainability
55
reports, producing collections done specially from recycled and organic materials and
working on reform of the working conditions in factories, is not enough for raising the profits
of the company. On the other hand, economic responsibility under CSR is also linked to the
value of the products that the company produces and how it increases social welfare, what in
H&M company case is not that remarkable. The company generates jobs, but not all of them
are ensuring decent working conditions same as the clothes they produce is fashionable and
affordable, but that creates an enormous waste that cannot be fully swiftly disposed of yet.
Thereupon, the economic responsibility that H&M Group AB according to their claims
should live up to, is only at the beginning of the long journey.
The profit according to triple bottom line theory should be based on social benefits it
provides and environmental impacts it has, so only if a company comply its commitments to
society and environment it can be profitable (Wisconsin, 2019). H&M Group AB proves its
concern in improving social conditions by following the seven commitments, partnering with
I:CO in order to apply reuse, reduce and recycle waste hierarchy and creating Conscious
Collection from organic and recycled materials. Nevertheless, the company’s business model
is based on the temporary satiation of particular customer wishes, not needs, by offering
fashion and quality for affordable price (H&M, 2018), while another society in developing
world suffers because of lack of drinkable water, hazardous working conditions, low wages
and suppression of trade unions (EPRS - European Parliamentary Research Service, 2014).
Thus, H&M company needs to improve the production process to be more sustainable in
order to really fulfill the meaning of the economic aspect of the triple bottom line.
4.4. Final analysis
5.1. How is H&M disposing of responsibility towards people and the planet by
cooperating with 3rd party companies?
‘’Being socially conscious and fairly responsible for actions, appeared in the firm - this is a
key approach to the company's success’’
-Murphy, 2018.
56
The H&M Group conducted production outsourcing from developing countries policy might
be seen as controversial and bringing benefits to the only one side. Despite obligations,
presented in the H&M Group's annual reports, the research we made revealed that mainly all
of the firm's intentions are far from reality. Low wages, inappropriate working conditions,
absolute human rights violation and dreadful harm to the environment - this is the cost to
propose a felicitous image to the business market. Properly speaking, to follow CSR and the
Triple bottom line's conceptions consciously, bigger attention from the society is crucial. As
stated in the previous sections, sustainability campaigns promoted by the firm is not a
fundamental aspect when shopping. The lack of direct information about the actual
production process and eminently abstract determination of accomplishments does not catch
public interest, therefore the company can care less and keep providing inconceivable plans
for the future. Regions, that receive the harm are too powerless to attempt for an alteration of
the current situation, moreover, it would be undeniably severe to stand against such a
business giant as H&M Group. In the end, people live up to the harsh conditions, the
environment is being conserved, though the damage rates are more enormous and,
consequently, no change will be done unless customers will not lack empathy and start
considering the firm the way it really is.
5.2. How is H&M utilizing the 3 R’s to gain sustainable image?

H&M Group AB currently has a linear economy, but their undated vision is to become 100%
circular, what requires a change of every key process of the model, from design and material
choice through production processes to prolonging the lifespan of products, which means
reusing and recycling products (H&M, 2018). The company is undoubtedly the global leader
of sustainable fast fashion on the market thanks to the initiative as producing clothes only
from recycled materials until 2030 and complete avoidance of conventional cotton and
replacing it with cotton from more sustainable sources until 2020 (Ibid.). On the other side,
their presentation of it, which includes misleading and misused terms of the environmental
issues can be conceived just as an ambition to gain sustainable image and not as a real form
of company’s environmental activism (Knight, 2013). This is deeply connected to our third
hypothesis, the possibility that H&M balances different aspects of the triple bottom line by
57
simplifying sustainability in regards to fast fashion to consumers. As our research proves, one
of the examples of communicating complex environmental issues in a simplified version is
their usage of Reuse, Reduce and Recycle headline, which refers to their cooperation with
I:CO, the partnership that is not mentioned in any of their advertisement, hence, H&M might
appeal like a company that recycles and reuses the garments within its own operation. This
also leads to another misrepresentation of their initiative by stating they are closing the loop,
which cannot be adhered, because of the current technology and I:CO partnership, that
recycles collected garments instead of H&M Group AB. Accordingly, it is almost impossible
that more than 20 000 tonnes that H&M collected in 2018 (H&M, 2018), would all be able to
be used again with regard to current technology and therefore stayed in a loop. Moreover, the
recycling as a part of the commercialized context that H&M constructs, by saying that 95%
of clothes can be recycled, might be efficient for raising the consumption, but does not
present outright situation to the customers. H&M Group AB is thereupon very successful in
the presentation of sustainable fashion to the public for sales purposes, but their greenspeak
points out the incoherence between consumption and environmental activism, company’s fast
fashion business model and effort in becoming sustainable (Knight, 2013).
6. Discussion
There is no doubt that H&M is interested in being seen as an environmental friendly

forerunner and therefore they keep working on improving that image. But the image is one
thing and real impact is another.
H&M’s ‘Conscious Collection’ which is the company’s effort to establish a sustainable

collection and is made from 50 percent sustainable materials, which is organic cotton and
recycled polyester, has been criticized for not being enough, leading to the fact that H&M’s
total use of recycled materials is less than one percent according to Dawisha (2017).
Also, H&M has a new collection that is eco-friendly, due to the textile is made out of algae
and fruit waste, however, these new materials have to go through a process like any other
materials, which is harmful because of chemical use that should prevent the fabrics from
biodegrading (Cross, 2019). That results in the chemicals polluting the waterways and the
58
new materials cannot break down in landfills (Ibid). The point is, that these new materials
wistfully have an environmental impact that is comparable to H&Ms conventional textiles.
Looking at this issue from a bright side, the conventional materials are deprived from the
rainforests which are endangered and are therefore a help in the form of preservation of these
rainforests (Ibid). Even though these materials are not 100 percent perfect, they succeed in a
lot of sustainable sourcing.
Besides that H&M still hasn’t made a stand regarding organic cotton, because there is still a
paradox between using traditional cotton or organic cotton which is, of course, organic but at
the same time more water consumption than traditional cotton (Better Meets Reality, 2018).
This leads us to know, that traditional cotton need chemicals to be produced, which is
harming the environment, but so does the organic cotton when using an enormous amount of
water, to produce for example one t-shirt. So is H&M really doing its job when it comes to
using organic cotton? On one hand, one can argue that yes, because the chemicals are
harming not only the person buying the clothing from non-organic cotton but also the worker
that inhales all the chemicals whilst working. Therefore H&M has done a great job by using
95% organic cotton (H&M Conscious Collection, 2019). Another positive side of this is that,
by only using organic cotton, they have ensured the farmers to have better working
conditions by them not inhaling chemicals. However, it is important to note, that organic
cotton requires more water consumption than conventional. Around 290 gallons of water is
used to grow conventionally whereas it requires 660 gallons of water for organic cotton
(Better Meets Reality, 2018). The same goes for a pair of jeans where organic requires 2641
gallons of water, whereas regular jeans need 1135 gallons of water (Ibid). That means, that
even though H&M is all about sustainability, they need to find a better way for their clothing
not to consume this high amount of water for the garments they sell.
Nonetheless it can not be seen as any other than a paradox to try to be environmentally
friendly and at the same time are trying to sell as much clothing items as possible, because
producing and selling the clothes puts a huge impact on growing materials, dyeing and
finishing them with chemicals, and shipping them globally to thousands of stores. This
projection of high demand and recycling circle appears to be very close to our hypothesis.
With H&M’s fast fashion business model, the brand balances the over-consumption of their
59
goods by investing in their recycling system, hence, creating more working positions. This
could lead us to the fact that it is almost impossible to be in the fast-fashion business and at
the same time be environmentally friendly, especially when H&M has a recycling program,
yet still decides to give customers that hand in garments for recycling, a voucher so they can
get a discount for their next shopping. This goes in a loop, where the customers might end up
buying more clothes, and therefore the recycling program will fail, especially when it takes
1000 tons of garments 12 years to be recycled (Siegle, 2016)
Finally, it is again important to remember as also emphasized by Black and Brodde, that there
is a need for interventions that can, while engaging consumers, challenge power so they can
be both agile and complex at the same time (Dawisha, 2019).
During our research, an important aspiration for us was to clarify what sustainability really is.
Since it is a broad concept, an identification which would be related to our analysis was
looked within the H&M's provided data. However, the information we derived was lacking
clarification and instead was providing abstract and obscure facts. For instance, The H&M
frequently used number '100' - to delineate their current position or future obligations in the
sustainability process: it is (will be) 100% sustainable/eco-friendly/chemical-free/socio-fairly,
etc. Important to note, that in accordance with what we found out by our analysis, numbers
that the H&M kept declaring did not match to the reality exactly, and, moreover,
determination of what is sustainability was not disclosed, even though that the whole firm's
business strategy is based on granting sustainable production. Under our third hypothesis, we
were assuming that by providing misleading information, the H&M is capable to balance
triple bottom line branches. However, now we can clarify that this does not pay a
fundamental role in balancing sustainabilities, neither does it attain public attention. By
simplifying sustainability conceptions, for instance, continuously mentioning long-term
changes and not marking any significant improvement during the period 2012-2018, H&M
does not create a customers prominence towards the production process or firm's aspirations.
As analyzed studies revealed, sustainability is not an essential factor while purchasing clothes
from H&M, more likely it is a realization of getting more for a less. When considering
customers, lack of concern of in what circumstances production is being made and what it
causes, is obvious. People tend to care about themselves and only attain benefits for self.
60
Furthermore, the pressure from the company expressed by quickly-changing apparel offers,
puts them into the endless consuming loop, that in order to maintain a fashionable image, a
constant renewal is crucial.
7. Conclusion
In this section, we will infer our findings, starting from the systematic generalization of
mandatory contents, which at the end, will contribute to answering our main research
question.
Our starting point observed several fundamental facets, which will provide a reader with a
better comprehension of how this research was compiled: explaining important terms, such as
fast fashion, supply chain or I:CO recycling loop - everything is vital in a need to perceive
investigation thoroughly. Next, with the help of a conceptual framework and two
business-related theories - CSR and the Triple bottom line - we were able to formulate our
research question, that was followed by 2 sub-questions to analyze the main question more
particular. Theories, we implemented, played a significant role here: CSR provided us a set of
responsibilities, which have to be executed by the business corporation, while the Triple
bottom line imparted three most essential aspects - society, environment, and profits -
responsibilities, that have to be fulfilled regards to each prospect. While operating with the
theories, we conceived that our main intention was to identify how the firm's obligations
correspond to researches and well-known occurrences, which merely means how the H&M's
reality synchronizes with the 'real' reality. Before the analysis, one of the most crucial
aspirations was to maintain a preconceived idea on the topic. Since we did not choose to
pursue research through interviews due to the impossibility to receive genuine answers from
the firm itself, we decided to reach our aims using peer-reviewed analyses and observations.
Afterward, three hypotheses were formulated to have an overview at first, which at the end
established our inquiry - we could agree or collide to the peer-reviewed findings. When
moving on to analysis, a suitable research method was crucial, therefore, our main implement
here has become critical realism. According to critical realists, analysis has to be done within
61
three stages. During the first one, our primary concern was to analyze the H&M AB provided
data which, in our case, was obligations regards sustainable fashion production. Following
the theories, we could identify responsibilities that, in accordance with the firm, were the
base while producing garments. Thereafter, the second level required investigation of sources
that declare a variant perspective. By this, we were able to make data comparisons and
identify main problems due to which statements, presented by the H&M did not ally to
contrary findings. The last stage is dedicated to summarizing of our perceptions we gained
within the analysis. An abductive approach let us base our findings on observations, thus our
conclusions might be grasped as our ideas and not as a general truth.
Hence, after outlining results of our research, we are capable to answer our main question. As
the H&M Group states, interrelation to CSR approach will lead the firm to the constant
improvement of their community and surroundings (H&M, n.d.). However, as we could
perceive, not all of the triple bottom line branches were maintained equally sustainable. More
certainly - social and environmental sustainabilities were upheld less than profits. For
instance, reports about social responsibility supplied misleading information, whereas this
fraction has the least concern - regulations to the supply chain partners seemed deceptive as
harsh human rights violations remained unaltered. While sustaining the environment, bigger
responsibility was visible - by producing organic material clothes, reducing water and
electricity consumptions and initiating recycling policy, the firm pursued to approach their
goals of being 100% sustainable which in result improved its image (Robertson, 2019).
Nevertheless, of what we researched, we conceived that some precepts, e.g. apparel will be
made from 100% recycled material, are beyond reality. As a result, balance is being
maintained but some deluding facts still can be detected. Lastly, profitability, even if the firm
does not mention it frequently, is accounted as business responsibility. The whole business
strategy is about providing trendy and affordable clothes in a fast-changing cycle. According
to CSR, businesses have to bring positive benefits to themselves as well as to society.
Inasmuch as we found out, customers obtain favor within the option to focus on a bigger
quantity of clothes for a less price, however inspiring endless loop of consumerism.
Consequently, claims that H&M is capable to balance its sustainability model cannot be
applied here. Instead, we can state that perfect balance here does not exist since ignorance of
62
one responsibility outweighs made improvements within another, which, however, might be
questionable due to misinformation.
Overall, during the research, we bound ourselves to fast fashion sphere and we were able to
elaborate ideas for possible future intentions based on the knowledge gathered. One of the
aspirations could be to investigate the relation between the H&M supply chain companies
more thoroughly. We would be keen to analyze surveillance of an ethical manner and to
examine violations regards employees.
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Sustainable fast fashion - case study of H&M

Thesis · May 2019

Ieva Vedeikytė Kamila Lechmanová

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Number of characters: ​143 093

1.1. Problem area

How is H&M company utilizing the 3 R’s to gain sustainable image?

2.1 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

‘’(...) businessmen must acquire a strengthened sense of vocation. They must

Nonetheless, contemporary scholars keep improving an understanding of the CSR concept.

2.1.1. Triple bottom line

3.1. Research philosophy

To begin with, critical realism came to be as a critique of positivism as well as hermeneutics

Figure 2. Critical realism (Egholm, 2014)

3.2. Research approach

3.3. Methodological choices

3.3.1. Research strategy

Figure 3. Yin strategies (​Yin, 2003)

3.3.2. Project design

3.3.3. Time horizon

Figure 5. Longitudinal design Triple P

3.4. Data collection

3.4.1. Character of data

3.4.1.1. Narrative review

3.4.1.1.1. Consumer perspective

3.4.1.1.2. Society, world and companies perspective

1. H&M uses Corporate Social Responsibility to create Conscious Collection and

3.4.2. Data collection methods

3.4.2.1. Secondary data

3.6. Delimitations, challenges and self-reflection

‘International trade plays a crucial role in the development of countries since it

4.1.2. Code of Conduct

4.1.1.2. Working conditions

‘Barriers to accountability—including unauthorized subcontracting, denial of

4.1.3. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line

As background information, it is important to notice that according to different sources the

4.2.1. Environmental issues of H&M

4.2.1.1. Renewable energy

4.2.1.2. Consumption of Natural Resources

4.2.1.3. Sustainable consumption and production (SCP)

4.2.1.4. Waste Reduction

“Towards a sustainable future” (​about.hm.com, n.d.)

Figure 8. Recycling (about.hm.com, n.d.)

4.2.1.5. Recycled Amounts

4.2.1.6. Water Consumption

4.2.2. Reflection on CSR and Triple Bottom Line

4.3.1. Business model

4.3.2 Cost of Conscious Collection

4.3.3. Choose and reward responsible partners (Second Commitment)

4.3.4. I:CO - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

4.3.5. Reflection on CSR and Triple bottom line

4.4. Final analysis

5.2. How is H&M utilizing the 3 R’s to gain sustainable image?

There is no doubt that H&M is interested in being seen as an environmental friendly

H&M’s ‘Conscious Collection’ which is the company’s effort to establish a sustainable

Kingsley, C. (1850). ​Cheap clothes and nasty.​London: W. Pickering. p. 1-15

Knight, D. (2013). ​Refashioning the green movement.​Paris: American University of Paris.

Carroll, A.B. (1979), “A three dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance”,

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). ​Sweatshop | labour.​ [online] Available at:

H&M Conscious Collection. (2019). ​Conscious Collection​. [online] Available at:

I:CO. (n.d.). ​Company - I:CO​. [online] Available at: https://www.ico-spirit.com/en/company/

Number of characters: 143 093

Figure 3. Yin strategies (Yin, 2003)

“Towards a sustainable future” (about.hm.com, n.d.)

Kingsley, C. (1850). Cheap clothes and nasty.London: W. Pickering. p. 1-15

Knight, D. (2013). Refashioning the green movement.Paris: American University of Paris.

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Sweatshop | labour. [online] Available at:

H&M Conscious Collection. (2019). Conscious Collection. [online] Available at:

I:CO. (n.d.). Company - I:CO. [online] Available at: https://www.ico-spirit.com/en/company/

Jarvie, M. (2016). Brundtland Report | publication by World Commission on Environment

Kuhlman, T. and Farrington, J. (2010). What is Sustainability?. [online]

Meliton, E. (2009). Can Environmental CSR Initiatives Stimulate Economic Growth?.

Murphy, C. (2018). Why is social responsibility important to a business?. [online]

Wisconsin, U. (2019). A Simple Explanation of the Triple Bottom Line | University of

INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM (2015). H&M’s Response to Report on

turnaroundhm.org (2018). RESEARCH FINDINGS ON WAGES AT H&M’S STRATEGIC