Alexander Von Aufschnaiter

Sustainability Business Expert at H&M Hennes & Mauritz

H&M’s business idea is to offer fashion and quality at the best price in a sustainable way. To ensure that sustainability is a natural part of everything we do, we’ve needed to raise awareness and build knowledge and understanding among our colleagues, especially among those who’re taking decisions that have a big impact. Industry-specific sustainability trainings such as the SFA course are a very good tool to help achieve that.

How many colleagues from your company participated, and how did they respond to the education and training?

Approximately 300 of my colleagues have taken the course recently, and the response has been very positive.

What have the benefits of the training been?

The textile supply chain is quite complex. To convey all this in a comprehensible and attractive way without being too time consuming has been one of the benefits of the training.

What advice do you have for other companies planning to engage, educate or train their staff on sustainability topics?

What’s worked for us is a staff-engagement programme that’s based on information, education and activation. We want to make sure that everyone has a fundamental knowledge and understanding of our sustainability work, and in addition to that, we want to provide needs-based and target-group specific sustainability information and education that creates impact and helps achieve our goals. We want everyone to be engaged, which doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone needs the same kind of information or education.

Is there anything else that stands out about your SFA training experience that was helpful and you would like to share?

The assignments in the training were a really good way to get the students thinking about how they could apply and integrate sustainability in their work.