I have been interested and understanding sustainability for the past 15 years. Really homing down in it for the last 4.
At first, I very much didn’t think I could do or be anything, it felt futile to go against the big and small companies that I had worked with for all those years. I thought huh well someone else will do it right? Anyone felt like that ? Small and useless?
I watched and waited until I could wait no longer, very token things were happening, but it was like watching paint dry. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, got some therapy to address my confidence and plunged into the sustainability world.
I met a tonne of people and just started to really engage my learning and understanding. You can see what I created in my bio. It has been immense, and I have and still do love every second. This is not work to me, it is a pleasure to piece the jigsaw together.
It is a constant learning journey; one doesn’t just come out of a course and say huh well now I know everything now. No, I come out of a course, book, webinar or back in the day an event saying, ‘huh well that was so interesting – however I have these questions and would like to learn more about this aspect’.
Staying inquisitive and always asking the questions even of the very sustainability you have been looking at is paramount to being a great consultant, educator and creator. I don’t stop learning and engaging with others both in and out of the sustainable fashion space. I converse with people in architecture, energy, interiors, local growing, agriculture, scientists, journalists, futurists, lighting and indeed my students.
I believe it is important to look at this in a whole system perspective. Yes, I have my fashion niche, yet I know what happens in my niche has a knock-on effect. It’s great to be able to have an eagle’s view and then be able to focus right down to a detail.
One can’t look at the part without seeing the whole. Sustainability is fine and dandy, it makes what we have secure for a time, it doesn’t always address the whole. Looking at your company through the lens of the whole is the real future in this space. Or is it?
Find out more about my courses & consultancy on my website.
