Global Change Award
We back bold early-stage ideas, championing changemakers who question existing models and develop solutions that benefit both people and the planet.
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Selected from hundreds of submissions worldwide, these are the ideas shaping what comes next. We’re proud to present the Top 20 finalists for the Global Change Award 2026.
DIVE INTO THE TOP 20 LIST
The latest
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Reverse Resources: A decade of mapping, tracing and trading textile waste
GCA 2016 winner Reverse Resources started from an idea that was invisible to the textile industry. Because before you can recycle textile waste at scale, you need to know what it consists of, where it’s generated, and where it should go. More than ten years…
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Here are the Top 20 finalists for the GCA 2026
Carbon-capturing dyes. Enzyme-powered recycling. Fungi breaking down textile waste. AI reducing factory energy before a single garment is made. These – and many more – are the pioneering innovations that have made it to this year’s Global Change Award top 20 list. The Global Change…
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What I learned in Vietnam: Reflections from Changemaker Week 3
Week 3 marks the final chapter of the GCA Changemaker Programme and is a week of industry immersion: stepping inside production sites, meeting manufacturers and connecting innovation to real-world implementation. In this blog post, 2025 winner and co-founder of PulpaTronics Chloe So shares her reflections…
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The textile industry doesn’t need minor tweaks – it needs bold ideas, fresh perspectives and real system shifts. That’s where the Global Change Award (GCA) comes in.
Run by the H&M Foundation, GCA is an innovation challenge supporting early-stage changemakers who are ready to reimagine the fashion industry from the ground up – with the aim of halving its greenhouse gas emissions every decade.
Each year, ten winners receive €200,000, gain access to our ever-growing ecosystem, and take part in the yearlong Changemaker Programme – a journey designed to grow their ideas, their leadership, and their impact.
Since 2015, the GCA has backed 56 trailblazing teams, helping to move radical ideas toward real-world solutions.
Because transforming fashion isn’t just possible – it’s already happening. And the next chapter starts here.
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OUR Winners
Innovation has the power to do it, and our GCA winners prove it. Already, many teams collaborate with global brands, suppliers and businesses to pilot and scale their innovations and transform the entire fashion and textile industry.
Our winners have disruptive ideas within material, production, recycling, design and customer use – find out more and learn how their innovations can reinvent the industry.