Global Change Award 2020

The Global Change Award, one of the world’s leading challenges for early stage innovation, and the largest initiative of its kind in the fashion industry, has been recently opened for entris in its 2020 edition. Do you see opportunities where others see problems? Do you want to join us to reimagine the future of fashion, to protect the planet and our living conditions? Do you have an innovation which is still in its early stage, but with the right funding and coaching, could be scalable and make a real impact? What organiser is looking for?

• does the idea have the potential of making fashion circular?
• what is the level of impact and scalability of the idea?
• how economically sustainable is the idea?
• how novel is the idea?
• how well suited is the team to realize the idea?
• would winning the Global Change Award make a difference for the team?

We want to find tomorrow’s game-changers – innovations that have the potential to shift the fashion industry from its linear approach to a circular one, to protect the planet and our living conditions. This means changing the way garments are currently designed and produced, shipped, bought, used and recycled by adding disruptive technology, processes, or new business models.

...,we’re 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. We’re 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. This year organiser keeps an extra eye on:

• Consumer-centric Innovation – innovations that improve the sustainable footprint of fashion from when it has landed in a shopping bag until the end of its lifetime, as well as nudging consumers to take more sustainable actions.
• Digital & Data – innovations that uses technology and data in creative ways that will significantly reduce the environmental impact of fashion.
• Circular Design – innovations that span over the whole ecosystem of fashion, or details of it, that are enabling the valuable and limited resources to continue in a closed loop, instead of one-time use.

Only 1 entry per person is allowed. Your entry has to be in English. Evaluation criteria:

• the Entry’s potential to make fashion circular and thereby protect the planet and lead to improved living conditions for people;
• impact and scalability
• is it economically sustainable
• is it novel
•how well suited is the team to make it happen
• would winning the grant make a difference

The H&M Foundation together with KTH and Accenture will screen all entries and shortlist 20 selected ideas during October and November 2019. These 20 teams will be contacted personally by H&M Foundation and asked to prepare a short information deck and participate in interviews during December 2019. 15 ideas will be then selected as finalists and presented to our international expert panel who selects the 5 winners. The winners are formally approved by the board of H&M Foundation in January 2020 and they are publicly announced on April 1st 2020.

There is no entry fee to participate!

It's free to enter!

The challenge is open to any individual and groups of up to 4 people over 18 years of age anywhere in the world. It is also open for institutions, organizations and social business.

The five winners will recive:

• Share a grant of €1 million to develop their ideas.
• Access to the one year long tailor-made Innovation Accelerator Program, provided by H&M Foundation, Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The accelerator includes immersion weeks in Stockholm, New York and Hong Kong.
• Global recognition and validation.