Talking all things regenerative farming, consumer behaviour, barriers in the way of opting for a more sustainable future and communicating sustainability issues with a thread of hope rather than fear.
As a sustainability consultant, you obviously see a-lot of brands & how they operate... Is there a key challenge that you’ve noticed brands & businesses face when they’re wanting to opt for a more sustainable & fair trade business model?
Yes, it’s always cost. It always comes down to how expensive it is to opt for sustainable, beautiful, natural materials... Because synthetic fibres such as polyester & nylon are so prevalent & they’re so cheap, it’s really starting to infiltrate all the way through even to the high end designers... It's very difficult to be able to deliver beautiful dresses made from regenerative, natural materials at a price point which consumers are used to. Fast fashion has a-lot to answer for because of this, we have this influx of very cheap clothing all the time so people’s expectations around what fashion should cost are not realistic when we want to also add sustainability.
Consumer education is really important & such a great way to start, do you find that it can be really hard to motivate & get your message across with such overwhelming & scary topics about the industry & how do you buffer that & deliver it in a way that delivers it with a thread of hope as
opposed to fear?
I think the most important thing when we are talking about really technical
sustainability problems is to make it relatable for people & lean into
there being hope in the narrative....
'Every second one garbage bag full of clothing is burned or discarded globally'
When you can encourage people to invest in something that’s more expensive than what they’d normally wear & they see how well good quality cloth wears & how it feels against their skin... it can change they way they perceive themselves & all of those things I think are really powerful. And then if you add in the, plus it’s been farmed regeneratively in ways which heal landscapes & give back to soils etc ... Everything is really up, up, up.
'I don’t like scare campaigns & tactics. We know there’s trouble in the industry, we know there are problems but we want to help people believe in what they can do to change things.'
What were some of your main ‘reality slap’ moments when
researching for your recent book Sundressed?
With regenerative agriculture, it opens your eyes. You start to understand how bad industrial agriculture is for soil health and our landscapes, how quickly it leads to riddle & volatile environments... When we have green plant matter covering the soil & that photosynthesis piece happening, there’s this ecosystem which is thriving and it really does make a tangible difference to the way we experience landscapes.
'Now when I am on an industrial landscape or forest, I really notice how visceral it is in that environment because it is quiet, there’s not that sense of coolness in the air because there’s no plants doing the photosynthesis and drawing in that humidity from the atmosphere & it just does feel a little bit sad.'
Thank you Lucianne for sharing some wisdom with us!
( all imagery via Pinterest )