Stella McCartney and H&M launched their Insights Board as longtime advocacy nonprofit Remake shut down. The timing says a lot about where fashion’s sustainability conversation is heading.
Stella McCartney and H&M held the first meeting of their Insights Board in London this week, a newly formed panel bringing together cultural voices, sustainability experts, and industry insiders ahead of the pair’s second collection together, arriving in May. The board is organized around a challenge that has defined fashion’s sustainability conversation for years: how do you make people actually want to engage with it rather than tune it out?
It also arrives in the same month that Remake — the San Francisco-based nonprofit whose #PayUp campaign gathered 270,000 signatures and recovered more than $22 billion in pandemic-era canceled garment worker contracts — announced it was shutting down. Founder Ayesha Barenblat called the closure “not an ending we are mourning. It is a milestone we are honouring.” The organization’s board cited a sharp decline in philanthropy for labor organizing and climate justice work following the 2024 election.
The timing is coincidental, but the contrast is hard to miss — and it says something about where the sustainability conversation is heading.
The Insights Board “brings together different voices and perspectives from across the fashion industry,” according to H&M. “Its mission is to create a space for curiosity and listening, and to ensure that sustainability remains something that fashion talks about.”
Members include technologist and sustainability innovator Kiara Nirghin, model and global brand ambassador Amelia Gray, fashion editor and journalist Susie Lau, model and Gurls Talk founder Adwoa Aboah, and singer and activist Anitta — alongside McCartney and H&M sustainability experts, with conversations moderated by fashion industry strategist Julie Gilhart.
“Fashion has an opportunity to lead with honesty, transparency and a willingness to challenge itself,” McCartney said. “That’s what excites me about the Insights Board. It’s about listening and learning, not just from the voices around the table, but from the communities they represent, and keeping sustainability front and centre in a way that sparks real dialogue and, importantly, hope for change.”
Discussion at the London meeting covered how sustainability’s many facets show up in online conversation, how they shape what consumers actually buy, and the need for clearer communication around materials, animal welfare, and brands’ environmental performance. The board “aims to address a variety of themes and approach sustainability within fashion from different angles – such as materials, circularity, innovation, and communication. Throughout the meetings, the focus is always on identifying clear outcomes and tangible action steps,” with the goal to “find new ways for brands – and for the industry as a whole – to influence and drive change.”
H&M Group CEO Daniel Ervér described the board, which “connects different voices and perspectives from across the fashion world,” as “a unique opportunity to listen, gain new insights and explore how we can move both ourselves and the fashion industry forward.”
The stakes
Remake had built a 3,000-strong ambassador network across 80 countries, helped push through legislation like California’s Garment Worker Protection Act, and pressured brands — H&M among them — directly through campaigns tied to their purchasing decisions. The Insights Board is a different model: brand-convened, internally framed, and answerable to different stakeholders. Whether one can do what the other did is an open question.
H&M has made real progress on its own metrics — a 34.6 percent reduction in Scope 3 emissions against a 2019 baseline, with 91 percent of commercial product materials recycled or sustainably produced — and the board’s roster runs well outside the corporate pipeline. The regulatory landscape is also shifting in ways that make this conversation less optional.
The EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, with enforcement beginning in September, bans vague terms like “eco-friendly,” “sustainable,” or “conscious” in marketing unless backed by verifiable evidence. The EU’s Digital Product Passport will eventually require garments sold in the EU to carry full lifecycle records via QR code, with textile-specific rules expected by 2027.
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