h&m – world recycle week
from brand activation to international fashion movementSince 2012, H&M has collected over 25,000 tonnes of clothing, or about 125 million T-shirts.
A cause for celebration and communication. Hence, from 18 to 24 April 2016 H&M organised a ‘World Recycle Week’. make sense handled the activation and awareness raising in Belgium.
A whopping two thousand litres of water are consumed for the production of a single T-shirt. H&M reduces this impact by collecting old clothing and then repurposing it in new pieces. During the World Recycle Week, the clothing giant sought to urge the world to bring in as much old clothing as possible at an H&M shop. Intact, torn, or stained, anything can be repurposed – or as H&M puts it: ‘Nothing is too torn to get a second life’. British rapper M.I.A. got behind the international project with her song ‘Rewear it’. Now that’s what you call a fashion statement.
H&M Belgium wished to utilise the collection initiative to bring focus to its collecting boxes. So our team made sure that the popular fashion chain’s target group could no longer miss it.
The entrance to three major H&M stores in Antwerp, Brussels, and Liège were outfitted with towering pillars where passers-by found flyers and bags for recycling old clothes. A green line that ran through the store led them directly to the collecting box. We promoted the initiative on social media with a motivational video: ‘Join us in a global fashion movement to clean up the planet!’.
The concept was a tremendous success: Globally, H&M collected over 1,000 tonnes of old clothing – more than the chain itself had projected. A range of bloggers and influencers naturally voiced their support of the initiative. Since the initiative, visitors to the Belgian shops are quicker to find their way to the collecting box. Mission accomplished!
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