Tag: sustainability

Plastic Ocean

Dutch photographer Thirza Schaap has long been foraging plastics from our ocean, and now she’s collated her findings into a new book

Japonais

The world is at a tipping point, and no longer can we continue to litter our seas, earth and air with the debris of our human existence. In 2018, for example, the United National Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a warning stating that we have only 12 years to prevent the catastrophic impacts of climate change, which includes an increase of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius. We’re now in 2021, and there’s less than a decade on the clock. We’ve already seen the 20 of the hottest years on record; there’s been an increase in adverse weather and wildfires; we’re in the midst of a mass species extinction; and our oceans are at great risk too. So much so that a truckload of plastic enters the ocean every single minute, while the UK supermarkets produce 800,000 tonnes every year – and counting. 

Dutch photographer Thirza Schaap has long been drawing a lens on these issues. To such lengths, that for the last eight years, she’s been collecting trash from beaches along the coast of South Africa, turning the washed up plastic items into remarkable pieces of art. Aptly named Plastic Ocean, her ongoing project has now been formed into a new book by 1605 Publishers. Within its pages, observers can become witness to a wide-spanning collection of still lives and sculptures, and art that’s been crafted from discarded bottles, shopping bags, toothbrushes and straws. 

Fatal Flowers

It all started a few years ago as she headed to her local beach with her dog, quickly to realise the abundance of rubbish flooding the shores. Picking up the aftermath of human consumption, there was something about the plastic formations in their masses that inspired her to start taking things further. “Astonished by what I found in a disgusted way,” she says, “I was touched by the beauty of the objects I’d found. They looked faded, old, worn by the sea and I presumed they’d travelled for a long time in the ocean.” Thirza knew she wanted to share her findings with others, and to “tell the story which is often hidden by the myth of recycling,” she adds, stating how only 10% of the plastic is recyclable. Shockingly, half of the world’s plastic is designed for single use, for it to then be tossed away like an afterthought. And this equates to around 79% of waste ending up in landfills, dumps or in the natural environment. Just 12% of it gets incinerated.

The realities of our polluted planet fuels both the creative and activist side of Thirza. She now has such a vast collection of rubbish, that she keeps it all stowed away in an archive for when the idea for a new piece arises. “I’ve collected so much that I can work from an idea and source from my storage. We go on plastic hunts to desolated beaches, which is where I find the old ‘long travelled’ objects and pieces. On the tourist beaches, I usually find ‘yesterdays trash’. Unbelievably, people still bring food and drinks, consume everything and leave it on the beach.”

Divine

Within Plastic Ocean, the audience are granted access into Thirza’s world of advocacy, pining and promoting for a better (and cleaner) world. It collates pieces from across the entirety of her project, including the “early shadow play” and more graphic photographs, right through to her more recent sculptural ensembles. Working closely with her publisher to edit and select the pieces involved in the book, they’d decided to proceed with an experimental approach to the layout, where repetition and colour palettes drove the overall feel of the publication. 

For example, in two pieces named Oxygen and Oxygen en Boubou, you’ll see both images paired for their spindly compositions and beige, muddy hues – both of which are built with disused plastics. The first is a cigarette tree, composed from butts found on the beach. Oxygen en Boubou, on the other hand, is a sculptural piece built on a table outside and under some trees. “While I was making it, a Boubou bird (a large robin) came to sit on me. I love birds and was so taken aback by it, that I hadn’t realise the bird took the small bits of plastic for food. I felt so bad, but I literally saw what happens in the ocean; when a fish mistakes plastic for its food, or a bird feeds on the beaches.”

Boubou

There are numerous stories to be told from Thirza’s creations. Another is Cloack, a piece created after witnessing an octopus disguising itself with shells in the film My Octopus Teacher, shot near the bay in Western Cape of South Africa. “She was picking them up and placing them rapidly on her body to hide form the Pyama shark. This movie haunted me for weeks and that is why I made this sculpture of a bottle hiding in its cloak of shells.”

However, these harsh and tearful stories are told in notes of soft pastels, earthy greens and crisp white backdrops. It’s quite the contrast to your typical display of rubbish and climate change activism, and Thirza hopes to draw her audience in with these juxtapositions – that of beautiful imagery sat inline with ugly, disregarded plastics. Although most of all, she hopes that this will raise awareness to the catastrophic effects of our polluted ways. It’s an ethos that’s never been more vital. “I believe we are ready for a change but we need to unite and work together,” she concludes. “As we have proven during the pandemic, it is possible to do so, we just need to see the agency of the plastic problem.”

Thirza Schaap’s Plastic Ocean is available to purchase here. 

Oxygen
Crime Passionnel
Cloak
Bondage
Honey

Thrifting in Accra

Creative director, designer and stylist Kusi Kubi discusses reworked garments and his Ghanaian label, PALMWINE IceCREAM

Accra is home to the biggest secondhand clothing market in the world. Twice weekly, Ghana’s capital becomes enlivened with those in search for hidden gems in its infamous Kantamanto Market – where over 30,000 traders gather to sell all sorts of thrifted treasures from food to spare parts for cars, and most notably, secondhand fashion imported from across seas in Europe. It’s a mammoth industry and one that sees locals revelling in the early hours to discover various ephemera and fashions, collecting and reviving what was once tossed and thrown. Kusi Kubi, a creative director based in Accra, is one of those collectors. 

Kusi hails from Osu, a neighbourhood in central Accra, and previously studied business at University of Westminster. It wasn’t long until he decided to flee the corporate world of banking and software development for a new career in fashion – “I just never thought it was a career path to focus on,” he tells me.

Now, Kusi runs PALMWINE IceCream, a Ghanaian fashion label that utilises a mix of reworked fabrics and materials, most of which is sourced from the market. In its second season, the latest collection is replete with neutral shapes and forms, sprinkles of shimmering gold fabrics, earthy tones, denims and metallic chain accessories. Indeed for the bold and daring, its these exact cut-out designs and striking ensembles that break down all preconceptions of what can be achieved under the name of sustainable fashion. Here, I chat to the creative about his empowering and ethical business, where he sources his garments, and what’s in store for the future of Accra’s fashion market.

What’s PALMWINE IceCREAM all about, and who do you see wearing the clothes?

I wanted to create a name that resembles the look, taste and feel of a tropical climate. PALMWINE IceCREAM is a blend of tastes and feelings, which are not necessarily meant to be combined, but once brought together exude a sense that is new and unfamiliar. PWIC stands for all the things that we are told or made to believe should not co-exist with one another. 

Almost every item in the collection is genderless. The brand is welcoming to anyone who feels a connection to our creative output. It definitely requires some element of confidence, but confidence is very subjective and we have garments which cater for all.

Where do you source your materials?

The denims and leathers from this collection are reworked. This season, there’s also a lot of linen and sheers harking back to the tropical West African origins of the brand. The jewellery and accessories are sourced from Italy, while the denims and leathers hail from Accra, by way of Europe – Kantamanto Market, West Africa’s biggest secondhand market. The denims are restored using non-chemical methods and customised by hand in the PWIC studios to add the signature visual sensibility to each piece. The production team behind the collection is all-Ghanaian and the pieces are finished in Accra, Ghana.

How important is sustainability to your work?

PALMWINE IceCREAM is built on a foundation of sustainability. Though not all garments are reworked, the denims, leathers and buttons are examples of the items reworked throughout the collection. It’s essential for me as a creative director to understand the direction the world is heading into, and to also understand the value of creating garments which really speak for itself. 

With Accra having one of West Africa’s biggest thrift markets, I can’t help but notice how many leftover garments are received on a weekly basis. It’s important for me to play my part somehow to reduce further mass consumption. Our Aim at PWIC is not to saturate the market but produce clothing for people who believe in what we do and stand for.

What items can be found at Kantamanto Market?

You can find anything from Rick Owens to Topshop; I think that’s what makes the market special. Twice a week they receive new arrivals from all over the world. The trick is to get there early to ensure you get the special goodies before everyone arrives. The selection process can be intense but finding that one archive piece can be rewarding. The market is divided into sections: denim, leather, vest, shirts and dungarees etc. A whole day can be spent there easily.

Where do you see the future of fashion heading, specifically in the context of Accra?

We’ve seen some fashion houses merge seasons into one as a way of reducing waste or improving their sustainability league. I believe consumption will reduce but not drastically. There will be a need for quality over quantity, and most people will lean towards brands which have some sort of sustainability approach to their designs. 

The future of fashion in Accra is developing at a good pace, there are a few startup labels, like PWIC, thriving to make an impression within the creative world. However, there’s also the need for our art ministers to believe and invest into the young creative minds here, because there’s too much talent out here waiting to explode.

Photographer: @kofmotivation
Creative and styling: @kusikubi
Grooming: @giselle_makeup using Pat McGrath
Style Assistant: @shineorgocrazyy
Photo Assistant: @_thedotse
Producer: @instabryte @luduproductions_
Prod Assistant: @zongostudios

Growing Spaces

Chris Hoare’s new book documents the rise in allotment-goers over lockdown

Tara gets stuck into gardening at St Paul’s Community Garden, with the help of her three daughters, Ashti, Arianne and Astera © Chris Hoare

The allotment garden is a place of tranquility, a blissful haven away from the home and hum of city life. Not only does this designated plot of land give its gardener access to a sustainable source of food – in turn contributing to pollination, biodiversity, local climate and soil fertility – it’s also a place of community. It brings people together and has thus been a lifeline for many over the course of the pandemic.

A year after the first lockdown was imposed, more and more are we yearning to be amongst nature. This has given way to an increased demand for allotments, turning the humble allocated space into a highly sought after commodity. It’s an interesting (although expected) transformation, considering how the allotment first made appearances during the Second World War, after the “Dig for Victory” agriculture campaign came into play and encouraged Britain to grow their own produce. And what was then a historically working class necessity soon evolved into a hobbyist pastime, with recent years breaking down these stereotypes and reaching a crescendo amongst the younger population. 

View over Royate Hill Allotments, taken in June © Chris Hoare

Although an estimated number of 300,000 allotments can be found around the UK, these supplies are in fact dwindling. A paper, published by Imperial College London researchers at the Centre for Environmental Policy, states there’s now thousands – 30,000 to be exact – of hopeful gardeners remaining on waiting lists, with a four to five year delay in receiving a plot of land. What’s more is that numerous London sites have closed in recent times, resulting in a thinning supply and cuts to the size of existing units. 

Chris Hoare, a Bristol-based photographer, assesses this increment in his new body of work and book, Growing Spaces, published by RRB Photobooks. A documentation of allotment-goers in the southwestern city, the project was commissioned by Bristol Photo Festival for its expansive exhibition set to launch this summer. “It felt important to be documenting this urge that society was having for the outdoors at such a historic moment,” he tells us. 

Abandoned shed, Bedminster © Chris Hoare

Having spent his childhood years on the edge of Bristol, Chris went on to study a BA in Photography at Falmouth University before returning to his hometown for an MA in Bristol UWE. Surprisingly, Chris’ relationship with allotments was next to nothing prior to the making of this series. Besides nurturing some “mildly successful” tomato plants in previous times, he simply wasn’t aware of this flourishing community of growers. “For the most part, they are private spaces even though everyone has a statutory right to one,” he adds. “It’s this ‘right’ that any one can own one that interested me as I made the work. I feel like they hold a special place in British society and it’s easy to overlook their significance.”

“At a time when land ownership is so unattainable for so many and urban areas become more tightly congested, they signify a little piece of paradise,” he continues. “The growing itself is only one part of the rich experience that many have when owning an allotment; it’s an important one of course, but there is so much more going on and a genuine sense of community in these spaces, which is a rare thing in this day and age.”

Mike Feingold in his greenhouse early May. Mikeis well known within the Bristol growing community, particularly because of the role he has played in promoting the philosophy of Permaculture. Alongside this he is the rep of an allotment site with an orchard containing 50 different varieties of apple, Royate Hill © Chris Hoare

Growing Spaces, in this case, lenses those who find solace in these divided and grassy perimeters. Amongst the tonal shots of flowers and crops, there’s a sense of ease and calm that protrudes throughout his photographs. Many of Chris’ subjects are those that he met fleetingly, while others he’d revisit time and time again, sometimes spending hours with each encounter. The only tricky part of it all was getting beyond the locked gates of the sites, which inadvertently maintains the assumption that allotments are indeed a privatised sphere only available for the selected few.

Chris continues to reminisce of one allotment in particular, owned by a couple who later became good friends of his. The first meeting occurred during a blissful Saturday in May, and he’d decided to venture to this “oasis in the city” – “it’s an easy place to spend time, hours drift away as afternoon quickly turns into evening, usually ending with a fire or BBQ,” he says. Having visited this plot more than the others, Chris sums up the memory with an image of Budweiser cans floating in an earthy pond, giving a new meaning as to what the allotment can provide for its gardeners. 

A pack of Budweiser keeps cool in a pond on a hot Saturday afternoon in late spring, Ashley Vale © Chris Hoare

Despite the uncertain future of the UK’s green spaces, there’s been a great resurgence in those visiting and using their allotments. But for now, this increase in demand currently outweighs availability. “I can’t see this changing for some time,” he reflects, “particularly given how this past year has altered our thinking around the importance of green spaces, thinking local and growing your own and the need for outdoor community activities.” So what will come of the humble allotment, and how will these plots affect our lands? Time can only tell, but rest assured that this is a positive moment for sustainable food cultivation.

Growing Spaces by Chris Hoare is published by RRB Photobooks and will be exhibited at Royal Fort Gardens, Bristol this summer as part of Bristol Photo Festival. 

Sunset roses, Speedwell © Chris Hoare
Lexi shield’s her eyes during the apple pressing at the Totterdown Community Orchard © Chris Hoare
Members of Patchwork Community Gardening Group picking raspberries during a meet up, Bedminster © Chris Hoare
Late flowers collide with autumn leaves, Thingwell Park © Chris Hoare
Joe has utilised the space on his allotment to create a shed which doubles up as an art studio. Alongside tending to his own allotment, he is also regularly on hand to help some of the elderly allotment plot holders, particularly throughout lockdown © Chris Hoare
Winter squashes, Thingwell Park © Chris Hoare
Tina throws the last of the wood onto the flames, before leaving the allotment on Bonfire Night, Thingwell Park © Chris Hoare

Paul & Shark

How the Italian brand is protecting our oceans

During a trip to Maine, Paolo Dini found himself in a sailmaker’s workshop and chanced across an 18th-century clipper sail that bore the inscription ‘Paul & Shark’. A couple of years later, in 1975, the brand of the very same name was founded. Established by the prestigious Dini family – whose sartorial heritage stretches back to the mid-20th century when Gian Ludovico Dini took over the Maglificio Daco mill in Varese and created the world-renowned manufacturer Dama S.p.A – Paul & Shark has become synonymous with marine elegance, technical fabrics and increasingly, ocean conservation.

Starting in earnest in 1978 with its iconic C0P918 pullover – a sweater that kickstarted its water repellent knitwear collection – the family-run company now in its third generation has been busy weaving performance into each and every one of its garments. Whether that is TYPHOON 20000 (the ultra-thin membrane treatment exclusively engineered that guarantees windproof protection from 20-meter water columns), Fill Power 900 (Goose Down Project considered to be one of the best thermal paddings available), Aqua leather (does exactly what it says on the tin) or E.M.W. Shield technology (pocket insulators that absorb potentially-harmful electromagnetic waves from mobile phones), Paul & Shark has gone to great lengths to combine practical, patented, innovative materials with luxury sportswear and smart casual silhouettes.

In recent years, the all-Italian brand has also gone to great leagues in its sustainability efforts. In addition to ensuring traceability of its fibres, sourcing responsible low impact cotton, giving new life to recycled goose down and installing enough solar panels to cover 20% of its annual energy needs, it has drawn on its aquatic heritage to confront the considerable peril our oceans are in. Paul & Shark believes that “the search for innovative materials and low environment impact production processes are fundamental to help protecting the environment”, which is why it recently launched its Save the Sea project, an eco-friendly collection (beginning with jackets) using post-consumer plastic. Using its pre-existing knowledge in recycled polyester yarns allowed for a technically brilliant collection made using certified recycled polyester filaments, derived from post-consumer plastic bottles that pollute the sea. From zip to lining, tape to packaging, the equivalent of 86 recycled bottles are used in each AW20 jacket.   

Brought to international attention by David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II, plastic has insidiously flooded international waters. It is estimated that 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into the world’s oceans and 100,000 marine mammals and sharks are killed by it every single year. Paul & Shark shares its name with the magnificent, much maligned 420-million-year old creature, and has taken that connection further by collaborating with the UK-based NGO Shark Trust, becoming its corporate patron. Together, they are working to protect the vulnerable species by transforming fisheries, banning the appalling practice of shark finning and promoting responsible trade around the world. In order to further support effective conservation, the brand is set to release a special SS21 capsule collection featuring the charity’s logo.

Man-made pollution, global warming and overfishing pose an existential threat to marine ecosystems. Despite the fact that oceans are key to regulating our climate and supply half the air we breathe; we routinely treat the looming crisis as out of sight out of mind. We are fortunate then, to have responsible businesses such as Paul & Shark not only providing protection from the elements, but protection for the life within them.   

paulandshark.com

413

Designed by Pentagram, our new sustainability supplement is the meeting point between fashion, design and climate change

To say that sustainability has a become a buzzword recently would be an understatement. We wanted to take this opportunity to cut through some of the noise around the subject, to reflect on its importance, and to better understand what it means in practice. Let’s be honest, the worlds of luxury and fashion are not synonymous with radical action. However, some companies are pushing harder than others: We wanted to tell their stories, and to highlight the places where work needs to be done. In 413’s pages – ably designed by Astrid Stavro and her Pentagram team – you will find insights into some of the most progressive brands around, rolling their sleeves up and speaking openly about the challenges they face. We also talk to industry innovators – the great minds revolutionising their fields in the face of threatening climate breakdown.

Bespoke typeface is a collaboration with Pentagram partner Sascha Lobe

All reputable sources vouch that we have now passed the opportunity to rectify climate change, and are into the period in which we must commit to immediate and permanent action for damage limitation. Back when we conceived this publication, the atmospheric carbon parts per million were still 413 – hence the name (some reads now put the figure closer to 417 ppm) – and Corona just meant a chilled larger. We knew the world was changing, but we didn’t know quite how fast…

The global pandemic has brought with it a wave of soul-searching. If humans have one chance to change track, this is surely it. In our Opinion section we look at some of the beautiful, urgent and profound about-face thinking needed to make this happen. There’s no denying that researching for this supplement has at times been harrowing. We’re eternally grateful to Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac for writing their wonderful, recently released book, The Future We Choose, an extract from which you can read here. We discovered it halfway through the process and was relieved to find it brimming with pragmatic, realistic optimism. As they say of climate change: “We are still, just barely, inside a zone where we can stave off the worst and manage the remaining long-term effects. But only if we do what is required of us in the short term. This is the last time in history when we will be able to do this.”

Taking the form of a large, vertical newspaper, it is printed on 100% recycled stock. With no binding or glue holding the folded pages together, it is also 100% recyclable

Above all, we hope 413 leaves you feeling energised. The situation we face now is so critical that every choice, however big or small, of every company and every individual, matters more, not less. What is needed is the courage to face the harsh truth of our predicament, alongside the motivation to act immediately. With these things, as our contributors remind us, we are far from powerless.

To enjoy environmentally symbiotic homes, recycled chairs and ecofeminism, alongside writing by Christiana Figueres and Deyan Sudjic, buy issue 26 and 413

Reprogramming the Amygdala

How to choreograph a public dance in the age of COVID

If you want to persuade anyone to do anything, there’s a part of the brain that you need to reach. It lives next to the Hippocampus and is named Amygdala in Latin because it is the equivalent size of an almond. It has the important role of processing memory and decision making, and is also where we generate habits. It’s the Amygdala where we become addicted to repetitive behaviour such as our morning coffees or the route we take to work. A lot of people don’t realise just how much the brain avoids having to think. It’s a great work of art with an ability to identify patterns and turn our behaviour into unthinking action in order to conserve energy and instead, focus on threats and opportunities. When we walk up to a door and see a handle we instinctively reach out to pull it without even having thought about it. Only when we realise the door needs pushing, not pulling, do we have to think. It takes a second or two for this to register and is often greeted with a displeasing grunt. Daniel Kahneman characterised this as ‘thinking fast’ and ‘thinking slow’.

Brands have realised this, and they spend an inordinate amount of money and effort to become a part of our habits. You hear brands talking about how buying decisions are ‘emotional’, not logical. I bought a Sony TV many years ago – they’ve always worked well and so whenever I have to buy something similar, I feel a leaning to the same brand. Weird right? No, just the Amygdala doing its job! It says to me “don’t look at everything else, you know Sony works so just get that and move on”.

The thing is, this is true about how we behave everywhere, and COVID has just changed the game. Our habits of travel, going to work, greeting people, not washing our hands all the time, and staying two metres apart just don’t exist, yet. The challenge for the whole world is only just dawning on us. If we are to live with this virus (which we will have to) and we want a functioning economy, then we need everyone to change their behaviour – and that means reprogramming the Amygdala.

As experts in wayfinding, designing systems that make complex places more legible, our job is behaviour change; to tackle and change the way people commute and explore – getting them to walk and cycle more, and to venture into new areas where they don’t think they can. We’re not starting from scratch, we know how this can work.

Legible London maps

Changing behaviour needs concentration. This is the only way to get someone to truly think and this is the only time you have a chance to reprogramme. Many people see our designs for Legible London as beautiful and they might not necessarily realise they are designed that way for a reason. With this project, we needed to engage the public – those who think they can’t use a map – and encourage them to use a map. To do this, we need to initially engage them with a map’s beauty and virtue. From the very beginning, the aim was to teach the public about the city; to learn it quicker and get them to realise just how easy it is to walk. Since the introduction of the system, walking has increased in London.

Legible London Walking Map

In dealing with COVID, we need people to concentrate. We are going through a global pandemic so we need guidance about how people should ideally behave so they can ‘dance’ without stepping on each other’s toes. To concentrate the mind, we need to use a formal public information language, which is not advice, but that is required. This has to be clear and unambiguous and it has to pass the ‘thinking fast’ test. It also has to be recognisable yet temporary.

COVID icon and symbols

From working across many cities, campuses and complex buildings, our practice often witnesses the limits of people’s perspectives. We are sight creatures and if we can’t see something, we can’t comprehend it which is why the climate change emergency is so hard for us to grasp. COVID is invisible, so how do we make it visible? We need to communicate how we want people to behave right at the point of action. We’ve proposed a COVID symbol that does a number of jobs making the purpose of the guidance clear. Research from Wuhan shows how door handles are a major source of transfer so the idea is to place these icons on surfaces that render the greatest danger.

How COVID icons can be applied to public transport surfaces

What fascinates me with previous challenges has been the complexity of aligning multiple organisations. When we designed Legible London, we found 36 different pedestrian systems in the city’s central area alone. These were recognised by only 2.7% of the public and 36 systems were a result of everyone looking after their own area. Where was the imagination? The area we should be coordinating is the range of peoples’ journeys. This is why we have one road sign system which takes us from Land’s End to John O’Groats. This is also the Amygdala kicking in – it has the desire to learn one system. Silicon Valley knows this only too well, that’s why we have such dominant singular social media platforms. Every organisation needs to work really hard to coordinate and do the same thing – religiously, everywhere. The unit for COVID could be the city, or city area – it’s about how far we are travelling. Ideally this should be a national system.

The challenge to develop a language that resonates with the public and to get many organisations to work together is not insignificant. How well we do this will have a direct impact on the R number, outbreaks, deaths and how well the economy and peoples’ jobs are affected. For London, it took us many years lobbying with a big idea to get everyone to work together. With COVID, we don’t have the time, we need to act now.

The silver lining: There is an opportunity that the behavioural change applied to COVID will stick. People have already told me they have bought a bike for the first time and cycled to work – they hadn’t realised how this was possible previously, and say “this has changed my life”. There you go – that’s the sound of the Amygdala being reprogrammed.

Tim Fendley is the founder & creative Director at Applied

Images courtesy of Applied 

Future of Flight

Can the notoriously damaging airplane industry be less destructive to the environment? 413 looks at four news ways of radically rethinking air travel, and asks if it can ever be a sustainable option

Vertical Aerospace’s advanced EVTOL craft, the Seraph

When the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in the spring of 2010, carbon-rich volcanic ash spewed into the atmosphere. Black dust rained across Northern Europe for weeks. But despite the ash cloud, the eruption did something you might not expect: It also, for a time, fought global warming. By cancelling more than 100,000 commercial flights, Eyjafjallajökull is estimated to have saved 2.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – far more than the amount it billowed into the sky.

If you’re a frequent flyer, you perhaps already suffer from flygskam–the Swedish phrase for ‘flightshame’. Even so, it’s worth appreciating the scale of aviation’s emissions problem: Worldwide, flying emitted 918 million tonnes of CO2 in 2018. Or to put it another way, each passenger on a return flight from London to New York is responsible for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the average uk household emits in an entire year, melting 6.6m2 of Arctic ice in the process. (Multiply that almost threefold if you’re flying business class.)

Aviation’s climate impacts are also growing rapidly. Between 2007 and 2017, the total number of people flying worldwide increased from 2.2 billion to 4 billion a year, and aviation- related emissions are expected to grow fivefold by 2050. (Despite flygskam, global passenger numbers still grew 3.3 per cent last year.)

To try and bring flying’s environmental cost under control, the aviation industry is having to rethink what flying might mean in the future. “There’s a tremendous focus on making aeroplanes more sustainable,” says Roelof Vos, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at Delft University of Technology, which works on innovative aeroplane designs. The problem, Vos explains, is that “efficiency gains in current aircraft design have plateaued somewhat. The low hanging fruit has all been picked.” This means more radical measures will need to be taken. Here are four potential ways to reduce the damage.

MAKING FUEL FROM WASTE

The easiest way to reduce carbon emissions is to burn less fossil fuel. Biofuels – the term for any fuel that is made from biomass, rather than fossil fuels extracted from the ground – are well known in aviation. Many airports, including Oslo, Los Angeles and Stockholm, already offer it mixed it into their jet fuel. (Even older jets can use a 50/50 biofuel-jet fuel mix; any more biofuel, however, requires new, specially designed engines.)

The impacts of biofuel, however, are varied. Advocates say that biofuel emits just over half the amount of co2 as regular fossil fuels (39 grams of co2 per joule, versus oil’s 75.1 grams). But in truth, it’s not that simple, because that rarely factors in how the biofuel is produced. According to some studies, biofuel made with plant oil – which is produced on heavily deforested and polluted plantations – is actually three times worse for the environment than fossil fuels, and only 0.1 per cent of flights globally are currently powered by biofuels; salvation is a long way off.

Hope might come from an unlikely source: your dustbin. In 2019, chemical engineers at University College London won a grant from British Airways to develop biofuels from common household waste. The engineers estimate the technique, which uses gasification to turn the waste into kerosene, could provide one-third of the uk’s biofuel, and eliminate the need for deforestation. “The carbon emission reduction is massive – it’s 90 per cent less than fossil fuels, but also 60 per cent less than other biofuels,” says Massimiliano Materazzi, a research fellow at UCL who leads this project.

RADICAL REDESIGNS

Another option is to reimagine planes themselves. In fact, the industry’s efficiency drive is behind some of the most significant reimagining of commercial aeroplane design since the 1950s, with designers racing to cut weight and drag. “If you need less thrust, then you need less fuel,”
Vos says. For example, the Aurora D8 airliner concept developed by NASA and MIT University uses a double-width fuselage (nicknamed the ‘double bubble’) with a pointed nose, essentially turning the aircraft’s body into a wing.

At Delft, Vos and his team are working on the ‘Flying V’, a collaboration with Airbus and KLM that doesn’t have separate wings at all. “The fuselage and the wings are integrated in one component,” Vos explains. “We distribute the entire weight of the passengers, the cargo, and the structure inside that wing, which means less structural material.” With the cabin inside the wing surface, that means radically rethinking the interior design – the seats are staggered, ensuring all passengers can face forward, for example. But the change in space also creates room for different types of seating, such as train-style tables, and collapsible beds in the more confined space near the wing edge.

Unlike more far-flung electric concepts, Vos says, the Flying V’s advantage is that it could be built using existing technology, and is designed to work within existing airports. “There’s really no technology breakthrough needed for this airplane to fly,” he says. Vos’s researchers are now working on simulation models, to better understand how the aircraft would fly, with the hope that one of the main manufacturers might want to develop it further.

Unlike more far-flung electric concepts, Vos says, The Flying V’s advantage is that it could be built using existing technology, and is designed to work within existing airports. “There’s really no technology breakthrough needed for this airplane to fly,” he says. Vos’s researchers are now working on simulation models, to better understand how the aircraft would fly, with the hope that one of the main manufacturers might want to develop it further.

LIGHTER THAN AIR

Historically, hydrogen and flight have been associated with one thing: the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. But with aviation reassessing its impact on the climate, hydrogen is once again the subject of excited discussions, for obvious reasons: It’s energy dense, can be produced using renewable energy,

and when burned only has one emission – water. Thus, just as hydrogen cars are seeing significant investment, some companies are moving into the development of hydrogen aircraft. ZeroAvia, a California and uk-based startup, is currently working on a 10–20 seater aircraft using hydrogen fuel cells, which it claims will have a range of 300–500 miles, enough to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or London to Frankfurt. “For the small regional airplanes – the average 19 seater – we can produce around four times the range compared to battery flight,” says Sergey Kiselev, ZeroAvia’s head of European operations. And Hybrid Air Vehicles, a uk company, hope to bring back giant airships to replace air freight (though their modern designs use helium, rather than hydrogen, to fly).

But many remain sceptical. Hydrogen, which is prone to leaking, requires large, delicate tanks for storage, and is highly flammable. Kiselev says these fears are overblown: “From a safety standpoint, hydrogen is actually much safer than kerosene because it’s a light molecule, it goes up in the air,” 37 he says. To circumvent this, nasa is currently researching using cryogenically cooled liquid hydrogen, which would be easier to store, and more efficient.

Other researchers are doubtful about its emissions. “If you emit water at high altitudes, you might get increased contrail formation, which could still give a global warming effect,” Vos says. Evidently, commercial airliners running on hydrogen are still decades away.

The Flying-V has a lower inflow surface area than normal planes. The result is reduced resistance, meaning it needs less fuel over equivalent distances

FLYING TAXIS

With our cars going electric, it might seem inevitable that aircraft do the same too. Indeed, many manufacturers are working on electric aircraft concepts: Airbus’s E-Fan X, which aims to replace one of four engines in a 100-seater jet with an electric motor (thus supposedly reducing emissions by 25 per cent), is expected to begin testing in 2022. EasyJet is working with Wright Electric on a short-haul electric plane, which it hopes might begin testing in 2023.

But electric flight faces a major obstacle: Lithium-ion batteries, which power almost all electronics – including electric cars – are simply too heavy. Developing electric planes has proven complex and expensive. Zunum Aero, a much-hyped electric- aircraft startup backed by Boeing, was driven all-but bankrupt, and looks likely to shut down.

There is hope, however, for smaller aircraft. Several companies, including Lilium, Airbus, Volocopter and China’s EHang, have demonstrated EVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) craft – better known as ‘flying cars’ – that can carry people, and may replace helicopters and private jets over short distances. EVTOLs “bring the benefits of emission-free flight with the ability to take off and land from a heliport,” explains Michael Cervenka, CEO of uk-based Vertical Aerospace, which is currently working on a craft designed to carry four passengers and a pilot up to 100 miles. “It will be certified to the same stringent safety levels as large civil airlines, whilst being considerably quieter and less expensive than helicopters.” Fleets of flying taxis would, inevitably, reshape the urban landscape; their proponents envision a landscape where roads are rewilded, and instead we travel overhead, zipping about in emissions-free fleets of autonomous drones. Critics argue that such visions are sci-fi nonsense, and that personal aircraft
are dangerous, unrealistic, or both. Either way, it’s likely that regular flying taxis are years away yet. Until then, the most sustainable way to fly is still not to fly at all.

The Business of Change

Encouraging and implementing discernible change amongst big brands is no easy task, and no one knows this better than sustainability advisor, Libby Annat. Here, she discusses the challenges of turning ethical ideals into corporate reality

Photography Luca Strano

“I guess it’s a bit of an accidental career,” Libby Annat says of her 19 years to date working as an advisor on sustainable business and policy for the media and an array of fashion brands. “I just don’t think the role existed in the way that it does now; it evolved and grew.”

Having set out to be a tropical botanist, Annat spent plenty of time amongst nature, in the rainforests of Central America, taking part in ethnobotanical research that focused on the roles trees played for local indigenous communities in the Rio Dulce area of Guatemala, and how they were significant in global trade and colonial history. This work displayed her founding connection to Earth, and its resources, early on. However, it was a redirection during her time at the BBC that really propelled her into her current career.

“I was working in the commercial arm, looking at how to create monetary value from assets, in the same way that Disney does, licencing out brands,” she says. “At the time, the BBC had just launched Teletubbies and the merchandising was enormous, with pyjamas and toys and the whole range; so we started looking at where it was coming from, where it was all being made, and putting in place an ethical sourcing policy.”

Her love for the complex, global conundrum that is ethical sourcing led to a role at Marks and Spencer, starting on the same day in 2007 that the brand launched ‘Plan A’, a set of 100 commitments to tackle five major issues across climate change, waste, resources, fair partnerships and health – to be achieved within five years.

“Everyone was very innovative and they were pushing all the time,” Annat says (a point that might surprise those who consider sustainable fashion to have emerged and exploded only within the last two to three years). But thanks to her wealth of experience in the space, working on sustainable strategies across fashion, footwear, luxury sportswear, media and broadcasting, she has seen the full evolution of the sector. “It was a lot to do with people being given insight into how failing to consider environmental impact could potentially damage the reputation of their companies and their shareholder values if they weren’t careful,” she says of the motivations that existed before Twitter call-outs and hashtag campaigns.

“There were lots of discussions about ‘doing the right thing’, and that is a ridiculous conversation to have. It’s not a choice. You’ve got to go above and beyond that.” But without an immediate threat to reputation or profit, pushback from within is almost inevitable: How do you tackle that? “You’ve got to be incredibly, incredibly stubborn,” she says. “I think most sustainability people have stubborn optimism in spades, to keep pushing and pushing.”

After M&S came a move to Primark. Due to its fast-fashion model, it’s a company many may see as fundamentally hypocritical wading into the sustainability conversation, but Annat believes that such brands have to be invited in, in order to be part of the solution. She relished the opportunity to start from scratch with a company that had reputational issues needing to be addressed: not just with clever PR, but with proper inside-out change. But making those kinds of changes isn’t a simple process.

For Annat, it starts with mapping out where a brand is at right now: “Looking at where your products are coming from; asking how much traceability you have.” she says. “It’s looking at your product mix and analysing where your biggest impacts are.” And it’s those analyses that will inform the myriad choices regarding what to tackle first.

The challenge with ‘fixing’ fashion is that it’s not a single issue to solve, it’s a multifaceted issue that spans sourcing, cultivation, people, production, transport, communication, traceability, supply chains, and a whole host of other underpinning elements that are woven into the intricacy of the industry.

One thing Annat is sure of, however, is that the responsibility cannot lie with consumers. “You end up asking consumers to make moral choices without giving them all the information. Companies can’t wait for consumers to do the leg work for them. You can’t rely on your consumer to drive change.”

And the research shows that consumers don’t want to accept that responsibility. She points to a study which found that only six per cent of people believe the primary responsibility for more ethical, sustainable consumerism lies with consumers themselves.

The industry, then, must take the lead, but a lack of unity is making it difficult: “I don’t think we’ve got a vision of where we ultimately want to end up,” Annat says. “I don’t think we can see the shoreline yet.”

While an image of what a sustainable fashion industry looks like, realistically, doesn’t yet exist, Annat isn’t hopeless. In fact, she believes that “the coming together of the industry has been phenomenal. We have pre-competitive platforms where there is genuine sharing and genuine lesson learning. And that’s moving beyond the discussions and debate platforms into accelerators and organisations like Fashion for Good (a global platform for innovation and collaboration within sustainable fashion).”

It’s initiatives like Fashion for Good that Annat believes are the key to creating collaborative, directional change. When asked about the standout turning points she’s witnessed during her career, she highlights the Bangladesh Accord, an independent, legally binding agreement between brands and trade unions, designed to create a safe garment industry in Bangladesh.“It set a new standard around how companies can work together. It showed the industry that you can still challenge each other and hold each other to account but there can be a common understanding, and a proper vision in place that everybody works towards.”

She points to further programmes and groups, such as the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals scheme, a tool to support footwear and apparel brands with a unified approach to managing chemicals; the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a platform for industry collaboration around improving social and environmental impacts; and act, an initiative on living wages, as being other significant examples of bold agents for change.

Not only are they pushing the industry forward and resetting standards, but their breadth is representative of how far-reaching the scope, of sustainability as a concept and sector – and indeed of Annat’s work – really is. She’s now working as an independent advisor with clients including Heron Preston – an American designer who runs an eponymous workwear-inspired label that previously collaborated with the City of New York Sanitation Department on a zero-waste collection. Working with communications company Akerbrandt, she’s set out to tackle how the brand can change the entire culture around sustainability, reflecting it across the organisation, from production to communication.

Annat explains that for sustainability to be embedded from root to tip, brands must investigate, and become involved in, how their raw materials are grown and sourced. They have to look closely at their manufacturing processes and factories to ensure they’re following higher environmental standards; they must scrutinise and uphold workers’ rights, and even consider what the most sustainable modes of shopping are for consumers.

Her recent work has seen her supporting clients in scrutinising supply chains, becoming certified B Corps (to signify a business which balances purpose and profit) and reengineering products to be more lean in design, leaving out any unnecessary components and therefore making them easier to recycle. She’s also helping brands to ask tough questions about the purpose of their products, and how they can be used to put something back into the planet.

For such vast, company-wide changes to come together, Annat looks inwards to the team, scouting for solutions and the “models of change that already exist in the company”. By identifying so-called “choking points”, and seeking out the people within a group who want to be part of the solution, she seeks to embed sustainability as a function within every department and every role.

And when those efforts come to fruition in the form of traceable sourcing, better materials, safer working conditions or waste management, for example, the next step, Annat believes, is for those standards to be upheld by legislation. “Regulation all the way,” she says. “It’s not to say you have to blame companies or shut them down, but they should be held to account and legislation is a great way of doing that.”

France’s ‘duty of vigilance’ law is one example of legislation that Annat considers groundbreaking, given that it has allowed an alliance of French local authorities and NGOs to take legal action against oil firm Total, forcing it to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. France has also banned the destruction of unsold goods – an issue rife in the fashion industry, with brands routinely taking to burning excess stock.

Legislation could also go a long way to harmonising fashion’s goals with those around the climate crisis, closing the gap between them. “If you have climate change as the ultimate goal, that would be the measure by which you assess your supply chains and your operations, your fabrics and fibres and the products that you sell,” Annat explains. “If you were using that as your one big meaningful metric on everything, then that would bring consistency to your approach.”

With the climate crisis looming over the industry, some of the conversations Annat is having with brands are beginning to change. “Ten years ago, we thought ‘Let’s all have organic cotton and a code of conduct,’” she quips. Whereas now, she’s discussing with brands whether they need to make anything at all.

“Reengineering your business model inside, that’s the next big frontier for companies,” she says; and that’s been the radical focus of recent conversations with clients. “I’ve been asking, “Does the world need another t-shirt?”, she says, pointing to what she considers a new and necessary advanced level of thinking, where brands truly question whether the world needs something before they make it.

“If you’re a company that feels strongly about health and well-being, for example, do you stop making products like running shoes, and provide services that enhance health and well-being instead?”

“Sustainable fashion can only go so far and do so much if we’re still operating in the same paradigm,” she points out. Problems in the fashion industry abound, but so too do solutions. Whether it’s legislation, collaborative innovation, or rethinking what being a fashion brand actually means, what’s clear from speaking to Annat is that radical thinking is needed if the fashion industry – and the planet – is going to survive.

Fashioning Change

Port reports from the launch of a new initiative to promote sustainability in fashion, a collaboration between the luxury fashion group Kering and the London College of Fashion

Caroline Rush, Frances Corner and François-Henri Pinault

On the last morning of London Fashion Week, the British Fashion Council hosted a conference to launch a new initiative for sustainability in luxury fashion as part of their 2017/2018 focus on Positive Fashion, which addresses a range of issues facing the industry such as model health and diversity. Held at a bright venue, suitably draped in green leaves and ensconced from the dreary cityscape across the Thames, the event marked the start of a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) created by Kering, the global luxury group, in partnership with the London College of Fashion, UAL. The digital course, ‘Fashion & Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World’ is open-access, and attendees were encouraged to sign up immediately via circulating iPads.

Kering’s chairman and CEO, François-Henri Pinault, outlined the company’s own commitment to sustainability, stating that “sustainability is one of four pillars of our structure… we actively work with our Houses to craft tomorrow’s luxury via our 2025 sustainability strategy.” For Kering, who develop Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen among many influential brands, the digital course is an opportunity to spread these insights and “contribute to the evolution of luxury fashion as a whole, by sharing our expertise with industry counterparts and educating future generations”. Pinault was quick to point out that the course would also be used internally, to train Kering’s own employees.

Professor Frances Corner, the head of the London College of Fashion, took the opportunity to applaud Kering’s “open sourcing” of knowledge, in what is the first online course developed between higher education and the industry. The collaboration between academics and professionals has created a course that covers both the theories behind sustainability and the real-life business practicalities of achieving sustainability for any fashion house.

The room held a tangible air of optimism, with Corner claiming that “only through collaboration and the sharing of experience can we face the enormity of the challenges that lie ahead.” Ultimately, the course “aims to empower aspiring and existing fashion professionals and help them develop their own manifesto for change,” Corner said. She emphasised that there is no “one size fits all solution”, rather the course instills an awareness that prepares students to make independent, yet informed, decisions. Each course will last 6 weeks, totalling 18 hours of teaching, and young British designers from the BFC are currently testing the platform to ensure its relevance and accessibility. The first course will commence on the 9th April 2018.

Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World

An Introduction to Eating Insects

Slowly but surely, the idea of eating insects is being introduced to European countries thanks to insect-based food projects and recipe books hoping to put an end to the ‘creepy-crawly’ taboo 

The concept of entomophagy, as its known, was once almost impossible to fathom in the West, but in the last few years there has been a growing interest in insects as an alternative food source. Very slowly, supermarkets are beginning to stock insect-based snacks, while chefs and restaurants are experimenting with insects as ingredients. 

Two billion people across the world already eat bugs regularly. Countries including Africa, Australia, Thailand and even the Netherlands incorporate insects into their diets, so why has it taken so long to catch on in the UK? The answer is arguably a combination of convention and unfamiliarity, but the reality is that eating insects is no different from eating shellfish. There are more than 2037 edible insects in the world and many contain a vast number of minerals, protein and good essential fats that Westerners have overlooked.  
 
“It is reported there are over 2000 edible insect species on the planet so that’s essentially 2000 different flavours,” explains Neil Whippet, co-founder of Eat Grub, an edible insect source that produces insect-based snacks and hosts food events in London. “People just need to get over the psychology of it. That’s what our company ethos is all about. We’re just trying to be a brand that welcomes people to eating insects.” 
 
In addition to selling snacks, energy bars, and cooking packs containing crickets, grasshoppers, Mealworms and more, Eat Grub also develops new recipes to try at home. These include grasshopper stir fry, buffalo worm fried rice, spicy grasshoppers with beansprouts and chocolate cherry cricket brownies. “Crickets are related to shellfish so if you like prawns, you’ll like crickets,” Whippet says. “They’re high in protein and calcium, plus the protein is complete so it has all nine essential amino acids and they’re high in vitamin B12 and fibre. We call them the original superfood.”  
Bente’s bees, Denmark.
As further evidence of the trend, a new book produced by the non-profit, open-source organisation Nordic Food Lab, On Eating Insects, is the first publication to take a comprehensive culinary view on eating insects and how to prepare, cook and enjoy them. 
 
Inside, Michael Bom Frøst – a sensory scientist and director of Nordic Food Lab – discusses his first experience eating insects. “Through tasting them I learned why we should eat them,” he writes. Many have interesting and unusual flavours that he claims we are missing out on. Frest looks back on his first taste of an Amazonian ant (apparently similar to lemongrass and ginger) as an almost religious experience that he found mind-changing. 
 
By 2050 the world could have a population of over nine billion people and according to research, food production may be forced to increase by 70 per cent. In preparation, we need to develop a more sustainable approach to food. It follows that eating insects could very well be the answer. And for those still struggling with the idea of eating insects whole, products like ground cricket flour can be a softer introduction.  
 
“When people talk about wanting to eat more healthily and sustainably, eating insects ticks both those boxes,” Whippet explains. “And they taste great too which is key for any food product.”
 
On Eating Insects: Essays, Stories and Recipes by Josh Evans, Roberto Flore, Michael Bom Frøst, published by Phaidon, is out now
 
Find out more about Eat Grub 
 
Photographs by Chris Tonnesen