H&M announces initiative to increase e-commerce sustainably

Working towards its goal in becoming 100 percent circular and renewable, the H&M group has made a shift from a linear packaging model. The apparel company has announced a new partnership to integrate reusable packaging for its e-commerce business.

The H&M-owned Swedish denim and fashion label Weekday has partnered with Finnish startup RePack to re-circulate textile packaging over and over again.

Using RePack's model, Weekday offers their customers a discount if they return the packaging their online order came in. The customers can drop the RePack packaging into a post box or Weekday store. The packaging will then be cleaned and used again.

The RePack partnership comes after a test earlier this year between Weekday and the H&M Group's the Laboratory, studying on-demand printing.

The on-demand printing project allows customers to customize a T-shirt or sweatshirt with a variety of print, text or stickers. The customization is printed on demand using a technology that doesn't use water or contain banned chemicals.

"On-demand enables us to produce just the right amount, based on customer demand, reducing unnecessary production and therefore unsold product," said the Laboratory's Laura Coppen in a statement. "A reusable packaging system makes sense for us to test as we are also sending items directly from the factory to customers. We will continue to iterate on our learnings as we go, whilst building new capabilities into our supply chain."