Environment
Environmental requirements for suppliers
Code of Conduct contains environmental requirements
The environmental requirements in H&M's Code of Conduct demand that our suppliers comply with the relevant legislation in the countries where they operate. H&M also encourages suppliers to assume greater responsibility for the environment than is strictly required by the law. When we audit facilities to verify compliance with local environmental law and our Code of Conduct, we focus on four main areas: environmental law and governmental permits, chemicals, wastewater treatment and waste management.
We begin by reviewing factories' permits. We also examine how chemicals are handled. The focus is on workers' safety and on chemical emissions to water and into the ground. To evaluate this, we check whether and how chemical containers are labelled, and if there are material safety data sheets (MSDS). We also check whether the MSDSs have been implemented, i.e. if workers have been trained in safe chemical handling, and if they use protective equipment. We require that factories with wet processes such as dyeing or washing use wastewater treatment plants. The sludge that the plants produce must be handled according to legislation. Finally, we check whether the factories handle hazardous waste in a responsible manner and send it to an authorised company.
Restriction of chemicals
An important part of H&M's environmental work involves reviewing and restricting the use of chemicals which are harmful to health and to the environment. H&M has therefore banned or restricted the use of a number of chemicals in production. All the limit values and bans are gathered together in H&M's Chemical Restrictions, a list of restrictions that all suppliers must sign up to. Examples of substances on the list of restricted chemicals include metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury, certain dyes, PVC, formaldehyde and brominated flame retardants. Regular testing is carried out at external laboratories to ensure that our suppliers comply with our chemical restrictions.
H&M's chemical requirements are based on the sales country that has the most stringent requirements. The chemical restrictions have been updated seven times since 1995, most recently in 2007.
Environmental requirements for IT product suppliers
In order to be able to make environmentally sound choices when purchasing IT products, H&M requires that all products offered to us are accompanied by an IT Eco Declaration. The IT Eco Declaration is a system for declaration of environmental aspects of IT and telecom products, developed by the Nordic IT organisations, IT-Företagen in Sweden, ITB in Denmark, IKT-Norge in Norway and TTK ry in Finland. The IT Eco Declaration includes information on the environmental practices of the manufacturer as well as environmental performance of their products. Nemko Group, a Norwegian firm that offers testing, inspection and certification services, randomly selects and examines 25 per cent of all companies that submit IT ECO declarations to verify that the information is accurate.
H&M has developed an evaluation model to assess the information in the IT Eco Declarations. Our evaluation model takes into account legal standards as well as additional H&M requirements.
Environmental requirements for suppliers of store equipment and furnishings
H&M has drawn up environmental guidelines for purchasing store equipment and furnishings. Materials such as PVC and halogen-based plastic materials, metals such as lead and chrome and chemicals such brominated flame-retardants should be avoided in the manufacturing of store equipment or in the finished products. In addition, there are some fields of application where we have banned the use of certain materials, metals and chemicals. There is a guideline on first choice materials, metals, and chemicals that should be used instead in order to obtain more environmentally adapted products.