Global Change Award winners 2026
Just in: 10 innovations the textile industry should open immediately. The winners of 2026 are officially here and ready to be unboxed.
Ten changemakers, ten ideas. One shared ambition: to help reshape the future of the textile industry.
MEET THE WINNERS AND THEIR INNOVATIONS
MEET OUR WINNERS
What does it feel like to win? Watch our winners’ reactions as they get the call.
The latest
-

Meet the winners of the Global Change Award 2026
The ten winners of Global Change Award 2026 are here, and they are tackling key pressure points across the textile industry: from materials to production to end of use. Different ideas, one shared direction: accelerating the shift towards a decarbonised and just industry. The winning…
-

GCA Impact story: How Ponda is restoring ecosystems at scale
When Ponda won the Global Change Award in 2022, they set out to prove that a supply chain could restore ecosystems rather than exhaust them. Three years on, they’ve raised $6.5 million in funding and are entering a new phase of growth, with regenerated wetlands…
-

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…
LET’S
DECARB
C
NISE
FASHION
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 66 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.
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.