The apparel industry’s environmental impact, mitigation and adaptation to climate change : A case study of three Swedish companies​

Abstract: Each year a large number of garments are produced. The annual global clothing production today accedes 100 billion garments. By 2030, the world population will be more than 8.5 billion people and global clothing production will rise by 63%. The apparel industry’s greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise by 50% or 60% by 2030 if the industry does not work sustainably. The apparel industry is one of the largest contributors to climate change and global warming which is one of the most threatening issues at the present time. This study contains a literature review about the apparel industry’s environmental impacts and tools, methods and ways used by the apparel companies in general to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In addition, this study contains a description, analysis and comparison of three Swedish apparel companies in terms of their environmental impacts and management systems to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These companies are H&M group, Lindex, and KappAhl. The environmental management systems of these companies have been analyzed to identify and understand their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and issues that constitute threat for them. In order to make deep understanding to the three companies’ environmental management systems, these systems have been compared. The comparison consists of two parts. In the first part, the environmental management systems of the three companies have been compared. In the second part, the environmental management systems of Lindex and KappAhl have been compared. The comparison has been divided into two parts because of the difference in the companies’ size. H&M group is a giant company while Lindex and KappAhl are much smaller. In other words, the first part covers details and estimations about H&M group and only details about Lindex and KappAhl that are appropriate to be compared with H&M group. The second part of the comparison covers details and numbers related to the environmental management systems of Lindex and KappAhl that are not appropriate to be compared with H&M group. This study showed that H&M group can be the role model company in the comparison except for three comparison criteria which are transportation, sustainable denim styles and sustainable clothes hangers. The other conclusion is that Lindex is doing better sustainability work than KappAhl according to some criteria and KappAhl is doing better sustainability work than Lindex according to other criteria. In addition, this study showed that as the apparel industry impacts the climate significantly, the climate started threating the entireapparel industry as a response. The study also showed that customers’ awareness of the apparel industry’s sustainable impacts increased and therefore they want the apparel companies to be more sustainable and transparent. These conclusions in addition to other conclusions have been summarized in the conclusions section which is the last section in this study before the references.