For almost 150 years British Red Cross has been helping support people in crisis all over the world. Each year the charity helps around half a million people across the UK to prepare for, respond to and recover from crises.
In 2009, H&M were proud to become one of the first fashion retailers to partner with the British Red Cross to donate all unsaleable stock for re-sale across the charities 330 high-street shops. H&M and the British Red Cross are now celebrating the 10 year anniversary of this partnership.
The partnership draws upon H&M’s commitment to lead the way to a more sustainable fashion future, by ensuring that textiles that cannot be sold in its stores, do not go to waste and are instead passed onto charity to be resold. Over the last 10 years this partnership has raised £4.4 million for the British Red Cross. These funds have subsequently been used by the British Red Cross to respond to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies in the UK and overseas.
The British Red Cross has also been the main charity partner for H&M UK’s customer facing, in-store Garment Recycling scheme since it began in 2013. The service enables customers to recycle unwanted clothes and textiles, by any brand, in any condition, at any H&M store. H&M then sells the clothes to it’s global recycling partner I:Collect who then recycle the clothes ensuring 0% goes to landfill. This is an entirely non-profit driving initiative and all funds raised via the Garment Recycling scheme are donated to charity. In the UK the main charity partner and donation recipient is the British Red Cross.
Paul Thompson, Director of Retail and Community Fundraising at British Red Cross said “Our H&M partnership has enabled British Red Cross to support people in crisis all over the world. We sort and recycle an incredible quantity of items to sell in our stores every week, which helps us raise vital funds to enable vulnerable people to prepare for and withstand emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, we help them to recover and move on with their lives. As two prominent names on the UK high street, working together to promote sustainability and support communities, strengthens our cause and I’m excited to see what the next decade holds.”
