Insights into H&M and WWF's partnership for a more sustainable future

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The partnership focuses on water, climate and biodiversity to address the key environmental impacts of H&M Group’s textile value chain and beyond.

By working together, the organisations aim to lead the fashion industry to operating in ways that keep our planet safe. Over 10 years ago, H&M Group and WWF embarked on an ambitious collaboration to create a more sustainable fashion industry.

The idea behind the partnership is to address the most pressing environmental impacts across the entire value chain as well as taking global leadership to champion wider action across the global fashion business.

Water, climate and biodiversity are important earth systems that work together to protect our planet and keep it healthy.

Each one is dependent on the others.

For example, biodiversity needs clean water to survive. However, the availability and quality of water is affected by the climate emergency. And to mitigate the climate emergency, a diverse and robust biodiversity is needed.

That is why H&M Group takes a holistic view and works on all three areas in partnership with WWF.

Jennie Granstrom, biodiversity and land impact lead at H&M Group, and Jaco du Toit, biodiversity policy manager at WWF Sweden, together, share some insights into the latest from the partnership.

Jennie Granstrom, biodiversity and land impact lead at H&M Group. Image supplied

Next year, the partnership between WWF and H&M Group celebrates its 15th birthday – why have your organisations partnered over such a long time?

Jennie Granstrom: The textile industry has a big impact on the environment – in various ways. Textile production requires large quantities of water, emits greenhouse gas and can impact biodiversity negatively, mainly through raw material production and pollution of land and water.

We acknowledge that H&M Group is part of the problem, and we are committed to becoming part of the solution.

By working together, WWF as a global leader in conservation and environmental advocacy, and H&M Group, as a global fashion company - can do more than each organisation could have done on its own.

WWF has expertise in nature, environmental issues and what is needed to solve these issues. H&M Group has the size, resources and the collaboration network needed to accomplish the industry transformation needed.

Jaco Du Toit: The combination of our organisations’ expertise and networks creates potential to reach the meaningful and sustainable change the industry urgently needs.

Jaco du Toit, biodiversity policy manager at WWF Sweden. Image supplied

Biodiversity loss, water scarcity and climate change are some of the most acute and serious challenges that our planet is facing, which is why they are also the focus areas of our partnership.

While the challenges are urgent, we know that systemic change takes time.

In long-term partnerships like this, we can focus on deep-rooted transformation where we can deliver tangible, lasting impact for people and nature and on reducing business impact at an industry-wide level.

Together we have the power to influence other actors to join us in maintaining the natural systems that underpin business and life on our planet.

While climate change often receives significant attention and is more widely understood, why is it important for the partnership to ensure, that people understand that biodiversity and nature are equally important?

Du Toit: Firstly, the crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss are closely interrelated. The way we use and transform land for farming and forestry is one of the largest drivers of the loss of biodiversity.

It is also responsible for 22% of the greenhouse gasses that human activities release into the atmosphere. In turn, the changing climate is one of the five largest global drivers of biodiversity loss.

To deal with the climate change impacts that are now no longer avoidable we need resilient natural ecosystems.

Functioning natural river systems and intact forests and grasslands are the best defences we have against extreme weather events. The root systems of grasslands and forests bind soils and improve their water-holding capacity so that intense rainfall seeps more gradually into rivers.

In periods of drought, they help retain the moisture that is available.

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Even if it were possible to solve the climate crisis without addressing biodiversity loss, doing so would ultimately be of limited value. A climate-stable future would be undermined if ecosystems had collapsed to such an extent that they could no longer deliver essential services such as clean air and water, fertile soils, and crop pollination.

Wildlife populations on Earth on average, have already decreased by 73% in just the last 50 years. That is why we are compelled to take a holistic view across climate, water and biodiversity in our partnership with H&M Group and all our work.

The issues and solutions are interrelated, and we have limited time left to ensure that the products produced for our society, including fashion, do not cost us the Earth.

What does the partnership contribute towards H&M Group’s efforts in reducing impact on nature?

Granstrom: By using a holistic and scientific approach, the partnership addresses some of H&M Group’s and the textile industry’s key sustainability challenges, working in the company’s value chain and beyond.

Since its inception in 2011, the partnership work has not only led to improvements in how the H&M Group value chain addresses water and climate impacts, but it has also brought suppliers, other brands and policy makers together to find joint solutions to these issues, and from 2020 also for the area of biodiversity.

Together with WWF, we focus on projects directly addressing the sourcing of high-risk materials in high-risk countries so we can have an impact at scale. Furthermore, the partnership wants to showcase to other companies, within the textile sector and beyond, that focusing on more sustainable practices is both feasible and valuable for business.

Bringing both climate and nature and also the people perspective closer together will enable us to identify the transition needed without negative impacts.

H&M Group has set science-based goals on climate since several years back. In 2023, H&M group completed a SBTN pilot assessing its value chain and the target setting process for land and water. Can you share more about this?

Granstrom: Analysing our impact on nature is one of the building blocks of our biodiversity ambition. H&M Group was one of 17 companies that participated in an SBTN pilot programme in 2023 and 2024.

The outcome of the pilot provided us and the other participating companies with guidance on how to prioritise activities to reduce our impact on nature and set science-based targets for land and water.

We are in the process of mapping existing activities to what is needed to reach all targets for land and water and delve deeper into the subjects where work still remains. We have successfully completed the value chain analysis in the SBTN pilot, validated the target setting process, and through the work identified key industry challenges, including the need for better data.

The analysis reaffirmed that our sourcing of cotton from India and wool from South Africa remain priority areas. Two of our WWF-led projects were submitted to SBTN as part of the pilot and the need to establish impact projects in connection with the highest priority water basin is a concrete example of a new work area in connection with the science-based targets.

How does the H&M Group and WWF regenerative wool partnership project in the Eastern Cape fit into the company’s wider sustainability agenda? Why are you working together on this?

Du Toit: The partnership aims to support sustainable, regenerative production and nature protection and restoration efforts in key landscapes connected to H&M Group’s value chain.

H&M Group identified that one of the biggest biodiversity impacts for the company lies in the production of raw materials, cotton and wool in particular.

Their assessment indicated that wool sourced from South Africa is a priority area and therefore our partnership includes this project the Eastern Cape Grasslands, connected to the proposed Grasslands National Park.

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The project is supporting large-scale private landowners, emerging farmers and small-scale farmers on traditional land across more than 10,000 hectares to adopt regenerative wool production practices.

Through long-term conservation agreements, the farmers and the community work with WWF to maintain and improve the ecological health of the grasslands.

These grasslands contribute to building climate resilience for sheep grazing in this landscape, help to secure a critical water catchment area, build the long-term sustainability of the grazing land for farmers and companies that rely on wool, and protect biodiversity in a critical ecosystem.

For WWF, can you tell us a bit more about the regenerative wool project. Why are you working with sheep farmers as a conservation organisation?

Du Toit: South Africa’s Drakensberg grasslands are home to more than 2,500 species of plants and endangered birds such as the wattled crane.

By working with both private and communal sheep farmers to achieve climate resilient, regenerative livestock grazing and to restore natural grasslands, we can unlock more sustainable wool.

The work we do with farmers includes rotational grazing plans, inputting to farm management plans so that these take into consideration the specific grazing capacity of different parts of farms, training farmers on wildlife conflict management and improved fire management regimes.

We also partner with farmers and communities on clearing invasive species to restore river systems to their natural, resilient state, and to prevent erosion.

With farmers on traditional communal land, we also work specifically on improving animal health so that the grazing pressure on the land is reduced while also improving their income.

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For H&M Group, considering the scale of the fashion industry’s negative impact, can relatively small-scale projects like the regenerative wool project in South Africa really make a difference?

Granstrom: These projects indeed make a big difference since the unsustainable production of cotton and wool lead to the biggest negative impacts on biodiversity including soil erosion, pollution, and overgrazing.

On the other hand, wool has the potential to be a long-lasting and low footprint material for the fashion industry and consumers, if produced through more sustainable, regenerative farming methods.

Therefore, it is crucial to support regenerative agriculture projects, which leverage the links between functioning ecosystems and productive, sustainable farming to improve soil health and biodiversity and that strengthens the resilience of farmers against climate change impacts.

While our joint projects represent a small fraction of H&M Group’s total land footprint, they are strategically selected to be in places that are critical for biodiversity conservation and in line with the SBTN landscape engagement framework.

These are also leveraged as places where we can prove that farming with nature rather than against it is good for people, business and the planet and works as learning hubs for what bigger scale actions are needed and are possible.

How big is the share of wool in H&M’s assortment and what is the strategic importance of South Africa as a sourcing country?

Granstrom: Wool is an important material we use to make our products. A majority share of the wool our group sources comes from Responsible Wool Standard certified farms in South Africa.

A biodiversity footprint assessment showed when combining the volumes we source with the biodiversity richness of the region, H&M Group has a big impact on nature in South Africa and that impact reduction should be prioritised.

For us, to reach impact reduction on farm level, having the right collaboration partners is crucial, since without them we will not be able to reach all through the value chain down to farm level.

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Our landscape engagement projects with WWF brings in the perspectives and need from partners of either end of the value chain; our need as a brand for scalable solutions to decrease impact and farmers’ need to increase eco-system health and climate change resilience. We see this project as an enablement of a transition from good to better.

What reaction or feedback have you been receiving from the farmers and the community that are collaborating or are being impacted by the project and the introduced changes?

Du Toit: Small-scale farmers on communal traditional land have confirmed that the project has made a huge difference in how they manage their shared farmland, and the consciousness about what they do and how they do it.

They’ve shared that the expertise which the project brought in for grazing evaluation and the training workshops have been invaluable in increasing their knowledge of sustainable farming.

One of the main challenges that the community reported is the rampant erosion of their land. The project is helping to identify areas where restoration and erosion protection through low-cost interventions can reduce this issue and community volunteers have taken what they learned and applied it in a wider area.

Communal farmers have also shared with us how they are becoming more aware of the interconnections between biodiversity and productive sheep grazing. They notice that the more diverse their grasslands, the more wool they can produce from the land, which is also impacting the profitability of their businesses

This initiative provides an exciting opportunity to demonstrate how conservation organisations and corporate partners can collaborate to deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity through working with large and small–scale farmers on regenerative production practices.

Work in this landscape is important in its own right but will also help inform further efforts by H&M Group and WWF to improve the wool industry at scale.

What are your plans for the coming years?

Du Toit: For WWF the partnership project with H&M Group in the Eastern Cape Drakensberg Landscape is one important part of a strategic Mega Living Landscape approach that aligns with Vision 2040 established by SANParks, South Africa’s national parks agency.

Our regenerative wool project represents exciting evidence for how inclusive conservation can be achieved in the context of interconnection with building climate resilience, improving human well-being, reducing risks to supply chains and protecting strategic water source areas.

The proposed national park that is being established in the grasslands will protect a landscape that is largely agricultural production yet also critical for conservation and home to several species of conservation concern.

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WWF’s partnership with H&M Group in this area has made an invaluable contribution to this approach that brings private landowners on board and we will seek to leverage this success to reach more farmers in this area, and also to replicate these learnings in other projects with H&M Group and other corporate partners.

To address the twin biodiversity and climate crises we need to scale these solutions that bring companies, farmers and communities together in specific locations and throughout supply chains.

Granstrom: Our world is changing. The climate crisis, water scarcity and biodiversity loss will continue to affect us all in the coming years.

Alongside our work on projects – like the one in the Eastern Cape Drakensberg Landscape, but also others like our projects on cotton in India or rattan production in Indonesia – we also partner to assess where we should add our voice to policy discussions.

Together, we analyse proposed legislation, identify common policy asks and advocate strategies. We bring complementary perspectives to the policy making process, demonstrating that business and civil society align on key environmental topics. The partnership has already achieved so much, and we have great plans for the future.

Together we support collective efforts to bring about policy change that reduces environmental impact.

Together we can contribute to reversing biodiversity loss and securing a nature positive future.