H&M Finally Speaks

As we told you yesterday, H&M and Walmart have been caught red-handed destroying and throwing out perfectly good unused clothing instead of donating the goods to charity.

So evil!

As of yesterday, Walmart had said only that they were investigating the matter. H&M had yet to comment.

Now, H&M is finally speaking out: the fast-fashion retailer Tweeted last night that, “This incident is not a representative example of H&M policy. Full statement at facebook.com/hm. We are investigating. Please RT.”

As for the “full statement,” on Facebook, the three sentence address reads:

H&M is committed to taking responsibility for how our operations affect people and the environment. Visit www.hm.com/csr for an updated statement. Please contact H&M via www.hm.com/csr to specifically address this situation.

So, natch, we headed over to the H&M website to see what their full, full statement was on the situation. It seems like they’ve been caught with their pants down, because they don’t deny the allegations, saying instead:

H&M is committed to taking responsibility for how our operations affect people and the environment. We donate garments that do not meet our quality requirements to organisations such as UNHCR, Caritas, the Red Cross and Helping Hands. When possible, we also donate faulty garments that have been returned to our stores. However, we do not donate clothes that do not meet our safety requirements, chemical restrictions or are damaged. We have agreements with reputable aid organisations in most of our sales countries. In total, more than 500,000 pieces of H&M garments were donated during 2009.

We are currently looking into if we can further improve our routines.

So basically they’re saying they’ll donate whatever they can’t make a profit off of, but ain’t no way ain’t no how someone’s gettin’ their hands on an unused piece of clothing that could turn a few bucks.

That’s almost worse!

We guess the major concern of the corporations is that someone will try to resell the perfectly good clothes, reaping the benefits. But if it didn’t sell in the store, do they really think the items will make big bucks after the fact?

This whole thing is so inherently greedy – miserly, even, that we’re a kind of appalled and seriously disappointed. At least with Walmart, everyone already knew they were moneygrubbing bastards over there.

Shame on you, H&M!

[Image via AP Images.]