Fashionable and sustainable?

H&M: can fast fashion and sustainability ever really mix? | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional: "Few sectors are more emblematic of today's consumer-driven growth model than the fashion industry. With each new season comes a brand new range of must haves. This "out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new" seesaw leaves us more hip and retailers more profitable, but it's costing the planet dear. Take jeans. The cotton that goes into a single pair of Levi's® 501®s, for example, requires almost 1,500 litres of water to grow. Add in millions of T-shirts, jumpers, socks, pairs of underwear … you do the maths.

But before you scowl at the next bag-laden shopper, just check where they're heading. It might just be that they are heading to H&M. Two months ago, the world's second largest clothing retailer introduced a garment collecting initiative in 1,500 stores. Its remaining 1,300 shops will follow by the autumn.

Cecilia Brannsten, project manager in H&M's sustainability team, is responsible for the initiative. The goal is simple, she says: "Basically, we want to change the mindset of the customer [so they] see their old clothes as a resource rather than throwing them into the garbage or letting them pile up at the back of their closet."

If you know M&S's shwopping deal, then you'll know the drill. Customers can go to any participating store with their old clothes and hand them over at the cash desk. In exchange, H&M offers a voucher. In the UK, customers will be able to use the voucher to get £5 off any purchase of more than £30. In other European markets, the deal is 15% off any purchase of your choice.

The Swedish retailer will take any clothes from any brand in any condition, Brannsten insists: "So we will accept everything from old washed-out T-shirts, to underwear to the one sock that you can never find the other pair to."