Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
I'm responsible, too.
I am responsible because for 25 years
I've been working as a design director for important clothing brands.
Fashion is one of the most polluting sectors,
probably even the second most polluting sector on our planet.
So three years ago I decided to change everything in my life,
to change my personal and professional life.
But what is the resason for this important and radical change?
In recent years, I've seen companies
that talk about green development, referring to the UN 2030 Agenda,
using words like ethics, sustainability, change,
but without actually being aware of the things
that they were saying or doing.
Time passes and pollution increases:
just think that this year, for the first time,
carbon dioxide in our atmosphere
has exceeded 420 ppm,
approaching that psychological threshold set by scientists of 450 ppm.
Exceeding this threshold could mean
that our planet is no longer able
to contain the rise in temperature to one degree centigrade,
with consequences that could be
devastating and catastrophic for our planet.
The fashion industry,
in addition to being responsible for increasing CO2,
is also responsible for disproportionate use of water,
chemicals and pesticides,
but a particularly alarming fact is that
hundreds of millions of garments that are produced
are not even worn or used
and only 1% is recycled.
Faced with these data, I have never been insensitive,
on the contrary, I always felt something that told me:
"I have to change,
and I need to change what's around me".
So I started to combine my passion for fashion
with the sensitivity I had
with regard to the environment, animals and non-waste,
but, above all, that slow philosophy that belongs to me,
which I personally consider
the only philosophy that accurately describes green progress,
because it places man and the environment at the centre of progress.
So, three years ago I decided to start my own company:
a company that didn't just sell a product,
that only sold clothing,
but that sold values based on a certain behavior.
In fact, I've always thought that the company was like a person:
it has a behavior, an education, but above all it has a heart
and at the center of this, there's the design.
Design, from my point of view,
will have a great responsibility for development,
because it must increasingly combine the harmony of beauty
with functionality, the environment and people.
Here design becomes something wider.
From this thought,
I've realized seven principles to describe green progress.
The first is that design must be ethical and responsible.
Indeed, we come from decades
of a disarming triumph of aesthetic design,
where companies had to strike and amaze the end consumer:
it didn't matter how they got there,
the important thing was to reach him.
Today this cycle is about to end and something new begins:
let's finally start talking about an ethical design,
which focuses on a fundamental aspect,
the moral aspect.
You always have to consider the aesthetic aspect,
but when you design
you have to consider the environment, people and everything around them.
Another key aspect of design
is what you need to think and make quality products,
that have a longer life cycle,
trying to reduce the impact on ecosystems,
valuing diversity
and most importantly, when designing,
you have to think about the fate of that object.
The last aspect of design is that
being at the beginning of a value chain
it has a great responsibility to coordinate the whole process.
This is the only way to have green development,
safeguarding the final idea with the final object.
The second aspect, the second principle, is the choice of raw materials.
The choice of raw materials is usually based on two aspects:
price and aesthetics.
Today, this is no longer good!
Assuming, of course, that
those who choose have the right skills,
they must have the ability and sensitivity
to check the companies,
without focusing only on a certification or a document.
There is a duty to verify
if that supplier is in line with the brand value.
This is essential, because in my experience I have seen
that small businesses,
that perhaps did not have the economic capacity
to acquire certifications,
were more sustainable than the large ones,
that perhaps had an economic availability.
I'm not saying that a certification is unsafe,
on the contrary it is essential,
but it should not be the only element of choice.
The last aspect is that
it is necessary to consider the origin of the raw materials,
to understand where and how they were made.
The third principle, the one most dear to me,
consists of short production chains.
What does that mean?
It means putting together
many synergistic, complementary and biodiverse supply chain companies,
creating real districts,
which may be at a local, regional and national scale.
Only through this strategy
we can substantially reduce carbon dioxide,
avoiding the movement of goods from one part of the world to another.
In addition, having a short supply chain, there is the possibility of going to check
how suppliers are working and to understand if they are coherent.
The price is obviously higher,
but that price difference is returned to us in other forms:
environmental protection
and, above all, a chance to have a higher quality.
The fourth principle is the territory.
The company is not disconnected from the territory,
it is an integral part of it.
This is an important principle:
everything that is taken from the company must be returned to the territory.
You have to understand this process.
The company has the duty, and the responsibility,
to stay in contact with associations,
institutions, professional bodies, schools and young people
to build something.
At the same time,
it must safeguard the transfer of know-how
from generation to generation,
giving work.
Another fundamental aspect of the territory
is also to know the companies that work within it,
in order to insert into the supply chains,
virtuous companies that invest in innovation.
But design also has a great responsibility:
for example,
in our Dolomite mountains there are thousands of sheep,
and every year tons of wool are thrown away,
because it is considered a special waste,
therefore expensive.
It is often buried, burned or dispersed,
causing significant damage to the environment.
But what happened thanks to the sensitivity
of local farmers?
They started collecting this wool and they supplied it to a company,
which treats it, washes it and creates fabric.
Maybe this fabric doesn't have the same quality
of the wool that is produced from the other side of the world,
but it has its characteristics.
Here the design must intervene,
by knowing how to take that tissue,
give it that added value
through an interpretation of the design itself
and put it back on the market.
This is how to create virtuous economy, good economy, local economy,
restoring value to our territories, restoring value to people,
restoring value to the territory.
The fifth aspect is transparency.
Companies today have to tell its story:
it is fundamental and without this there is no sustainability.
They must tell who they are, how they work
and also how the products are made.
Today, many technologies allow to do it,
but for me, a fundamental passage is that
the internal label with the composition,
that has always been put in and hidden,
must be pulled out, must be visible
and must be transformed from an anonymous label
into a talking label, a responsible label.
It must inform customers on how that item was made,
to give the buyer the chance to know it.
The sixth point is education,
which is a fundamental concept:
the company must be educated,
but the consumer too.
The company must be educated,
because it must have intellectual honesty:
it must not lie,
but it also needs to be honest with itself and the customer.
A transition occurring in these years, that none of you know,
is that through the UN 2030 Agenda,
in the twelfth point we talk about responsible production and consumption.
What does that mean?
It means that the responsibility is not entirely passed to companies,
as we, becoming unconcerned, all think.
It means that we are all responsible for the purchase.
You, consumers,
you must be educated, informed
and know what to buy,
because if you buy well and buy from virtuous companies,
you help the environment, you help sustainability,
you help the territories.
This is a fundamental step and is also regulated by the UN Agenda.
The last point is where circular economy ends,
the design, the point where it started and where it ends.
The fundamental principle that should guide the designer
is to think before designing and before throwing away.
This applies to companies, but also to all of you.
What does that mean?
It means that when designing,
you have to think exactly about the fate of that object
and about all the production surpluses that are generated,
thinking about a circular economy
where, if the finished item is reconsidered,
it is recovered and inserted in a second cycle
or, when a leftover, it is regenerated.
Without these principles,
from my point of view and from my experience,
we can't talk about sustainability, as many companies do.
Today everyone is sustainable and ethical, but it is not like this,
it is a big bluff.
These seven principles, in my view,
regulate exactly what green development should be
and most importantly,
that savings that you do not pay or that the company does not pay,
will be paid by someone or something else,
namely the environment and our future.