Fashion companies go sustainable

H&M, for its part, wants to be known not just as a retail-clothing giant but also as a leader in sustainable fashion.

Since 2010, the Swedish brand has created collections made from greener materials, including Better Cotton. Its latest, released this spring, is the Exclusive Glamour Conscious collection, inspired by celebrity looks on the red carpet.

Company executives say H&M will continue expanding its line of Conscious products and collections to spread the message of sustainable living.

"Conscious is a way for us to highlight sustainability and engage with consumers," Helena Helmersson, the brand's head of sustainability, tells China Daily during the Copenhagen summit, where she was a keynote speaker.

"I would also like to encourage customers to really go and find products that are more sustainable. Of course it would be lovely if it's H&M," she says, "but there are also other labels that can help consumers today make more conscious choices."

But how does the company reconcile its campaign for sustainability with its reputation as a pillar of "fast fashion" - designs made and sold quickly and inexpensively? Some critics describe this production model as cheap, addictive and unsustainable.

"As a company we're not encouraging people to buy loads of volume," Helmersson says. "We want to reach many people, so we need to combine price, quality and fashion. But to have low prices or good prices doesn't have to mean bad quality.

"We work very hard with the quality to make the items durable even though they have low prices. And what we're after is, of course, to gain market share, not necessarily to increase volume with all customers."

Like Li Lianfeng, Levi's, Gucci and H&M are profit driven. But clearly, steps forward have been taken by the fashion industry - what insiders themselves describe as "one of the world's most polluting industries".

Contact the writer at tiffany@chinadaily.com.cn.