Origin Kajian #3 Can Fast Fashion Become Sustainable?: The Case of H&M’s Garment Collection Program
- MSS FEB UI
- Jul 24
- 10 min read
Fast Fashion Brands | Source: InStyle
1. Introduction
Fast fashion. It has become one of the most discussed business models in the industry, and not so much for good reasons. Fast fashion is aimed at getting the newest styles of clothing to customers at a rapid pace. Its core is to provide fashion products at very low prices and massive amounts, with a shorter and more compressed production cycle compared to normal items (McKinsey and Company, 2025). By shortening the manufacturing process and offering the latest designs, these businesses enable consumers not only to augment their wardrobes but also to update them almost instantly (Remy et al., 2016). This “competitive advantage” makes them very lucrative (Ritch, 2025), productive, and attractive to consumers wanting to buy well-styled clothing at rather low prices.
Environmental Footprint of Common Fashion Products Throughout Their Life Cycle | Source: Niinimäki et al., 2020
Although it’s one of the most profitable and rapidly evolving business models in the fashion and garment world, worth globally around US$150.82 billion in 2025 with an estimated 10.74% growth from 2024, fast fashion has sparked many controversies, particularly regarding its role in creating negative social and environmental challenges (Cardone, 2025). This is widely known as the sustainability paradox of fast fashion. Companies develop their capability in making affordable products at a faster pace, but this convenience would cost unseen environmental and ethical issues. Research shows that the fashion industry alone releases around 4.0 Gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 for their production in 2016 and consumes about 79 litres of water per year. Moreover, around the world, people lose about US$460 billion each year because they throw away clothes that could still be worn, and some items of clothing are thrown away after only seven to ten times being used (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019). This creates an excessive amount of textile waste piling up in landfills. Overproduction, low pay and unfit working conditions have also been long associated with fast fashion practices. Companies like Zara, Shein, and H&M, are amongst few frequently cited businesses in connection with those disputes.
Statistics showing growth in clothing sales and decline in clothing utilization | Source: The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Modern consumers are increasingly looking for brands that offer style and affordability while also being mindful of the environment. Investors are incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into their decision-making processes, while governments are consistently implementing more rigorous sustainability regulations. In response to these circumstances, H&M introduces one of the industry’s most ambitious sustainability initiatives, H&M’s Conscious Actions, which includes their well-known Garment Collection Program. It aims to collect unwanted textiles, regardless of brand or condition, for them to rewear, recycle and/or reuse. In return, customers will get a shopping voucher, creating an incentive for responsible disposal. This initiative quickly became one of the most recognized circular fashion programs in the world. However, it also sparked a crucial debate: Can fast fashion truly be sustainable, or are initiatives like this merely a structured marketing strategy? This article aims to analyze H&M’s Garment Collection Program through the lenses of the theories of circular economy, ESG, green marketing, corporate sustainability, and greenwashing. 2. Literature Review
2.1 Circular and Linear Economy
According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (n.d.), the circular economy is a system where materials never turn into waste and nature is recovered. In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation and designed to remain in use for as long as possible. This is achieved through methods such as maintenance, reuse, refurbishing, remanufacturing, recycling, and composting. This system promotes avoiding activities related to disposing well-functioning products and materials, and reusing what is available without the need to buy more.
Linear Economy Cycle | Source: Wautelet, Thibaut. (2018). Exploring the role of independent retailers in the circular economy: a case study approach.
Contrary to the circular model, linear economy is a system of producing, distributing, and using clothing that operates in an entirely linear process. This means that large quantities of resources are obtained to produce clothing items that are often used for only a short period of time, subsequently leaving most of the material stranded in landfills or destroyed by incineration (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2019). This creates a destructive pattern of waste management by adding up to the negative impacts stemming from the constant increase in the quantity of clothing items that are thrown away prematurely.
2.2 Corporate Sustainability and ESG
Corporate Sustainability is a strategic approach that integrates environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and corporate governance into a company's business strategy and operational activities. Three fundamental overlapping pillars become the foundation of corporate sustainability: environmental, social, and economic aspects (Vicente, 2024). This approach encourages good governance and more environmentally and socially responsible decision-making, while helping companies and investors understand long-term risks and opportunities more comprehensively (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, n.d.). As a crucial pillar of modern business, corporate sustainability enables companies to remain relevant, competitive, and sustainable amidst growing global demands for responsible and sustainability-oriented business practices (Nisa, 2025).
ESG is a corporate operational standard that encompasses three key concepts: Environmental, Social, and Governance. In business and investment practices, companies that adopt ESG principles will integrate and implement policies that align with the sustainability of these three elements (Prudential, n.d.). The environmental aspect evaluates a firm’s efforts in managing its operational impact towards nature. The social aspect measures how firms treat their human capital, both within and outside work settings. And the governance aspect examines the leadership and governance system, while also acts as the internal control of the firm.
2.3 Green Marketing and Greenwashing Practices
People often associate green marketing concepts with characteristics like "recyclable", “eco-friendly”, “reusable”, or “phosphate free”. In reality, green marketing is actually a much wider concept. It isn't just about labeling certain products with eco-friendly or environmental attributes. It should also incorporate a wide variety of actions, such as changing the products, altering the production method, updating the packaging, and adjusting the advertising approach (Polonsky, 1994). Other scholars describe green marketing as actions that are aimed at creating and supporting exchanges that meet human wants and needs, while also taking into account environmental impacts and striving to minimize harm to the natural environment (Polonsky, 1994).
On the other hand, greenwashing is a deceptive practice that takes place when green marketing isn’t implemented ethically and transparently. With the entire world more actively aware of the concept and values of sustainability, it’s sometimes hard for companies to keep up with those expectations. One of the unethical practices that are commonly found is greenwashing, which is the practice of making environmental claims that are deceptive, not supported by facts or evidence, and overly exaggerated (Tunley Environmental, 2024). Greenwashing can be applied in many ways, including ambiguity regarding environmental claims, misleading branding, and secret trade-offs.
3. Discussion
3.1 H&M’s Garment Collection Program
Fast fashion is one of many examples of consumption-driven industries. Its tenacity in business is highly impacted by how much people are willing to consume their products. This created skepticism when H&M, a famously known fast fashion brand, launched their Garment Collection Program in 2013. It’s a program that aims to reduce textile waste by encouraging customers to return unwanted clothing, both from and outside the brand, to H&M stores. Collected garments are then generally sorted into three categories:
Re-wear: Clothing items that are suitable to resell for second-hand markets.
Re-use: Garments that will be repurposed and transformed into other forms of products (e.g. toys and educational tools).
Recycle: Textiles that are unqualified to re-use and will be used as fibres for other industries (e.g. automotive, bed mattress, building).
Participants receive discount vouchers for future purchases, creating both environmental and commercial incentives.
H&M’s Garment Collecting Box | Source: Pamper.my
This program demonstrates H&M’s attempts in adopting circularity in its operations by recovering used garments after consumption. Rather than leaving clothes to become waste right after it’s used, garments enter a new production cycle. The program promotes textile recovery, waste reduction, consumer awareness, and resource efficiency.
However, critics argue that the largest environmental impact occurs before consumers even discard their clothes. Fast fashion’s core business model still heavily relies on unproportionately high production volumes, short product life cycles, rapid trend turnover, and constant encouragement of frequent shopping. Even if millions of garments are collected through the program, billions of other garments continue to enter the market annually. Therefore, recycling alone cannot offset overproduction. H&M’s program promotes circularity and addresses fast fashion’s waste problems, but not necessarily highlighting the ongoing issue of excessive production.
From the ESG perspective, this program has provided positive contributions, especially regarding textile waste, consumer awareness, and transparency. Analyzed through the environmental dimension, H&M’s sustainability programs helped diminish textile from landfills, increase the quantity of recycled fibres, and decrease the industry’s heavy reliance on virgin materials. Nevertheless there are still some limitations regarding the technology that is used in processing blended fabrics. Consequently, many collected garments cannot be recycled into fully new clothing, and end up being down-cycled into lower value products.
When observed through the social aspect of this framework, it’s apparent that H&M’s sustainability initiative promotes responsible consumption and encourages customers to build a sustainable lifestyle by supporting second-hand markets and advertising circularity. Even so, many critics have pointed out broader labor issues in fast fashion, specifically regarding working conditions, wage concerns, and production tension. This highlights how sustainability goes beyond just caring for the environment, but also includes fair and ethical treatment of workers. Through the governance pillar, H&M has implemented sustainability, particularly in their Conscious Actions, by having sustainability reports, ESG targets, transparency, and public commitments. Nevertheless, stakeholders are now looking for concrete results instead of just big promises.
3.2 Green Marketing Paradox and Business Dilemmas in Fast Fashion
Green marketing implies promoting products or services by highlighting their environmental benefits. H&M has positioned their brand in the realm of sustainability by releasing marketing campaigns that emphasize recycled materials and circular fashion through their conscious programs. This strategy creates various business advantages, which includes brand differentiation by initiating “prefered” sustainable fashion programs, customer loyalty by increasing customers participation in garment collection, and increased sales by giving away discount vouchers to encourage additional purchases. Ironically though, their recycling initiative that was originally designed to reduce waste, may end up stimulating new consumptions. This illustrates a unique marketing paradox where a sustainability program can achieve its goals in reducing waste while simultaneously increasing sales and encouraging consumption.
Source: H&M Group on LinkedIn
Additionally to this paradox, one of the most debatable aspects of H&M’s sustainability plans concerns accusations of greenwashing. This occurs for several reasons:
The incentives used encourage more shopping and consequently encourage customers to buy additional fast fashion products. The cycle ignores one of sustainability’s main values: Buy less, use longer.
Recycling technology capacity is still limited, resulting in only a limited number of donated garments re-produced into new clothing.
H&M continues producing a large number of new clothes every year. Some critics say that cutting down on production quantity helps the environment more than just recycling alone.
Despite being heavily criticized, H&M’s upholders argue that perfect sustainability does not exist and requires gradual and continuous progress to be achieved optimally. On top of that, they also believe that in order for sustainability programs to work, consumer behavior also plays a vital role (Lay, 2022). Instead of completely ignoring and discouraging these sustainability efforts made by fast fashion companies, many sustainability experts support continuous improvement and greater transparency.
4. Conclusion
The case of H&M’s Garment Collection Program demonstrates both the potential and the limitations of sustainability within the fast fashion industry. It can be concluded that recycling and reusing initiatives alone cannot fully offset the environmental and societal impacts of continuous mass production and overconsumption in fast fashion. For entrepreneurs and business leaders, the key takeaway is straightforward: Sustainability isn’t merely a branding exercise or a marketing tool, but a strategic imperative. Businesses that genuinely integrate circular economy, ESG considerations, and environmentally responsible innovation into their core operations are more likely to establish lasting competitive advantages, resilience, and stakeholder trust. This is especially important now, as success in business is heavily determined by how a company can balance profitability with their responsibility towards the people and the planet.
Nevertheless, one of the greatest challenges for companies operating in industries such as fast fashion is balancing the pursuit of profitability with the responsibility to minimize environmental impact. While increased consumption and frequent purchases remain key drivers of revenue growth, they also contribute to greater resource depletion and waste generation. Therefore, companies must move beyond the traditional focus on maximizing sales volume and instead explore business models that create value through durability, circularity, product innovation, and responsible consumption. Achieving sustainability does not necessarily require sacrificing profitability. Instead, companies can redefine growth by developing solutions that align economic objectives with environmental and social responsibility.
Writer:
Haidar Zeeka Fachrezi
References
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