Corporate Social Responsibility Case Study: H&M's Policies and Impact

This case study examines H&M's corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, evaluating their impact on environmental protection, sustainability, and human rights. The analysis begins with an overview of H&M's CSR commitments, including its approach to conscious fashion, responsible partnerships, ethical practices, climate action, waste reduction, resource management, and community strengthening. The study then explores the challenges H&M faces in meeting its environmental and sustainability goals, such as recycling blended fibers and warehouse waste management. Furthermore, the case study assesses H&M's policies on human rights, including worker safety, fair wages, and child labor, and evaluates its philanthropic activities in contributing to societies and local communities. The document provides a comprehensive analysis of H&M's CSR initiatives, identifying both its successes and the ongoing challenges it faces in achieving its sustainability and ethical objectives.

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Assignment 2: Case Study
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Question 1: Assessing Impact of H&M’s CSR Policy and Evaluating Initiatives for
Achieving Environmental Protection and Sustainability Goals of the Firm
H&M had been a multinational Swedish retail clothing brand found in the year 1947
(Ksiezak 2016). It is known for fast fashion clothing for women, men and children. Presently, the
company is a global brand owning close to 6 brands and operating in close to 57 countries and
having more than 3600 stores. The organization had the mission of driving a long lasting and
positive change along with improving the living conditions through investing in communities,
people and innovative ideas. The company has however believed in sustainable fashion not only
for present but also for the future generations. Since, the year 2002 it composed the CSR reports
as per the GRI G4 guidelines. In the year 2009, H&M published a social responsibility report
named “Conscious Actions Sustainability Report”. The company made sure that close to 170
employees were appointed for dealing with the aspect of sustainability as the core task. The CSR
policy of H&M is designed around seven commitments that helps it in achieving its
environmental protection and the sustainability goals. These are mentioned as follows:
1. Providing fashion for the conscious customers: H&M remained committed towards
offering shoes, transportation of clothing and accessories and sold and procured products with
utmost care for the environment and the people. H&M understand that the desire and need of the
customers needed to be placed at the center of the business for establishing close association
with the customers and thereby deliver accurate value for them. The company is also aware that
now the public increasingly demand corporate conscience that can act in the way of making
sustainable approach as a corporate strength for driving customer commitment and commitment,
better performance in business and finally leading to the competitive advantage. This is where
the ‘Conscious Actions’ of the retailer fit in thereby demonstrating the fact that green fashion

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does not challenge the design or the looks. For instance, one such CSR target for the company
remains in sourcing everything in cotton but within sustainable range by the year 2020.
2. Choosing and rewarding the liable partners: The fashion retail company from
Sweden do not have its own factories. Its production is however outsourced to close to 800
factories across Europe and Asia. In becoming a sustainable company, H&M needs to take
responsibility of the entire value chain, since responsibility do not stop with the immediate
activities of the company. H&M is however able to recognize this and thus work closely with the
supply chain in providing better conditions of working, avoiding the violations of the human
rights and reducing the negative impact of the environment. This has been outlined in the code of
conduct of the company for guiding the day to day work and remains evaluated by the auditors
of H&M who frequently check work process in the factories across the entire supply chain for
ensuring that each of the things are done as per the standards which also helps in promoting good
practice.
3. Being Ethical: Social integrity and obligation represent the values which must guide
the business on the way towards sustainability. These corporate values helps in determining
ethical approach of Swedish brand that holds the belief of “showing respect towards everyone
who contributes to H&M’s success is fundamental to our business”. This includes employees,
customers or the business partners. Boosting diversity, combating against corruption, engaging
employees and ensuring their happiness, remaining fair towards the suppliers and remaining
compliant with the regulations and laws acted as driving ethical force behind retailer operations.
4. Being Climate Smart: In addition to the people who hold moral responsibility
towards the environment and nature, it is also the brands that holds the resources and power of

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making significant improvements and changes. This kind of philanthropic understanding
provides guidance to H&M in dealing with persistent climate issues and the global warming. In
regard to this, the company is undertaking necessary efforts to take actions and become as
effective as possible through the use of the renewable sources. One such H&M activities lies in
reducing emission of carbon by closely working with the supplier function.
5. Ensure reducing, reusing and recycling: With activities of H&M in making an effort
to focus on triple bottom line which indicates either the people, planet or profit or the social,
environmental and economic aspects that the company is actually making efforts in turning
goods of present day into usable resource of future. The brand thus tries in avoiding wastage at
every level of value chain beginning from packaging, transport production and the ways in which
the consumers disposes and uses the products with a aim of sending zero waste to the landfill.
H& M has thus launched a recycling program on global garment that aims at improving
ecological footprint of the fashion industry through encouraging the people to dump their used
clothes in the brand stores. To further encourage the customers the company provided some
reward for each bag of the recyclable clothes received.
6. Using the natural resources in a responsible manner: This represents an undeniable
part of the business operations of H&M for packaging, production, store lighting and transport.
Here the stand of the company lies in understanding that resources are rare and might not be
considered which implies that they needed to be responsibly used. H&M further explains that the
growing level of scarcity resulted in the rising cost and hence resource efficiency would be
considered as competitive advantage of the industry. The brand thus remains committed towards
conserving soil, air, water and species and also engage the stakeholders of the company in
raising awareness regarding the issues as well as undertaking responsible actions.

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7. Strengthening communities: On a global scale, H&M has been part of various
communities based on the location of the stores and the supply chain. The organization made an
impact to the society and had been responsible towards the creation of over one million job
across the world. Embracing and encouraging closer relationships with the various stakeholders
for meeting needs of communities has been vital for the successful operation in order positive
changes. H&M understand principle of shared value and hence as an international brand it has
the stakeholder obligation of investing in the projects that are able to benefit for both the
business and the communities. These addresses issues like education, employment rights, health,
education, sustainable raw material and water.
Question 2: Challenges H& M Faces in Meeting the Environmental and Sustainable
Ambitions
H&M has remained involved in the environmental protection but its fast fashion business
model has posed a challenge in meeting its sustainable and environmental ambitions since such
models are believed to use resources like energy, oil and water in huge amounts. The company
however tries to mitigate the challenges while ensuring constant growth and increasing its stores.
Nevertheless, few challenges persist which can only be overcome via newer means of
innovation. These challenges are mentioned as follows:
1. Presently there does not exist any viable technology for recycling the blended fibers on
a bigger scale could not make the new products on a bigger scale from older products. The
company is however working on the experts who has been developing technologies for tackling
this. Once the scalable solution is available for fruition, it will possess the ability of transforming
the entire industry that works with materials.

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2. The waste formed in the warehouses also becomes a part of the recycling process.
However, company faced a difficulty with the concept of collected clothing. The new product
might contain maximum of 20 percent of the recycled fabric without reducing the durability and
quality. This particular set back might be solved through the technological innovation which the
company is working on.
3. Challenge of storing and managing the warehouse waste. The common types of waste
in the stores and the warehouses includes plastics, paper and cardboards. These materials are
usually collected in the stores and sent to the local warehouse facilities where the get recycled
(sustainability.hm.com 2017). The challenge lies in the availability of the prevailing recycling
systems in the regions or the country where the store may seem to be located.
4. Lastly, climate seems to be the greatest challenges. The consequences of which will
not only impact the whole planet but the people living in it thereby making it as a key challenge
for the industries that includes fashion. To deal with the challenges of climate change, H&M has
cut down emissions and make significant contribution in helping the planet to remain below the
limit of global warming. Besides, the company also introduced an information label within the
garments and ensure more responsible use of product like maintaining a wash temperature of 30
C instead of the 60 degrees. H&M also makes use of the specialized organized cotton in addition
to the recycled fabric. This lessens the impact on the climate by about 46 percent. Products
designed from the two categories of cotton are usually labelled Conscious so that they are
recognized easily by the customers.
Question 3: Evaluation of H&Ms Policy in Identifying and Preventing Impact on Human
Right. Process that Enable Remediation of Adverse Human Rights Impacts

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H& M has also ensured the wellbeing and safety of the factory workers. The company
also expects all its suppliers to provide safe conditions for the workers (Ksiezak 2016). Failure in
doing so is a failure in respecting the human rights. H&M coordinated with International Labor
Organization in devising the Code of Conduct that contained anti-discrimination and anti-
corruption rules, employee rights, promoted equality and provided empowerment to fight against
harassment. The corporation remained apprehensive regarding whether price paid to suppliers
allowed them in paying fair amount of living wage to employees. It wanted to design tools for
measuring the optimal price. H&M also cooperated with the governments of Cambodia, Ethiopia
Bangladesh and Myanmar in encouraging them to set strong legal framework regarding the
minimum wage and thereby enforce right to freedom of associations such that the workers are
able to create trade unions since they possess the right for democratically electing the workplace
representation. The H&M also conduct the system of training management for the employees
known as “GROW”. This helps in educating the employees through additional e-learning or
classroom courses. The training also includes teaching about the sustainability for increasing the
awareness amongst workers. The company also bet on the employee diversity hence it has 76
percent women workers and 72 percent of female managers.
H&M also considers the children’s right and the child labor as issues related to the
human rights. The company do not accept any kind of child labor and hence has long term and
strong position on the issue of the child labor. Therefore, it is a rare thing to find any worker
below a minimum statutory age in the factories of the business partners. The company puts
forward a minimum requirement for its factors thereby making H&M free from the child labor
and the compliance is monitored constantly. In the year 2017, there was a single case of the child
labor. If the company finds an individual who is below minimum age and working in the

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factories of business partners then it follows the Child Labor Policy and acts in best interest of
the concerned child. This might include enrolling the individual in school, providing necessary
compensation to families for the lost income as well as partnering with the organizations of the
civil society.
Question 4: Evaluation of H&M’s Range of Philanthropic Activities in Contributing to
Societies and local communities
To contribute to the local communities and the society, the corporation continuously seek
for newer ways of building a better place for living in. The company created better opportunities
of employment. It also cooperated with the UNICEF on the project related to “All for Children”
in Bangladesh and India that provided a chance for the education of close to 1.7 million children
in these areas as schooling before eight years of age is immensely vital for the community and
the child (Ksiezak 2016). The company also organize course for the cotton farmers for learning
the ways implemented in growing the cotton with minimum level of environmental impact. The
course also offer vocational training for the women of the poor countries that provides them with
startup capital for own business. The organization also provide donation via the H&M
Foundation or to Trust Fund of Rana Plaza Donors for saving children. It also undertake in store
campaign involving the customers whenever a certain portion of price they are paying for certain
piece of the clothing gets donated towards a better cause. This includes providing safe access to
water in Bangladesh or aid the refugees of Syria. In addition to donating large sums of money,
H&M also donates the clothes to the charities. In the year 2014, the company gave over garments
close to 4.6 million.

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References:
Ksiezak, P., 2016. The CSR Challenges in the Clothing Industry. Journal of Corporate Social
Responsibility and Leadership, 3(2), pp. 51-65
sustainability.hm.com, 2017. H&M Group Sustainability Report 2017. [Online]. Available at
https://sustainability.hm.com/content/dam/hm/about/documents/en/CSR/2017%20Sustainability
%20report/HM_group_SustainabilityReport_2017_FullReport_en.pdf [accessed Feb 22, 2020]