H&M Foundation 2025 Global Change Award (Up to €200,000)

We are looking for changemakers who can help decarbonise fashion. The aim is to propel the textile industry towards net-zero emissions by accelerating innovation that benefits both people and the planet. Our vision is to spark industry-wide transformation towards a socially inclusive and planet positive future.

The H&M Foundation launched the Global Change Award – called The Nobel Prize of Fashion – as the first innovation challenge of its kind in 2015. Since then, 46 innovations have received support and a combined grant of 8 million euros from the Global Change Award. And the grant is just one perk of winning the Global Change Award.

Promoting solutions that will benefit both people and planet

Initially, we were looking to increase circularity, and then moving on to focusing on finding planet positive solutions. We are now gearing up to help the textile industry with one of its biggest challenges – decarbonisation. More specifically, supporting the textile industry in halving its greenhouse gas emissions every decade, in line with the carbon law. The aim is to transform the textile industry through systems thinking.

Every year we will empower ten new changemakers – persons with the commitment, capacity, and initiative to solve problems – on their unique journeys, to transform their groundbreaking ideas into tangible, impactful innovations. Our goal is to equip them and the textile industry with knowledge, tools, connections, and a holistic mindset and spark significant, industry-wide transformation towards a net-zero future where both people and the planet can thrive.

The GCA operates within four key areas of transformation that contribute to our strategic direction in a systemic way. The below descriptions within these areas are examples but should not be taken as exhaustive.

• Sustainable materials and processes – Low energy materials and new and recycled fibres, sustainable energy practices, alternative wet processes, treatments and finishes and new construction techniques.
• Responsible production – Solutions within renewable energy, energy efficiency, prediction modelling, traceability, on-demand, waste management and zero-waste
• Mindful consumption – Solutions on how to reshape demand, garment care, extending garment life cycles, recycling solutions, and circular business models
• Wildcards – Impactful solutions and drivers we haven’t considered or been made aware of but speak to the overarching mission of the GCA.

How we do it

Over the years, we have seen the Global Change Award growing into a powerful network of diverse players that are taking action to reinvent and shape the future of our industry. And going forward, our ambition is to continuously support and back this ever-growing ecosystem of motivated and ambitious changemakers, GCA alumni, experts, brands and retailers, funders, suppliers and more on our joint journey towards decarbonisation – and an inclusive and planet positive textile industry.

This is how we actively support systems change through this network;

• We promote systems thinking – we actively promote a holistic approach, including the perspectives of people and the planet and we strive to equip changemakers as well as industry stakeholders with knowledge about how to drive systems change.
• We bring people together – we actively seek to connect the right people at the right point in time. We aim to leverage our connection to the textile industry, and we also look beyond the “usual suspects”.
• We share learnings and insights – we strive to increase knowledge within the industry and the innovation ecosystem by encouraging knowledge sharing around challenges and possible solutions, systems change, collaboration and innovation.
• We catalyse diversity of people and ideas – as transformative change requires action and shifts on multiple levels and across many areas, we strive to support a wide range of changemakers and build a diverse network of actors that can contribute to transformation.

Already, several past winners are implemented by, or in collaborations with, global brands and businesses to transform the entire textile industry.

Neither H&M Foundation or H&M Group take any shareholder equity or intellectual property rights in the winning innovations. The winners can collaborate with whomever they want, the aim is to find innovations that allow major change for the entire industry.

• Table of Content
• About H&M Foundation
• H&M Foundation Global Change Award
• Aim and Benefits of H&M Foundation Global Change Award
• Requirements for H&M Foundation Global Change Award Qualification
• Interview date, Process and Venue for H&M Foundation Global Change Award
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About H&M Foundation

Promoting just and fair climate solutions for the textile industry H&M Foundation supports the industry in halving its greenhouse gas emissions every decade by 2050, while promoting a just and fair transition for both people and the planet. We use philanthropic resources to fund vital research and breakthrough innovation, develop impactful partnerships and create storytelling that inspires change. Global Change Award New round of our innovation challenge launched with a mission to accelerate innovation for a net-zero textile industry by 2050. Co-cr... continue reading

H&M Foundation Global Change Award

Application Deadline	15 Nov 2024
Value	€200,000
Type	Contest
Sponsor	H&M Foundation
Gender	Men and Women

Aim and Benefits of H&M Foundation Global Change Award

The aim is to propel the textile industry towards net-zero emissions by accelerating innovation that benefits both people and the planet. Our vision is to spark industry-wide transformation towards a socially inclusive and planet positive future.

Our winners each receive €200,000 and are celebrated and awarded at the iconic Stockholm City Hall, the home of the Nobel Prize, where they are also connected to the wider industry.

They also enter a yearlong Changemaker Programme provided by the H&M Foundation in collaboration with our strategic partners Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Requirements for H&M Foundation Global Change Award Qualification

We are looking for changemakers who can help decarbonise fashion.

The GCA must gearing up to help the textile industry with one of its biggest challenges – decarbonisation. More specifically, supporting the textile industry in halving its greenhouse gas emissions every decade, in line with the carbon law. 

Be a changemakers – persons with the commitment, capacity, and initiative to solve problems – on their unique journeys, to transform their groundbreaking ideas into tangible, impactful innovations. 

The GCA operates within four key areas of transformation that contribute to our strategic direction in a systemic way. 

• Sustainable materials and processes – Low energy materials and new and recycled fibres, sustainable energy practices, alternative wet processes, treatments and finishes and new construction techniques.
• Responsible production – Solutions within renewable energy, energy efficiency, prediction modelling, traceability, on-demand, waste management and zero-waste
• Mindful consumption – Solutions on how to reshape demand, garment care, extending garment life cycles, recycling solutions, and circular business models
• Wildcards – Impactful solutions and drivers we haven’t considered or been made aware of but speak to the overarching mission of the GCA.

Interview date, Process and Venue for H&M Foundation Global Change Award

Specifically, we are looking for ideas in the following overarching areas: sustainable materials & processes, responsible production, mindful consumption and what we call wildcards; namely ideas that may not neatly fall into our desired categories but that have a clear connection to the overall goals of the GCA.

Winners will be announced in April 2025 but celebrated and further connected with the industry at our Award Ceremony in Stockholm in October.

We will involve a reference group of experts, predominantly from the textile industry, to screen the candidates. Finalists will also be reviewed by an expert panel before a final decision being is taken by the H&M Foundation board.

Winners are selected based on a combination of factors. These include where they are in the innovation journey: whether they fall under one of our four key areas, their capacity to embrace systems change thinking, and their commitment, capacity and initiative to solve problems. The goal of the award is to advance promising ideas to concept validation.

Application Deadline

November 15, 2024

How to Apply

For nominators, the window is open from October 21st, 2024 – November 15th, 2024. For nominees, the window is open till December 2024.

If you are not nominated by one of our nominators but would like to be considered, you can send in your idea to our official nominator in the Global Change Award, The Mills Fabrica. Please see Global Change Award Nomination Platform – Global Change Award 2025

For more details visit: H&M Foundatio website.