H&M invites customers and employees to vote on charitable plans
Swedish fashion chain H&M is inviting its employees and customers to vote on which global issues its H&M Conscious Foundation should support in the coming years.
Using funds of half a billion SEK which have been donated by H&M owner the Stefan Persson family, H&M Conscious Foundation will address three global issues. Now, the foundation is giving H&M employees and customers the power to decide which three issues it should support by casting a vote at the dedicated website makeadifference.hm.com.
“It is our responsibility to make a positive impact in the communities where H&M operates. Now we invite our employees and customers to tell us what they think the H&M Conscious Foundation should support. This will guide us to understand what issues are of concern to a large group of people across the world”, said Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive of H&M and board member of the H&M Conscious Foundation.
H&M said the foundation had consulted with a number of experts about which global challenges they regarded as the most pressing. The experts concluded that clean water, strengthening women, safeguarding natural resources, education, and reduction of poverty through self-empowerment came top of the priority list and should be the issues that customers and employees vote on.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Once the top three issues have been decided, the foundation will partner with three world-renowned organisations to address them. In addition, the foundation will initiate local programmes in countries where H&M operates, mirroring the themes selected by the voting.
Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, director, Earth Institute, Columbia University and special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, said: “It is great that the H&M Conscious Foundation takes on the challenges of sustainable development by listening to the ideas of the global public. I am confident that with their commitment and global reach these efforts will promote many important initiatives. We can indeed be the generation that ends poverty and protects the Earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity.”
