I've always felt that the small group of us working at championing a more sustainable form of luxury have been working in a kind of bubble which is only now beginning to scratch the surface of public conciousness. But imagine the solitude that Edward J. Urick must of found himself in when writing "Luxury and Waste of Life". A book which discusses the luxury industry and asks whether the money spent on luxury couldn't be better served by being spent on community focused projects as well as the motives related to the consumption of luxury.

But what make's this work on luxury intriguing is that it was written in 1908! I hope that this is not a statement on the fact that we will always be fighting a never ending battle. 

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When I was growing up, my parents frowned quite heavily on too much TV. We didn't even own a colour TV until sometime in the 80s, but I didn't really notice as I allowed my imagination to "see colours" where there weren't any. Although this did make for interesting conversations in the school yard when I was sure that the spaceship in whatever child's cartoon series was popular at the time was red, when really it was blue...

Other than my 30 mins of TV I was allowed to watch upon returning from school, my parents did encourage me to watch educational programs which I can honestly say did make a positive impact and was almost as exciting to a ten year old boy as epic space battles. One of the shows we would watch religiously was the CBC's "The Nature of Things", a series exploring science and later the environment, which was presented by David Suzuki, a man whom I admire very much and certainly helped shape my life. I think it was probably his unknowing influence together with that of my sister that originally shaped my desire to be a biologist those so many years ago.

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Following on from our recent conference in Geneva, we took a very crucial first step today in convening a Round Table to discuss issues of BioDiversity and the Luxury Industry. The table was assembled under the auspice of the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development and included a fantastic level of participation by some of the leaders and thinkers in their industries. Present were eleven key individuals from a number of organisations including the UN, Gucci Group, The Walpole, World Wildlife Fund, International Institute for Environment and Development / CITEs, Wildlife Conservation Society, Earthwatch Institute, Agropecuária Setten, The Guardian, and of course our venue hosts at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion.

While I think it would be ambitious to expect significant change to come out of a single half day meeting, what we did establish was a very good first step on the road to improving BioDiversity within the Luxury sector. Ideas were exchanged which we will begin to collate over the next few days with the goal of developing specific contributions towards the Cop-10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya this October and the revision of the Global BioDiversity Targets for 2020.

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If you haven't already seen it, check out the Ever Manifesto by Alexia Niedzielski, Charlotte Casiraghi & Elizabeth Guttman.

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It's been a good week and now I’m sitting on the TGV to Paris after participating in a conference at the UN in Geneve about Biodiversity in the luxury industry which cumulated in an ethical fashion show held in the controversial UN Chamber of Human Rights & Alliance of Civilizations.

The conference entitled “Redefining Sustainability in the International Agenda” came out of a discussion a group of us had in London during early winter 2009, sitting around a table in the lobby of a Bloomsbury hotel...

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