MANILA, PHILIPPINES —H&M launches a new initiative to encourage customers to bring their own reusable bags via a digital press event held on August 20, 2020.
The project is called Let’s Reuse, an external program where customers will be charged Php 2.00 for every paper bag of any size when they shop in any H&M stores in the Philippines starting September 1, 2020. All the proceeds will go to non-profit organization Waves for Water Philippines to support their clean water projects in many local communities in the country.
“In order to reduce our paper bag wastes and encourage our customers to bring their own
reusable bags whenever they shop at H&M or anywhere else, we will start to charge our customers with Php 2.00 for every paper bag. All proceeds from the paper bag charge will go to benefit the clean water projects of Waves for Water Philippines.” said Marian Dang, Sustainability Manager of South East Asia.
The digital press event which was hosted by H&M’s Head Of Communications Dan Mejia and UN Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador and founder of non-profit organization CORA, Antoinette Taus laid out the reasons why there’s a need to launch the said project in the country, “We all know that single—use plastic bags harm the environment, and paper bags isn’t the best solution either. About 80 percent of all paper bags end up in the landfills — they often do not biodegrade for decades because of lack of oxygen, and compared to plastic bags, they cost more to landfills because they take up more space by weight and volume.” Mejia shared.
At H&M, we aim to build a sustainable fashion future—and through our #HMLetsReuse project, we encourage our customers to skip the single-use packaging by bringing their own reusable shopping bags instead.
Kindly be guided by our new paper bag fee beginning September 1, 2020. pic.twitter.com/5dXJiIJ8wB
— H&M Philippines (@hmphilippines) August 20, 2020
“Not only that, when we compare it to plastic, making a paper bag emits 51 percent more global warming gasses, it creates 50 times more water pollution, uses 4 times more raw materials, and consumes 2 times more energy,” Taus added.
Also present at the event was Jenica Dizon; Country Director for Waves for Water in the Philippines, Jon Rose; founder of Waves for Water, Carlo Delantar; circular economy pioneer of the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, and Sylvain Crouzat; Philippines’ Country Sales Manager.
“Women and children are disproportionately affected as they are often tasked with fetching water for their households— unpaid work, in effect causing a loss of productive hours in education, menstrual health management and other opportunities…with the help of partners who have supported the cause, and our community champions, we have now been able to reach a million Filipinos across the countrys 56 Out Of 82 provinces and with H&M’s Let Reuse project, we’ll be able to reach more,” shared Jenica Dizon.
“We see the potential to create awareness and educate our customers of what sustainable fashion is about and what small actions everyone can contribute while being locally relevant and resonate with our Philippine customers…that leads us to this new project to encourage our customers to bring their own reusable bags to help protect the environment. Based on our experience from other markets that the bag charge has led to a significant increase in the actual paper bag usage— where millions of paper bags have been saved.” Marian Dang highlighted.
H&M aims to engage their customers in the process, “We want to educate and make it easy to understand that by not taking single—use paper or plastic bags at the cash point, you are doing something good for the planet. But if you have to buy a paper bag because you are not ready or prepared yet, do not feel bad, because you are still doing good by contributing to provide clean water to our local communities through Our partner Waves for Water Philippines,” she added.
Following the event, H&M will start rolling out their customer information campaign to better understand the project.
To know more about Waves for Water, you can follow them at @wavesforwaterphilippines and @wavesforwater. You can also check their website.
For more updates about the project and upcoming news about H&M, you can follow their facebook page and @hmphilippines on Twitter.
