Lee x H&M

Demin items and t-shirt as part of the H&M x Lee sustainable collection / Source: H&M

CottonEuropeLenzing EcoVeroLyocellNorth AmericaTexloop RCOTTextiles

3 MINUTE READ

Ian Crawley

WHAT WE SAY:

Collaboration is key to the future we need, and when two mass-scale fashion brands come together the result can have a significant impact. While it's encouraging to see these two iconic companies working together, we do question the decision to use recycled polyester for the sewing threads, considering the collection overall is dedicated to natural fibres.

We would love to see more ambition and a more holistic re-imagination, similar to Anya Hindmarch’s Return to Nature bag. Partial change is not enough when 100% better is already possible.

KEY FACTS:

In January 2021, denim brand Lee launched a sustainable collection in partnership with H&M.
Items included: H&M’s first 100% recycled Cotton jeans, a non-cotton denim jacket made from 50% Tencel Lyocell and 50% Lenzing Ecovero, and cotton jerseys made with 50% Texloop Rcot, a recycled cotton fibre from Circular Systems.
The collection was available in-store and online, with prices ranging from USD 13 to 60.

Jacket made from 50% Tencel Lyocell and 50% Lenzing Ecovero Viscose / Source: H&M

100% recycled cotton jeans, made from 80% post-industrial waste and 20% post-consumer waste / Source: H&M

DIVE DEEPER:

The Rcot t-shirt was made with recycled polyester sewing thread, with water-based inks used to print the logo.
Rcot is a blended cotton yarn, featuring up to 50% GRS-certified recycled cotton with 50% GOTS-certified organic cotton, produced by Circular Systems via mechanical recycling.
Circular Systems claims that Rcot, compared with conventional cotton, uses 99% less water and 54% less energy, while producing 20% less emissions. As always, these figures are based on now slightly redundant Higg data.
Similarly, the recycled jeans were made with from 80% post-industrial waste and 20% post-consumer textile waste, with non-plated metal trims, recycled polyester sewing threads, and a back patch made from FSC-certified cork and jacron paper.
H&M Group has claimed that it wants to become "100% circular," and as part of this initiative it launched a circular design tool, Circulator, for use by its own and external design teams.

"We’ve worked hard with our suppliers to find more sustainable solutions for the threads that hold the jeans together, the cotton that makes the pockets, and the metal for the button, rivets and zipper. We hope that by pushing for more sustainable solutions, it makes it easier for the denim industry, as a whole, to follow our lead."

Victoria Allen - Designer, H&M

Key Design Considerations:

Sweat the details

Lee and H&M claim that this collection represents a holistic approach to sustainability. But we have to question why recycled polyester was selected for the sewing threads, instantly ruining any hope of the garments being able to biodegrade benignly. If you are going to produce ‘sustainable’ products, then it is crucial to think through every detail.

Transparency is welcome, but are your metrics genuine?

As part of the launch of this collection, H&M also published LCA data related to garments’ water, CO2 and energy impacts on the relevant product pages. However, in June 2022, Norway’s Consumer Agency (Forbrukertilsynet) warned H&M that basing its data on the Higg MSI data was misleading and potentially illegal. This was swiftly followed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition pausing its use of Higg MSI metrics. While you should absolutely dig deeper into the data behind the material choices you make and communicate this clearly to customers, make sure that you are not using data in ways that justify and encourage excess consumption.

Circularity is more than a material choice, it is a system

While we applaud effective textile-to-texile recycling, the reality is that less than 1% of cotton was recycled in 2020. So, alongside using materials based on recycled feedstocks, it is important to think about how to fund and scale the collection, sorting and recycling infrastructure to a level where recycled natural materials (not rPET) can be used. And we are not talking about thousands of tons, we need to be recycling tens of millions of tons each year.