An open-access workshop toolkit has been launched to enable brands, suppliers, policymakers and investors across the textile industry to pinpoint where coordinated action can halve greenhouse gas emissions every decade until 2050. Developed by Accenture for H&M Foundation, the toolkit translates the Foundation's System Map into structured facilitation sessions designed to support coordinated decarbonisation alongside a just transition.
- The toolkit guides participants through identifying their role, pinpointing leverage points and reimagining a decarbonised and just textiles system across four structured components.
- Sessions are designed for brands, manufacturers, innovators, policymakers, investors, researchers and civil society organisations, whether operating inside the system or influencing it externally.
- The System Map visualises the textiles industry as an interconnected ecosystem shaped by flows of capital, incentives, innovation, regulation and demand, highlighting where decisions shift system-wide outcomes.
- The toolkit is published as part of Practical Toolkit to Drive Coordinated Climate Action, released by H&M Foundation as an open-access industry resource.
WHY IT EXISTS: A practical, open-source facilitation toolkit has been launched to help organisations across the textiles industry apply H&M Foundation's System Map in coordinated climate action. H&M Foundation engaged Accenture to develop the resource after identifying that the industry's central challenge was not a lack of ambition but a lack of alignment, with sustainability efforts frequently advancing in isolation rather than as part of a shared systemic approach.
- The System Map, introduced by H&M Foundation in 2024, challenges the traditional linear view of fashion by mapping actors, forces and leverage points across the full textile value chain.
- The toolkit was designed to move the industry beyond understanding the System Map to actively applying it within organisations and partnerships.
- It can be delivered physically or digitally, with sessions ranging from 30 to 120 minutes and materials structured as PowerPoint-based, interactive digital or printed hands-on exercises.
- The toolkit includes a Systems Map Guide, a keynote presentation and three workshops, open to a wide range of industry actors including brands, policymakers, investors and researchers.
HOW THE MAP WORKS: Designed to challenge linear thinking, the System Map reframes fashion not as a chain but as a network of interconnected islands, flows and forces. Built across three layers—the value chain from fibre to end-of-life, indicative carbon emissions across stages, and systemic forces such as profit-centredness, inequalities of power, cultural norms and climate narratives—the map provides a shared language for understanding how the industry truly operates.
- Across its three layers, the map identifies actors—people, organisations and technologies—whose decisions collectively shape how the system behaves and evolves.
- It traces what the System Map terms 'bus routes'—flows of compliance, capital, innovation and demand—revealing where well-intended action may shift burdens rather than reduce them.
- Leverage points are identified as moments where decisions, investments or policies can shift outcomes across the entire system rather than within a single part of it.
- The map is publicly available as an open industry resource, designed to be used, adapted and built upon by any actor inside or outside the fashion system.
THE CONNECTED SYSTEM: The toolkit enables organisations to recognise how decisions in one part of the textile system consistently affect others. A material choice affects sourcing, a pricing decision influences working conditions, and a regulatory shift reshapes investment flows. By making these connections visible, the toolkit supports more coordinated and equitable climate strategies across the value chain.
- Organisations using the toolkit can pinpoint where a single intervention may unlock shifts across multiple parts of the system simultaneously, moving from fragmented effort to coordinated action.
- The toolkit supports recognition of power dynamics and structural barriers, examining who benefits, who bears the burden and who is meaningfully included in change across the value chain.
- Participants gain clarity on their specific role and sphere of influence, and are guided towards a future-oriented vision of what a net-zero, equitable fashion system could look like.
- Decarbonisation and equity are positioned as inseparable goals; when actors align around shared insight, small decisions can accumulate into structural change.
WHAT THEY SAID
Change won't come from islands of perfection – in a system as interconnected as fashion, every part influences the other. The System Map helped make that visible and now this toolkit makes it usable. If we want to halve emissions every decade, we have to stop optimising in silos and start pulling the right levers together.
— Anna Gedda
CEO
H&M Foundation
