„H&M is saying its goal has stayed the same, and they are right on track. Is that true?
No, that is not true, and H&M is not on track to fulfil its original commitment at the time this campaign is being launched. Instead of admitting that this is the case, corporate public relations experts are trying to divert attention from how the commitment has been watered down through the years.
In fact, original documents published in 2013 have disappeared from H&M’s corporate website! Why take them down if not because there is something in them that H&M would like to hide? Thankfully, the groundbreaking commitment H&M made in 2013 sparked so much interest that the original wording can still be found, despite H&M’s concerted efforts to cover it up.
This is what H&M committed to in 2013: „In a first step, our goal is that H&M’s strategic suppliers should have pay systems in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018. By then, this will affect 850,000 textile workers.“ (emphasis added). This is how the commitment sounds in the brand’s latest sustainability report: „Supplier factories representing 50% of product volume should be using the Fair Wage Method by 2018 and 90% of business partners should regard H&M as a fair business partner by 2018.““
I have not found the original documents where H&M states their promises because they were apparently taken down by H&M. Jeff, can you send them to me? I understand that CCC states that H&M committed this:
In a first step, our goal is that H&M’s strategic suppliers should have pay systems in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018.
You might read this as a promise to pay living wages – but I would rather read it as having proper pay systems in place and not about the wages that will be paid (ETI rightly criticizes that H&M focuses on outputs, not outcomes).
Is this good PR? Is this done intentionally by H&M? Or are journalists interpreting things wrongly? Maybe this is „good“ PR: Last year I was criticising the German quality newspaper ZEIT for portraying facts about H&M wrongly. They wrote that „Bis 2020 plant H&M nur noch Biobaumwolle, bis 2030 nur noch vollständig recycelte Materialien zu verarbeiten – …“ – but basically H&M promised „Our aim is for all cotton in our range to come from sustainable* sources by 2020.“ – and in the footnote H&M clearly says that sustainable sources is also BCI – which journalists turn into organic cotton.
Neva & Jeff – I am happy to add more arguments from „lost and found“ – but I did not find this. Please send me the original documents that you are referring to.
I now received a link to this „Lost & Found„ document. Maybe I am blind, but in this document I do not find a claim that living wages should be paid, but only:
„VISION: A Fair Living Wage, covering workers basic needs, should be paid by all our commercial goods suppliers.“ – Well, H&M included a spelling mistake into this roadmap, but this is a vision, not a promise.
„FACTORY OWNERS: H&M’s strategic suppliers should have pay structures in place to pay a fair living wage by 2018.“ – This is also not the promise that they acutall pay living wages.
Honestly, I am a bit lost now regarding the promise.
getchanged.blog 
I received the following two public comments on my short article on living wages by two people who were involved in the CCC Turn Around campaign (Neva Nahtigal and Jeff Hermanson). Many thanks! I would like to comment on them (marked in red).
Jeff Hermanson 2nd degree connection2ndGlobal Strategies: Mark, thanks for this. I support the suggestion that you look at the documents on the CCC campaign website that show H&M did indeed publicly promise that their suppliers would pay a living wage by 2018. It’s no surprise they haven’t done it – those of us that follow these things knew this was an empty promise, and as the years passed it was clear H&M was not even trying to keep it. They’ve spent millions on PR, they’ve convinced some people they’re sincere, they’ve signed “global framework agreements” and joined the ACT process, but the bottom line is that H&M workers in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia are paid starvation wages. H&M increased their sourcing from Vietnam, where workers have no right to organize, and boast of “worker participation” schemes that are devoid of legitimacy. They are opening factories in Ethiopia in their continuing search of low-wage havens. Here’s a question for your research: what is the average unit price H&M pays for the manufacture of a garment, compared with 2013? I’d wager it is lower. This is why the Persson family is the richest family in Sweden and one of the richest in the world. 850,000 workers, among the world’s poorest, are waiting for H&M to keep their promise.
To avoid any misunderstanding: I totally agree with the CCC that the wages paid in global fashion supply chains are way too low – and that CCC is not paying living wages. I also think that it is a shame for the whole industry that they have been paying poverty wages in most countries of the world and that within the last 40 years not much has changed. I totally agree that companies should report more in detail about the wages their suppliers pay and I know that today technologies are around that make this possible. I can reiterate that I have come to the conclusion that most companies do not really care about the wages in their supply chain – at least judging from the actions they take to improve the wages in their supply chains (that are slow – if things were burning for the brand, things would change quicker). So I believe that most fashion brands have actually accepted that workers in supply chains are being paid poverty wages.
I do not know whether H&M has been making false promises out of strategic reasons, as Jeff suggests. Of course, it is easy to promise something for the future – and then later not fulfil this. I wonder: If the CCC believes that there were false promises, why does it not simply sue H&M for consumer deception? Would this not be more effective?
So I looked into the CCC documents, as suggested – I found this in the FAQs: