The hotshot of the fast fashion industry, Sweden-based H&M has returned with the Global Change Award for the year 2019 to acknowledge innovators that are making monumental efforts to make the fashion and apparel industry more sustainable.
The H&M Foundation, which is the non-profit organization of H&M, recently launched the fourth edition of the annual Global Change Award. The sole aim of the venture is to challenge trailblazers to generate ideas and innovative techniques to make the apparel industry more circular. Their focus is revolving around digital innovation for the coming year 2019. The application process will remain open through October 17 and the winners will be finally announced in April 2019.
Last year, due to the equivalent talent and excellent efforts of the five finalists, a public vote decided to divide the prize money among all finalists. The largest portion of the funds was awarded to “Crop-A-Porter”, which was a sustainable concept that was designed to utilize harvest remains of crops to produce useful bio-fibers like bananas and hemp for making textiles.
Speaking on innovation and sustainability, Karl-Johan Persson, board member of the H&M Foundation and CEO of H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, stated that, “New ideas are the foundation for change, but scaling them is an enormous challenge for every innovator. Together with our partners Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, we’ve seen previous winners cut years off their timeline through our accelerator program.”
Confirming the digital innovation focus for this year, Erik Bang, Innovation Lead, H&M Foundation, said that, “This year we keep an extra eye on digital innovations which can make significant impact on efficiency, planning and resource use — all the way from making raw material to a garment’s end of life.”
The winning innovators will receive a € 1 million in funding and free coaching. Since its inception in 2015, the handsome prize and the zeal for sustainability has attracted more than 8,000 entries from 151 countries across the globe. It was a collaborative effort of the H&M foundation along with Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
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