Sustainable Luxury

The Story of Cosmetics

2010-07-21T12:07:54Z

The Story of Cosmetics is an enlightening insight into the world of big cosmetics from the team at The Story of Stuff.

Luxury and Waste of Life

2010-07-06T09:07:03Z

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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James Lovelock at the Southbank

2010-03-30T09:03:33Z

Thanks to Jason, I've just come back from the discussion between James Lovelock and Sir Crispin Tickell at the Southbank Centre where there were some interesting comments from the father of the Gaia Theory on Climate Change and man's relationship to it.

Lovelock opened the talk by raising the complaint that climate scientists, or indeed many scientists, get so carried away in their modelling that they forget the real world. A problem he had firsthand experience of when back in the late 60s he started measuring CFCs in the atmosphere and the affect they were having on our ozone layer.

He then went on to speak about what the role that we as people had to play in climate change and whether any difference we could make would be noticeable. Climate Change was, he said, the earth finding equilibrium by adapting to the rising pollutant levels in the atmosphere. An event which has happened many times before throughout history with the last significant change resulting in the earth’s temperature rising 5-8°C and not returning to “normal” for 200,000 years.

But if that’s not enough food for thought, according to Lovelock, Climate Change is inevitable. It is happening and is such a massive beast in motion that there is little that we as people can do to stop it. Curbing our production of Carbon Dioxide through anthropogenic actions will do little when the vast majority of CO₂ is not a result of things like the cars we drive but rather the breath we exhale.

Which begs the question then as to whether we as creatures are a kind of virus, an anomaly created on this planet, or just part of the master plan? 3.5 billion years ago there was the spread of life on this planet which exhaled a gas so poisonous and toxic that it would forever change the earth. That life still exists today in the form of plants, exhaling the same poisonous gas. But for humans that gas is life. We call it oxygen.

So change Lovelock says is inevitable. In the same way that we have the evolution of the species, so too do we have the evolution of the environment.

His last words were “Don’t be gloomy. The world is still a remarkable. So enjoy it while you can...”

So did he live up to his reputation as the pessimist he is now often seen as? Or is he a realist?

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The Nature of Things

2010-03-08T10:03:03Z

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.

The show's coverage of a wide range of topics about helped to open my eyes to the world around me and made me want to explore it further and understand. There was something about the way in which Suzuki presented the program and the topics that he covered that was captivating not just to a young boy but clearly to a Nation so that the show has gone on to become Canada's longest running documentary series and marks 50 years this year.

It was only when I was older than I learned that title was based on the poet philosopher Lucretius' first century epic poem called "De Rerum Natura" or "On the Nature of Things", a work in six books which like it's namesake speaks not only about issues around science and nature, but also evokes the author's sentiments that people should help to improve the world around them.

I have to say it was always a toss up between David Suzuki and Jacques Cousteau as to who I thought had the better job... though I must admit that Cousteau only edges out Suzuki because he was both an inventor and explorer.

Watch the Nature of Things on CBC!

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Art world swoons over Romania's homeless genius

2010-02-27T11:02:14Z

Or so the title of the Guardian article goes. Everyone like's a feel good story don't they? And this is no different - the story of a man living in the rubbish room of a block of flats, who existed on the margins of society where he kept to himself. There he would carefully create collages of a past life before being discovered and swiftly catapulted into stardom and the heights of the art world.

But I don't think anyone can deny the thought with which Ion Barladeanu has put together his collages. Images filled with a humour which overlays the underlying disturbance of the horror's of Ceausescu's regime. Read the Guardian article for the full story or the gallery of images.

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Whole Foods Organic Made in China?

2010-02-22T03:02:54Z

Whole Foods is claiming Organic produce made in China with a distinctive lack of both traceability and certification. Do we believe them?

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Luxury & BioDiversity

2010-02-16T10:02:34Z

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.

I see this as particularly important because in a world caught up with Climate Change and Carbon Footprints, what many of us fail to appreciate is that BioDiversity, while often ignored and certainly less glamorous in the media, is the overarching thread that holds it all together. It is the one thing that directly impacts every single one of us everyday from the water we drink to the air we breathe and from the food we eat to the clothes we wear. So it is for these very reasons that in my eyes and many of the people around the table today, that BioDiversity is arguably the overriding "environmental" concern today and not global warming or carbon impact as many of us are led to believe. Issues that while important are often attributed to the destruction and loss of BioDiversity.

But it is this very all encompassing nature of BioDiversity which equally makes it such a difficult problem to address. Luxury aside, nobody has ever done a full audit of all the BioDiversity issues and the complex relationships which exist within the eco-systems which comprise them. We have ideas about various issues or segments within BioDiversity, but do we really know what the full impact is if a particular species of creature in the Amazon goes extinct due to deforestation or some other intervention of humankind? What happens to the flora and fauna which have established symbiotic relationships of one form or another with the now extinct species? It could lead to significant changes further along the system which we may not even be able to relate to.

Creating Traceability in something like carbon impact is relatively straight forward. Creating Traceability in complex eco-systems which are still to be understood is an entirely different story. I don't think that I or any of the others around the table today are in any position to fully understand the ramifications of changes to BioDiversity for this very reason. But what we do know is that reducing impact is only a stop gap measure in delaying the inevitable changes which are already beginning to happen around us. We also know that positive impact and considered management of our natural resources is crucial for protecting the permanent and irreversible loss which is happening.

We also know that the Luxury Industry is also a relatively small sector which in itself has minimal impact when compared to many of the other industries around it. But what it can do is galvanize people and drive awareness in a manner which is appealing to a group which may not even buy into luxury. It is an industry which has the resources to not only instigate change but also to create awareness that permeates down and will hopefully have a further reaching impact that within the industry on it's own.

It is for these reasons that our group gathered around that table today, in the hopes of making changes which will be further reaching that we could ever do on our own. Will the big luxury groups, whose involvement is crucial for change to have any significant effect, adopt change? Only time will tell but judging by the people who attended today and the others who have expressed interest in being involved, what I can say is that I am happily optimistic...

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Ever Manifesto

2010-01-27T10:01:24Z

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

Visit www.evermanifesto.com to read it online or download the manifesto in PDF.

UN Biodiversity Conference

2010-01-22T03:01:21Z

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.

Present at the table were Dr Jem Bendell (Lifeworth Consulting and co-author of the Deeper Luxury Report), Eduardo Escobedo (UNCTAD), Jenny White (Eco-Boudoir) and myself. We were four members of a fledgling think tank of sorts which we had called the “Authentic Luxury Association”. The one thing we all had in common was that we were all passionate about both the environment and the luxury industry. It was and is our belief that luxury could be used as a tool to further constructive debate about sustainable consumption.

The discussions were focused around what we could do as a small group in order to make a difference.

Each year the UN General Assembly chooses to dedicate the year to a particular cause and 2009 was declared the International Year of Natural Fibers. Thus it seemed logical that with two of us having a background in fashion that we should consider staging the first ever fashion show at Palais des Nations in the UN.

Jem mentioned the work he had being doing with Eco-Chic in Hong Kong and how he believed that he could get them involved to help on logistics. Eduardo loved the idea and shortly had drafted a proposal which he had sent to all of us upon his return to Geneva and thus the idea was born in no small part due almost wholly to his drive and dedication. It was decided early on by Eduardo that a fashion show on its own would not be strong enough and so the idea was evolved to become a conference with UNCTAD arranging the conference and Eco-Chic taking care of the show itself.

The original plan was to have the conference ready for Fall 2009, but as is sadly far too often typical of even the best laid plans, delays happen and in this case it meant that the conference wouldn’t ultimately take place until the 20-21 January 2010. However it was a New Year and so the International Year of Natural Fibers was over and it was now the International Year of Biodiversity.

I hope you bear with me if I diverge a bit to here to talk about the meaning of Biodiversity; as one of the facts that was highlighted at the conference was that when a poll was taken to ask people what it meant, most thought it was a washing detergent.... It’s a sad fact that Biodiversity is often overlooked and misunderstood by the general public who are constantly fed information on issues such as Climate Change but fail to understand the intrinsic importance of what is arguably the foundation for many of the social and environmental problems we face today.

According to the UN, Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. It includes all insects, animals and plants, the places they live and their surrounding environments. We rely on this diversity of life to provide us with the food, fuel, medicine and other essentials that we simply cannot live without, such as fuel, medicine and clothing. Yet this rich diversity is being lost at a greatly accelerated rate because of human activities. This impoverishes us all and weakens the ability of the living systems, on which we depend, to resist growing threats such as climate change.

So there you have it. Biodiversity is the very fabric which interweaves all life together in a delicate balance. Upset that balance and you bear the responsibility of your actions whether it is global warming left unconstrained by the clear cutting of vast swathes of rainforests in South America or the permanent loss of countless species of animals and plants due to the unchecked expansion of man in his quest for natural resources.

But back to the conference where I felt privileged to be chairing a panel on luxury entitled "The Influence of Affluence: Luxury Brands as Sustainable Role Models" on which sat a group of well respected names in the industry which included Burak Cakmak (Gucci Group), Maria Eugenia Giron (ex-Loewe), Pamela Caillens (Cartier) and Willem Wijnstekers (Secretary-General of CITES).

I know that many people are sceptical of the luxury industry – especially since it is often misaligned with that of conspicuous consumption. But ultimately it is an industry which has the ability to transform and influence far beyond its boundaries. It is also arguably one of the most sustainable forms of consumption if one considers the brands within the luxury industry who are creating quality and durability which lasts rather than that of fashion and trends. It is for this reason that it is so important to help the luxury industry create a positive message.

So it was good to hear companies like Cartier and Gucci talking about the initiatives they're doing no matter how small or grand. I know it's easy to feel dubious about some of the claims that the bigger players like these make but ultimately any step no matter how small is a step in the right direction which should be encouraged and not nitpicked. After all you wouldn’t raise a child by only criticising their less desirable actions and failing to praise their positive ones, so you can’t expect to build a positive industry only through negative criticism. Change will come and the more we encourage it the quicker it will happen.

But it is this negative and counter productive critique, which many of us so happily dish out on the big corporates, which causes many of the changes which they are instigating to be done quietly under the radar for fear of being labelled as green-wash. It’s a shame really as those changes could be held up to show and teach other companies in the hopes of inspiring further change. It will also encourage the companies which are making changes to push ahead with further changes. Surely that is a good thing?

And here is where I imagine that it must be hard for people like Burak and Pamela trying to instigate change within large established organisations. Change, even if embraced, must surely come slowly.

But ultimately it was great to see an event where the passion was starting to show through. Where there was positive and constructive debate. Eduardo and his colleagues at the UN should be proud of themselves. They managed to pull together both excellent panellists and an equally great and engaged audience to create a memorable event which I hope will be the first of many.

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What If?

2009-12-17T02:12:52Z

What if it's all a hoax?

Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (December 10, 2009)

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Vivienne Westwood Red Label SS10

2009-09-21T02:09:19Z

I must admit, keeping blogs up to date is clearly not my forte. I'm realizing that it's been some time since my last post!!! So much for trying to keep a weekly update.

So what's inspired my back after so much time? Well I just returned from the Vivienne Westwood Red Label show for SS10 at London Fashion Week. I thought it was interesting to see that such a major designer who is not traditionally associated with environmental causes was actively championing The Prince's Rainforests Project. Not only were there large banners flanking the entrance to the show, but all the packs had a leaflet and some of the models were carrying the project's mascot, a little green frog.

Backstage at the after show party, videos of Vivienne talking about the need to act with the frog superimposed on her cupped hands were being played to the VIP guests while another display for the project was on the stage. There were even outline pictures of the frog and colouring pencils for guests to create their own Rainforest Project Frog.

Is her heart in it or is she jumping on the green band wagon and doing a bit of green wash? I don't know enough about her or her brand to really comment but I would say at least it is giving more exposure to the issue... Would love to hear people's thoughts on the matter.

But what about the show? Looking like a cross between Alice in Wonderland and little Bo Peep, it certainly was the best show I had seen all week, but then it's hard to compare relatively young designers with a seasoned master such as Westwood. My biggest complaint about most London designers is that they don't seem to know what an iron is or for that matter even how to cut a pattern... not Westwood. The collection, although perhaps more commercial than some of her other shows, certainly shows that she hasn't lost her touch.

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The Blank Canvas Project

2009-08-11T07:08:39Z

A funny thing happened over the weekend. I had a piece of art I created exhibited at the Big Chill as part of a touring art show.

The first thing that makes me exhibiting a piece of art peculiar is that while I was taught art and was fortunate enough to be exposed to some great contemporary artists, I don't really consider myself an artist.

The second thing which really made it peculiar, was the fact that I was truly the unknown face in an exhibit composed of 18 successful artists chosen by Cedric Christie to participate in his charitable endeavor entitled The Blank Canvas Project. To put the peculiarity of the situation into context, the other artists were Tracey Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sir Peter Blake, Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk, Rachel Whiteread.... and many more. All major artists who make their living selling art and then me....

The project which was inspired by Jean Luc Godard's "Les Enfants de Don Quichotte", which saw dozens of tents lined up along the Canal St Martin in Paris as a means of highlighting the plight of the homeless. Christie takes it a step further by giving a select number of artists all the same military style pup tent which they are asked to decorate so that it can form part of a touring exhibition before being auctioned off for charity. The profits being divided equally amongst The Big Issue Foundation, Amnesty International and a number of other charities nominated by the individual artists.

I am sure that a number of the tents will command some hefty prices when they go to auction, particularly Tracey Emin's project since not only does she carry a big name but also considering that her original tent project had been lost in the Saatchi fire. I can only hope that my tent gets enough to cover the cost of the materials!!! So if there are any generous benefactor's out there who don't want to see me get embarrassed, then please present yourself at the forthcoming auction....

Installation shot, The Big Chill Festival;

Foreground left: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Right: Neville Brody,.
Background left: 1. Timothy Han 2. Steve Claydon 3. Boo Ritson.
Background right: 1. Keith Coventry 2. Jake & Dinos Chapman

Photograph: Mark Bennett

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The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes

2009-02-01T11:02:51Z

Wow, it's been one year already since I started this blog and I've barely posted a thing! Well I will try and make it up this year, starting with a story about growing up...

One of the most memorable things about growing up in Canada was the fact that every summer my father would take a month off of work and pack our entire family and dog into our car and take us camping. Each year we would travel somewhere different and by the time I was in my early teens we had managed to see most of Canada. These excursions helped to shape my love of nature and the joy of sleeping under a starry sky, something which unfortunately I do not get to do so often anymore.

Usually we would camp in the various National or Provincial Parks scattered around the country, and almost every park would have an outdoor auditorium where each evening a Park Ranger would either give a talk or show a short film. These films were always educational, usually had an environmental twist and were more often than not made by local Canadian filmmakers. Some of the best short films shown at the events were made by an avid canoeist and filmmaker called Bill Mason. Bill was a talented filmmaker who would use his films as a way of allowing himself more time in the wilderness to go canoeing. Almost all of his films have become classics such as Waterwalker, Paddle to the Sea or the Path of the Paddle series on how to canoe.

But the Bill Mason film which I remember most was The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes (1968), a documentary film that not only charted the evolution of the Great Lakes from past to present but was also a comment on the environmental damage being done by man. But I think what gave the film so much impact for a young boy was the fact that it was done very tongue in cheek. A dry and boring documentary it was not, the entire film is done through the eyes of one man who somehow manages to unwittingly canoe through time and is exposed to the changes happening around him. One moment he is sitting in his canoe, dipping his mug into the lakes to sip the clear water, only to see the water turn polluted unbeknownst to our poor canoeist.,

All that to say that I would love to find a copy of this rather obscure film to show my kids, but until I do, will have to make do with a short YouTube clip where the poster bemoans his inability to find the film too.

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More Than Pretty Knickers

2009-01-12T08:01:34Z

For those of you who have not yet seen the short film "More Than Pretty Knickers" made by Jenny White, of Eco-Boudoir, together with her sister Verity White, who produces films for the BBC's Natural History Unit, then do check it out and see just how green your knickers are...

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Are Electric Vehicles the Answer?

2008-12-06T12:12:25Z

With the talk of Peak Oil being at our front door, if not already in the sitting room, there can be no denying the need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for transport. But the uptake of alternative fuel vehicles has been slow, with the overriding limiting factor in weaning an automotive culture from non-renewable energy sources being one of alternatives in that there really aren't (m)any.

When companies like Toyota started to unveil hybrids to general public in the mids 90s, many consumers saw this as an answer in their quest to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. But for others the fact that hybrids carried a premium price tag and really did not have very impressive highway fuel economy meant that they were not a viable alternative to green motoring.

But with the advent of vehicles such as the Tesla and now the much heralded Mini E, the once forgotten Electric Vehicle seems on the verge on main stream motoring. Finally with the evolutionary steps in battery technology, EVs were being produced which had decent performance, a usable range and were something that was not only suitable for everyday motoring but looked good too. And as long as we didn’t use non-renewable energy sources such as coal powered stations, those of us who thought ourselves wise believed that we had the answer, if not for the long term then at least for the foreseeable future, in choosing EVs which were powered by sustainable energy.

However now that mass production of EVs is beginning to draw near I found myself doing a bit more research into seeing whether this could really be a viable alternative for the odd times when I found myself needing to drive. What I was interested in was a Dust to Dust cycle for an EV from conception through to disposal. But with very little information available I thought I would start but reading up on battery technology; and here-in lays the problem.

Current battery technology is based on the use of Lithium - a product in high demand not just for EVs but to power our myriad of electronic devices from digital cameras, to mobile phones to laptop computers. One of the first things I wondered was where does Lithium come from and what are the steps it takes to become a power source for EVs?

Lithium is a naturally occurring element with the symbol Li which due to it highly reactive nature can only be found on Earth in the form of compounds. It is said that Lithium was one of the few elements synthesized in the Big Bang.

While trace amounts of lithium can be found in the oceans and even some living organisms, there are only a few locales where Lithium can actually be extracted. These include deposits in the US, Finland, China and the DR of Congo; but these are relatively small deposits and some 70% of lithium deposits can be traced to what is known as “The Lithium Triangle.” A tiny area on the borders of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina bounded by the Three Salars – Salar de Atacama, the Salar de Uyuni and the Salar de Hombre Muerto.

What this means is that like oil, lithium production has a cap and with the growing demand for electronic goods it is estimated that realistic lithium carbonate production will only be able to produce a small fraction of the demand suitable for use in EVs. Demand for batteries is the fast growing resource request for lithium and we still have not seen a widespread roll out of EVs. But what if we do see a marked growth in EVs? Earlier this year computer manufacturers announced a marked decrease in laptop sales due primarily to the shortage of available lithium supplies for battery production. Current market conditions suggest a shortfall of in supply of some 30% while demand is expected to grow at 25% per annum with Mitsubishi expecting demand to outstrip supply in less than 10 years.

Aside from scarcity, what compounds the problem, is that Lithium is only found in significant quantities in the Andes and Tibet; two remote and fragile environments which would take a major mining operation resulting in irreversible and widespread damage to extract even a small percentage of the required lithium production. Extraction of lithium within “The Lithium Triangle” is said to require some two-thirds of the area’s drinking water and Sulphur Dioxide is a major by-product of production.

So before we hail the EV as the saviour to our reliance on fossil fuels, we need to ask ourselves is lithium ion propulsion really compatible with the notion of the “Green Car” and are we merely digging one hole to get out of another?

True there are other battery technologies out there that are arguable better and more environmentally friendly than lithium but currently they don't have the traction that lithium does. So while I know it’s not the best of answers, for the time being I think I’ll stick to running Vegetable Oil for now.

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