AFRY supports circular fashion at H&M
AFRY supports circular fashion at H&M
The vision of H&M group is to lead the change towards circular and renewable fashion while being a fair and equal company. The H&M group has high ambitions for integrating circular economy into their overall operations and under 2018 they extended their ongoing assignment with AFRY to develop a circular packaging strategy.
“To be able to accelerate the shift from a linear to a circular model, it’s crucial to tackle the challenge connected to package waste. We therefore value our strategic partnership with AFRY, addressing this issue in a collaborative way. Ensuring a circular strategy for packaging by maximizing the use and the value of the resources is necessary for the planet and an important part of our vision to move towards full circularity.” – Cecilia Brännsten, Environmental Sustainability Manager, H&M Group.
A circular approach keeps resources in use for as long as possible and retakes the waste as raw material in a never ending eco-loop. The notion of circularity has deep historical origins. The idea of feedback, of cycles in real-world systems, is ancient, and more akin to an eco-system than a machine. With current advances, digital technology has the power to support the transition to a circular economy by radically increasing virtualisation, de-materialisation, transparency, and feedback-driven intelligence.
Companies need to build core competencies in circular design and industrial ecology to facilitate product and packaging reuse, recycling and cascading. Areas that are important would for example be materials selection, design-for-(re)manufacturing, reverse logistics and take-back systems, and last but not least, an integrated systems thinking that ties together the different parts throughout the value chain.
AFRY has over 100 consultants working with environmental issues, in which circular economy is a specialized area covering several disciplines across AFRY's broad spectrum of competences.
See The Ellen MacArthur Foundation for more information regarding circular economy and contact Carolina Togård if you want to know more about how circular economy would affect your business.
