News collection #2: 18.07.22.

Apart from the resignations and the muggy heat impacting the UK in the last fortnight, there have been some other things going on to share (though some of which fit into the obvious “do you believe this is climate change, yet” scenario too).

“Good people doing nothing is not going to solve the climate crisis.” ~ Alistair Humphreys 18.07.22 on Instagram extolling how people survive in 40˚+ heat all the time.

Policy.

The HIGG Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) has been one of controversy to those fighting against greenwashing in the fashion space. You anticipate that a tool to measure sustainability - as it says in the name - from an organisation working towards sustainable garment production (the Sustainable Apparel Coalition), would actually be something that upholds sustainable values. While the framework helps brands address the environmental footprint of the materials in their collection by comparing materials, brands themselves can actually input the data about what they use (it isn’t third-party audited) and means they can make unsubstantiated claims, such as this one from one of H&M’s 655 website product descriptions:

One pair of cotton shorts was described as using “88% less [water] than conventional materials”; its global warming impact was “14% less than conventional materials”.

The index scores materials according to the energy, water, and chemicals used to make them, as well as waste generation and water pollution. There is no score for how the raw material was extracted or grown, or a score for what the possible scenarios for end of life (i.e. does the garment biodegrade, are there microplastics, can it be properly recycled). This has meant polyester has been at the top of their “sustainability” index, allowing brands to miscommunicate to customers, essentially diverting their attention away from the big picture. And where are people in this index?

Fortunately the Norwegian Consumer Authority (NCA) has been on the case of greenwashing, and warned H&M from marketing these sustainability claims otherwise they could face economic sanctions. There was a segment in Dispatches: The Truth About Nike And Adidas regarding consumer standards and the laws in place to protect us when it comes to brand claims. for example, as explained in this program, where Adidas’ say their ocean plastic originates.

So, though there are no specific policies regarding what brands can and can’t say - meaning customers need to be more savvy with terminology and labelling - there are watchdogs paying attention to new tools, fibres and materials.

(Original article in The Guardian, ‘Fashion brands pause use of sustainability index tool over greenwashing claims’).

Materials.

The Dutch Delft University of Technology have developed a material under spin-off company Respyre to help easily bring vegetation into the urban environment. It’s a hot hot day in London as I’m writing this, and we’ve had so many warnings about doing anything remotely normal day-to-day for fear of our health, and yet there are no conversations about why it’s this hot for the first time in the UK, or how it can be prevented in future. While concrete has its own environmental degradation, it is being used in the Passivhaus movement to create homes that are temperature regulating. Which is why I guess this company developed a concrete that can accommodate moss growing on it.

So the concrete is cooling, and the moss is cooling, and it looks cool too. However, there would be issues if it was a south-facing wall, or in cases of serious drought, because moss likes a damp environment, and it simply wouldn’t like being dry, and then you’d have a dead-looking building. This takes me back around to asking why the weather is this hot to begin with: one reason is by just not designing for the future.

Exhibition.

Some ones I would like to visit:

Our Time On Earth, at the Barbican. A mix of disciplines in ‘dynamic response to the climate emergency’, and looks to be fairly interactive and vibrant. It’s £18 though! I remember when visits to their Curve gallery was free.

Bethany Williams: Alternative Systems, at the Design Museum. It’s a free display, so potentially a space space, however if Phoebe English’s compact complex exhibit at the British Library is anything to go off, you could be getting a lot of inspiration. It would just be nice to see these pieces up close to better understand the techniques (see image below of pieces from the All Our Children collection in collaboration with The Magpie Project).

Radical Landscapes, at Tate Liverpool. Unfortunately I’m not going to get to Liverpool to see this, but I appreciate the curation of British landscape depiction in art, from unusual performance pieces including Claude Cahun ‘I Extend My Arms’ (1931/2) below, and textile pieces in the form of protest banners, and traditional paintings. It feels like the type of quirky show that would be on at Gateshead Baltic, one of my favourites.

Carolina Caycedo, at the Baltic. Because I’m going up north this week, I thought I would check in on what’s going on at the Baltic, and discovered this artist, Carolina Caycedo, who recognises nature as a spiritual entity (not simply a resource) and asks how we can embrace resistance and solidarity.

Listen.

The Landworkers’ Radio is a grassroots food, farming and climate justice podcast from the Landworkers’ Alliance - a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers. Members have asked certain questions, and the podcast hosts investigate on their behalf, bringing together land-based workers to give their experience and perspective.

This second episode asks the question: “How do we get access to land?”

The UK has one of the highest levels of concentrated landownership in the world, with less than 1% of the population owning over half of all agricultural land. Over the past 20 years, over 50,000 small scale farms in the UK have been either closed down or consolidated, in part due to little government support for anyone farming on less than 5 hectares of land. Rapid increases in land prices, in places tripling in price per acre, have caused huge challenges for regeneration in land-use, as new entrants find themselves almost entirely locked out of the industry.

The hosts are joined by Sinead Fenton from Aweside Farm in East Sussex, who with her partner, built their farm from scratch (and are constantly rebuilding it due to weather issues). They produce a plethora of edible delights for kitchens, focussing on flowers and herbs (you can watch them educating chef Marcus Wareing in his BBC show ‘Tales From A Kitchen Garden’), and in the podcast we hear about her journey onto the land, the issues she has faced and what progressive, innovative models are out there to help secure land access for new entrants like her.

Watch.

Water Bear is a film streaming platform that focusses on environmental and social justice themes. They have shorts and feature films on topics ranging from animals, to land, to fashion, to the oceans, to pollution, to food. Though the environment does pull you in, it is the human stories that make this different to simply watching something like Blue Planet. Unfortunately we simply cannot address environmental justice if we don’t also consider humans within it, whether for good or bad.

These are a selection of films looking at small-scale farming projects:

☻ In Our Hands - 68 minutes. ‘A new agri­cul­tur­al land­scape is emerg­ing, one that will bring back life to the soil, a fair wage to the farmer and a flavour to the tomato’. Feature film from The Landworkers’ Alliance and Black Bark Films.

☻ Against The Grain and Farm For The Future: A Portrait Of Three Pools Farm - 23 minutes and 12 minutes respectively. The sto­ry of one of the most exten­sive per­ma­cul­ture exper­i­ments in the UK, set in the foothills of the Black Mountains in Wales.

☻ Nomadic Community Gardens - 7 minutes. ‘Breath­ing life into dis­used parts of cities so nature and com­mu­ni­ty can thrive’. One particular project near Brick Lane in East London.

☻ The Catastrophe Garden - 11 minutes. ‘It is a dar­ing idea: to grow food from old mat­tress­es in a des­o­late camp at the edge of a war zone.’ One time that hydroponic systems really make sense to me.

☻ La Loma Viva (The Living Hill) - 13 minutes. Tracking a couple’s journey from the city to living off the land in Andalusia with experimental permaculture at its heart, but all about reconnecting with the land.

☻ Brooklyn Farmer: A Portrait of Urban Farming Across the Rooftops - 26 minutes. ‘Explor­ing the unique challenges fac­ing Brook­lyn Grange, a group of urban farm­ers who endeav­or to run a com­mer­cial­ly viable farm across the rooftops of New York City’.

☻ The Farm Under The City - 10 minutes. ‘The sto­ry of Luke Ellis’ under­ground bio­pon­ic farm under the streets of Sheffield­’s indus­tri­al quarter’. Another one that changed my perspective on the usefulness of a non soil-based food production system.

News collections will include pieces on growing, textiles, fashion, design, farming, climate change, materials, technology, policy… As I am focussed on exploring and educating on the possibilities of regenerative beneficial symbiotic systems, it makes sense to create an amalgamation here too.

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