At the Urban Air Market in Los Feliz, a swanky neighborhood tucked into the east side of Los Angeles, I was excited to see so many upcycled crafts in one place. Particularly of the textile variety, considering how Americans throw out 11 million tons of textiles every year. 80% of those old clothes goes straight to landfill.
Instead of halfway measures and greenwashing, Ray Anderson oriented Interface to the singular goal of having no net negative impact on the environment, something it calls Mission Zero®. Interface hasn’t hit Mission Zero® yet, but that goal has been woven into the company’s DNA. He passed away years ago, but that vision remains integral to the company’s culture.
Last week, while the world’s eyes were on Tesla’s big announcements, the Cradle to Cradle Institute’s Fashion Positive held a workshop on circular fashion. The workshop featured innovations with EVEN MORE potential to curb global warming! We heard from Lewis Perkins, President of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, then Annie Gullingsrud, Director of the Textile and Apparel Sector. She’s also written the book on the subject — Fashion Fibers: Designing for Sustainability.
The Ocean Conservancy is partnering with several corporations, non-profits and government agencies to reduce the flow of plastic waste into the oceans from Southeast Asian countries.
This week, Anne-Sophie Garrigou, journalist at The Beam, interviewed Alexandre Lemille, a promoter of the Circular Economy who believes that shifting our economies is not only good for the environment, but equally so for businesses and the people.
It’s been a while since we checked in on the Sahara Forest Project, but its first pilot facility just online went a few weeks ago so now is a good time to do some catching up. As for the goal of re-vegetating the Sahara desert, why stop there? With large … [continued]
Carbon may speed up the growth of trees (in the short-term) but certainly not our economy. For many decades, businesses were only functioning in one direction. This will have to change in the coming years, since such a one-way business focus, known as the river economy, is only focused on production of goods and leaving them in the hands of consumers, who throw them away after their product-life has ended. This will become less profitable in the coming years as the cost of natural resources will increase, resulting in higher development costs.
