H&M Found­a­tion awards 5 innov­a­tions a total €1 mil­lion grant for their efforts to make fash­ion sustainable

Lab made vegan leath­er, tex­tile fibers made of nettles, a digit­al sys­tem to make products recyc­lable from scratch, children’s clothes that expand and a bio­de­grad­able tox­ic-free mem­brane for out­door wear are this year’s Glob­al Change Award win­ners, shar­ing a €1 mil­lion grant from the non-profit H&M Found­a­tion. Their com­mon denom­in­at­or? Improv­ing fash­ion’s impact on the plan­et through innov​a​tion​.To fur­ther cata­lyze this shift, H&M Found­a­tion today announce an ini­ti­at­ive with crowd­fund­ing plat­form Indiegogo, that puts con­sumers in the front seat, enabling them to take act­ive part as sup­port­ers, back­ers, and test­ers of the five innov­a­tions. ​“The win­ners of the Glob­al Change Award prove that it’s pos­sible to improve the envir­on­ment­al impact of the fash­ion industry. They are a true inspir­a­tion and great part­ners to any fash­ion com­pany that wants to con­trib­ute to pro­tect­ing the plan­et and our liv­ing con­di­tions. The ini­ti­at­ive with Indiegogo adds an import­ant piece as it also enables the pub­lic to be at the very heart of find­ing and fund­ing a future for sus­tain­able style,” said Karl-Johan Persson, board mem­ber of H&M Found­a­tion and CEO of H & M Hennes & Maur­itz AB. Selec­ted out of 6,640 entries from 182 coun­tries by the prom­in­ent expert pan­el, here are this year’s Glob­al Change Award win­ners and how the €1 mil­lion grant is distributed: 

• €300,000 – The Loop Scoop by circular.fashion (Ger­many): A digit­al sys­tem aim­ing to close the loop on every gar­ment from design to wear to recyc­ling: https://​youtu​.be/​M​k​g​A​K​s​iqyQk
• €250,000 – Sane Mem­brane by dim­pora (Switzer­land): A bio­de­grad­able and min­er­al-based mem­brane for out­door wear: https://​youtu​.be/​I​T​n​b​n​x​Vz-F0
• €150,000 – Sus­tain­able Sting by Green Nettle Tex­tile (Kenya): Grow­ing nettles to cre­ate sus­tain­able fash­ion fibers and oppor­tun­it­ies for farm­ers in Kenya to boost their live­li­hoods: https://​youtu​.be/​z​s​U​f​K​X​Hienc
• €150,000 – Clothes that Grow by Petit Pli (UK): Out­fits that expand with the child, while redu­cing envir­on­ment­al impact: https://​youtu​.be/​P​r​5​s​V​4​vhLZA
• €150,000 – Lab Leath­er by Le Qara (Peru): Using microor­gan­isms to cre­ate vegan bio­de­grad­able leath­er for the fash­ion industry: https://youtu.be/j_q9SYeZr‑Q

In addi­tion to the fin­an­cial grant, all win­ners also get access to a one-year innov­a­tion accel­er­at­or pro­gram provided by H&M Found­a­tion in part­ner­ship with Accen­ture and KTH Roy­al Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy, tak­ing them to Stock­holm, New York and Hong Kong. The pro­gram also gives access to vir­tu­al coach­ing ses­sions dur­ing the year. This setup brings sig­ni­fic­ant value to the win­ners and has proven to cut years off the devel­op­ment timeline. ​“In five years, our idea will have increased the use of fiber recyc­ling and mul­tiple reuse pos­sib­il­it­ies tre­mend­ously. We envi­sion that 150 mil­lion circularity.ID’s will be out on the mar­ket, ensur­ing that each cir­cu­larly designed gar­ment will be regen­er­ated to high qual­ity fibers after use,” said Ina Budde, co-founder of circular.fashion. Among the thou­sands of entries to this year’s Glob­al Change Award, 45 per­cent rank ​“fund­ing” as their biggest obstacle. Clearly, crowd­fund­ing holds great untapped poten­tial as a fund­ing option. ​“Addi­tion­al fund­ing could unlock the oppor­tun­ity for us to exper­i­ment with recycled fibers, col­ors and pat­terns which we cur­rently are unable to achieve at our size. It would also allow us to make addi­tion­al hires needed ahead of enter­ing scaled pro­duc­tion of Petit Pli suits,” said Ryan Mario Yasin, founder of Petit Pli. Source: Glob­al Change Award by H&M Found­a­tion, press release, 04.04.2019