Applications open for the H&M Foundation Global Change Award 2020

Every year, the H&M Foundation launches a call for new and early stage ideas presenting new circular approaches intended to reinvent the fashion industry.

Five winners are selected each year and get to share 1 million euro. The winners will also embark on a one-year Innovation Accelerator Program taking them to Stockholm, New York and Hong Kong. In the accelerator, H&M Foundation, Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology will support the winners in taking their ideas to the next level, with guidance on how to scale up quickly and maximize their impact on the industry.

“This year, we are especially looking for innovations that make it easier for us as consumers to act more sustainably, ideas that use technology and data that make the fashion industry smarter and solutions that facilitate design with a circular intention”, says Erik Bang, Innovation Lead, H&M Foundation.

For example, the Foundation is looking for innovations connected to waste – how resources can be recovered and turned into material, products or services, or how waste can be eliminated in the first place. Ideas that support a climate positive fashion industry, for example creating clothes, services and manufacturing processes that are not only neutral, but actually good for the environment. They are also looking for new materials and innovations that use digital technologies such as AI, machine learning, robotics or connectivity to make fashion circular, as well as ideas that focus on improving the environmental footprint of a product after it has been bought.

To win, the innovation should have the potential to make fashion circular and to scale. Other criteria are novelty, that the idea is economically sustainable, and that the innovation team is committed to making a difference.

Any individual or group of up to 4 people over 18 years of age anywhere in the world, as well as institutions, organizations and social business, are invited to apply. Commercial entities are NOT eligible.

Timeline of the call:

• Early Bird Deadline (not obligatory): 18 September 2019 at 23:00 GMT
• Call Deadline: 16 October 2019 at 23:00 GMT
• Interviews (upon invitation): December 2019
• Award Ceremony: April 2020
• One-year Innovation Accelerator Program: 02.04.2020 – 02.04.2021

For further information, please have a look at the EPFL Memento .