Greenpeace sets its sights on H&M
16/09/2011
Greenpeace carried out a study on the water quality in two rivers in China and found them to contain too-high levels of a number of hazardous substances. It blamed outsource manufacturing partners of a large number of prominent western brands, but instead of asking the manufacturer to take action, it concentrated a very public ‘Detox’ campaign on a few of the household names, starting with Puma, adidas and Nike.
As well as attempting to ridicule and shame the sports brands in public, the tone and aggressiveness of the Greenpeace campaign pitted the sports clothing companies against one another, even though all the companies themselves have long-standing sustainability programmes in place and are committed to working together to improve this aspect of their supply chains further.
Greenpeace wrung out of them a commitment to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals from their supply chains by 2020 and adidas announced that it wanted to set up a discussion forum in Amsterdam in September for all of the companies to work together.
The NGO then turned its attentions to H&M as, arguably, the highest profile of the fashion brands originally implicated as partners of the Chinese companies in the study. In mid-September, Greenpeace activisits began applying ‘Detox’ campaign stickers to H&M storefronts in its home market, Sweden.
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