World Retail Congress: What's Your Movie?
The standout keynote from this year's conference was undoubtedly from former H&M CEO Helena Helmersson.
Image: World Retail Congress
It happens very occasionally, but when it does, it’s a rare privilege. That moment when you realise that the audience is in total silence, gripped by the person on stage. And so it was at the 2025 running of World Retail Congress in London, former H&M CEO, Helena Helmersson, treating us all to an inspiring and insightful keynote on sustainability. What follows is a full transcript.
And the companies are constantly being challenged by unpredictable events. And right now this is the case for all of us. And when times are rough, the comment that I hear the most is we need to focus on our core.
And I have been thinking about this, we need to focus on our core because the sub meaning is that sustainability is not our core.
Probably or definitely we will enter that phase as new laws and regulations are being shaped, as new ways to measure whether we are operating within the planetary boundaries or not are being developed, we will for sure enter that phase.
But right now the collective instinct is that sustainability is about engagement, which is on the side of business activities. And quite often there is a conflict between sustainability and business.
My view, it's our job as CEOs and executive management teams to eliminate that conflict and I wanted to share a few perspectives linked to that. So I wanted us to look at three different problems and I'll give my perspective on this.
First the company, then the customer and last, the industry.
So if we start with the company who have not encountered this that you're part of, you know, putting and setting a bold target or taking a big decision. And then you see that when it comes down in the organisation, it's not being executed on.
I have been one of those leaders standing on the barricades and communicating bold goals, but actually putting a goal or communicating it is not the hard part. The hard part is to get it done, and quite a lot of that I actually left for the organisation to solve.
If we for example, take the issue of sustainable or circular materials in H&M, we have so many buyers. I still say we, they have so many buyers that are super passionate about sustainability. They, they really have an intent to make it happen, but it's hard.
So why is it so hard?
Well, if you are a buyer, a sustainable material target means that you have to weigh sustainability against profitability. Why?
It's wrong, and we all know what happens if there is a conflict between sustainability and profitability. I know we are very uncomfortable talking about it, but we will know it's our job being at the top.
It's our job to eliminate that conflict and not let the organisation take that type of responsibility. I think it's the job of the CEO to design a system that will help the organisation to reach those targets and help the teams to succeed.
So in the example of sustainable materials, you can decide it. You can make sure that the premium is paid from a central budget so that when it goes to a buyer, they see kind of prosperity between the sustainable and the virgin material.
So my perspective is make it simple for the many and complex for the few.
OK, moving into the next problem, the customer who has not encountered this type of truth, they say they care so much, but they don't act like it.
And customers are for sure not willing to pay for sustainability. Or we might talk about how the products are being made. It's not really catering for their needs.
It's there to kind of make customers perceive the brand in a better way or to engage customers for a good cause, which of course, is not that wrong. It's just that it doesn't touch upon the customer’s real needs.
And if you want to do that, you need to pay attention what are the customer’s real needs and come up with solutions related to that. And when we look into retail and you want to change customers’ behaviours, regardless of what industry you're in, there's basically three things to think about.
How can sustainability be good for customers’ wallets?
How can sustainability make life easier for the customers?
How can sustainability make the dinner even more delicious or the outfit that you're wearing even cooler?
And I wanted to share one example on this because I see a difference when I think about my experience in H&M where we have succeeded and where not to create that type of value.
And often when we have invested in circular solutions, there has been this type of mindset.
And I wanted to take the example of Sellpy, when H&M invested in the second-hand platform, Sellpy.
Customers, when they want to clean out their wardrobes, they have things that they no longer want. They can put it in your Sellpy bag, put it outside your house, Sellpy, picks it up, sells it on the platform, and you get a fair share of that revenue, which can end up in your wallet, or you can decide to buy something and sell it.
That means that helping is great for customers’ wallets. It's also super convenient and it's helping customers to kind of develop their personal style at the same time as they recycle their own clothes.
So that was the example about the customer catering for their true needs through sustainable solutions.
“At Disney, we don't make movies to make money. We make money to make the movies”
Walt Disney
And then last, we have the problem in the industry, and at least for me, coming from the fashion industry, this is where I hear a lot that this industry is just far too complex to change. Especially when you have a company who owns the value chain and supply chain.
Also, we did a joint venture with one of the most credible and biggest recycling companies in Europe so that we could influence where these products ended up.
And we integrated more and more CIRCULOSE® in our collections, CIRCULOSE® being the only chemical, textile, textile recycling that has scaled that can make old fibres become neutrals. This is an example of an attempt to build deep.
You all know that there's a lot more to do when it comes to this topic, but this is an attempt to build deep.
And talking about building deep, maybe this is the kind of best success case that I have found. This is about the recycling system in Sweden for PET bottles and aluminium cans. And this is a deep partnership between retailers, technology providers, society and children.
I think most children in Sweden earn their first bill through this recycling system. And talking about children, I wanted to end with just mentioning Walt Disney's kind of view of the topic that we're discussing. Walt Disney, being one of the most impactful business builders in history.
And he said at Disney, we don't make movies to make money. We make money to make the movies.
Because he knew how to liberate more children's imagination, I think this is the mindset that we should have.
So I'm leaving you with one question: What's your movie?
Thank you very much.