H&M Foundation announces 10 textile innovation award winners
The H&M Foundation has announced the 10 winners of the 2025 Global Change Award, spotlighting early-stage innovations poised to transform the fashion industry. Selected for their potential to drive decarbonisation across the fashion value chain, the winners range from clean tech recycling breakthroughs in China to grassroots circularity efforts in Ghana.
Each recipient will receive a €200,000 grant and participate in the year-long GCA Changemaker Programme. This initiative supports innovation development, fosters systems thinking, and promotes personal leadership growth to accelerate the industry’s transition to net zero in a socially just way.
The UK stands out with four winning projects, reflecting a strong presence in sustainable fashion innovation. Among them is Thermal Cyclones, which introduces industrial heat pumps capable of replacing conventional boilers while cutting energy use by more than 75%. Another UK innovation, Pulpatronics, offers recyclable, metal-free, chipless RFID paper tags, using carbon-based ink for sustainable tracking solutions.
In the category of Sustainable Materials & Processes, the UK’s Brilliant Dyes employs cyanobacteria to create biodegradable dyes using a low-energy extraction process. Meanwhile, Loom, also from the UK, presents a tech platform that enables users to collaborate with designers in upcycling unworn garments into bespoke pieces, promoting mindful consumption.
Other standout winners include DecoRpet from China, which pioneers a low-temperature decolorisation technique to produce high-quality recycled PET while dramatically reducing energy use; India’s A Blunt Story, which makes Uncrude, a plastic-free sole for footwear crafted from bio-based and recycled materials; and Decarbonization Lab from Bangladesh, a dedicated research hub reimagining low-emission textile treatments and dyeing methods.
Sweden’s Renasens introduces a waterless, chemical-free solution for converting blended textile waste into raw materials without depolymerisation or pollution. And in Ghana, Revival Circularity Lab—a creative hub in Accra’s Kantamanto Market—is transforming textile waste into new value streams while empowering local artisans and building community-based circular systems.
