What do you think are the biggest risks facing your industry at the moment, and how are you preparing your company and team to face these risks?

In the world of business, risk is a precondition for great opportunities. To provide high-level legal advice to companies, attorneys should divest themselves of the obsolete conviction that risk must be avoided at all costs; our role is to act as the main facilitator by providing creative and innovative solutions so that the risk taken by the company yields lucrative returns.

Based on my professional experience, I can identify the new challenges within the supply chain as the main risks afflicting the fashion retail industry going forward. The long-term health of the business, understood as a simultaneous increase of stability and growth, is crucial for the successful evolution of the company’s business model. So, it is vital to focus on improving sustainability: the fashion industry remains one of the most polluting in the world, facing numerous challenges in its efforts to reduce waste. The issue of sustainability has long been at the very heart of many of H&M’s policies. In my opinion, the most relevant points of our approach are that we produce according to demand to prevent waste, and focus on sustainable manufacturing, with an emphasis on circular fashion and the use of renewable energies, organic cotton and recycled textiles.

Considering the changing circumstances and unintended long-term consequences deriving from it, the challenge of the legal team is one of providing immediate and efficient solutions. To mitigate the negative impact on the environment, we have implemented numerous strategies. These include the signing of sustainability commitments with our business partners, who are currently obliged to implement measures to reduce their carbon footprint and increase their use of sustainable technologies, for instance the installation of solar panels for logos and façade lighting. There are also further legal obligations for business partners called Green Provisions.

Regarding the supply chain, there is little to be said except that it is a neuralgic point affecting the entire business. The disruptiveness of Covid-19 deeply modified these processes, which created an extraordinary need for adaptation to the new conditions–the only constant was change. Even though the pandemic is no longer unpredictable, having lived with it for the last two years, we still do not know for how long it will last. At this point, the casuistry becomes important, as well as the ability to prove and document occurrences not attributable to any of the parties due to the ravages of the pandemic. On the other hand, it is fundamental to understand that the existing rules have changed. Therefore, extraordinary precautions for force majeure events must be taken in order to fully comply with contractual obligations. The above situation requires flexibility in the business language to reduce ambiguity. The ability to maintain adjustable long-term conditions encourages contractual responsibility, which is the key solution to the disruptive and extremely volatile environment that we find ourselves in.