Calling all creatives: sustainable fashion needs your vision if it's ever to become a reality

There is a creativity gap in sustainability work with a need to feed human imagination if we want to move towards a new future, writes Rachel Arthur. Fashion has a big role to play to make that happen.

If we're going to achieve a more sustainable fashion sector*, we need visions of what that future could actually look like. The plethora of targets, statements of intent, pilot projects and beyond, while all movements in the right direction, are keeping us in a place of business-as-usual while we create them in the current paradigm. For fashion, that means a place where shopping and consumption doesn't change, even if the way in which we produce does.

If we truly want to see transformation, we need to present a radically different narrative from the one we know today. One that reimagines all of that. Which is why sustainability needs storytellers as much as it does those from science, business, finance and policy. What we have before us is a creativity gap.

As author Amitav Ghosh wrote: “When future generations look back [...] they will certainly blame the leaders and politicians of this time for their failure to address the climate crisis. But they may well hold artists and writers to be equally culpable – for the imagining of possibilities is not after all, the job of politicians and bureaucrats.”

So what could that positive future look like? This is one of the biggest pieces of work that needs to be done. We need bold visionaries exploring what is possible, feeding our imaginations by painting a picture - of the utopian variety - for all of the rest of us to get behind. Seeing is, as they say, believing.

This was the basis for a strategy I wrote for the UN Environment Programme back in 2020, now available for all to see online from this week. Focused on the role of communication within fashion's climate response, it ultimately outlines the need for a new narrative. Considering change on a systemic basis for the sector, it suggests we must "build demand and inspire action for a positive fashion future, by changing the dominant narrative of the sector from one of extraction, exploitation and disposable consumption, towards regeneration, equity and care".

What we need is more people involved in creating that future, Matt Golding, founder of independent film studio Rubber Republic, recently wrote. "We need to show as many people as we can these possible futures. Creative content could play a vital role in growing the number of people engaging with the future. It can enable people to see and explore what could be coming down the line, to get a feel for the fact they have options, and provide space for reflection, discussion and action."

Narrative change is a growing field, within which there is some exciting climate related work being done. A big part of that is disassembling existing narratives, which the fashion sector most certainly requires. But making an alternative system appear visible and real, is not only almost more important, but certainly more exciting.

"Once new ways of understanding and being in the world take on sensory, visceral and emotional power, they start to seem possible, and even necessary. Just as many of us find it difficult to see the possibilities in a run-down house without the help of trained architects and designers, so we often need help to envision viable alternatives to the current social system," wrote Brett Davidson, Narrative Lead with the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling.

Given sustainability work thrives on acronyms, technical papers and largely intangible elements, it's unsurprising the possibilities are hard for most people to see. In my current piece of work at UNEP, we have been working on how to define what is meant, for instance, by the idea of a 1.5-degree lifestyle. How do we all live by one of those? Any thoughts? It's been a fascinating and insightful exercise (more on that to follow another day).

The point is, the opportunity that's here for storytellers is palpable. "We have to achieve a depth of narrative immersion such that people experience a fictional way of life as possible, and begin to express first yearning, then desire, and finally, demand for this fiction to be made real,” Davidson adds.

There are of course many individuals and organisations lightyears ahead of me with this thinking, already making strides towards imagining these new futures. For fashion specifically, Dr Kate Fletcher and Dr Mathilda Tham's Research Action Plan, Earth Logic, envisions an industry connected with nature, people and long-term healthy futures.

Others are presenting wider visions than for fashion:

• Futerra has presented the 2050 Awesome Anthropocene goals - an attempt to say what’s next after the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are finally met.
• Purpose Disruptors introduced Good Life 2030, a campaign for the advertising industry to create compelling visions of the future in 2030.?
• Solarpunk has evolved from an art movement into a community offering an unapologetically optimistic vision of the future that imagines a radically different societal and economic structure in harmony with nature.?
• Another resource to know is Stories for Life, a platform exploring how stories might help design an Economy in Service to Life.

What else have you seen? Please share in the comments.

What's interesting to think about, of course, is that we don't have to rely only on new stories. Nor should we look solely to the Global North for such visions. In fact traditional practices of wider cultures often present us with some of the most sustainable ideas by their very nature. There are, for instance, a multitude of learnings fashion particularly could take from indigenous peoples and local communities as to how they have always approached creation. Centring their voices, ideas and practices is key. At the very least, we must address the fact the current fashion industry relies on and profits from BIPOC workforces and cultures, while often excluding them from sustainable fashion conversations.

*I opened this article by stating that if we're going to achieve a more sustainable fashion sector, we need visions of what that future could actually look like. In a wider sense, and as per some of the examples shared, that doesn't apply to just fashion alone. We need that imagination for everything to do with how we live today. But fashion has a particularly unique position within the climate crisis as one of few consumer sectors built on creativity. As I wrote for UNEP, "it thus has the potential to bring sustainability to life in ways that haven’t yet been seen".

This, then, is a call to action for fashion's creatives and its storytellers (from designers to marketers, image makers and beyond) - not only do we need you, but you have a responsibility to get involved.

As novelist and poet Ben Okri wrote in The Guardian: "This is a time when we ought to dedicate ourselves to bringing about the greatest shift in human consciousness and in the way we live. We ought to consecrate ourselves to bringing about a conscious evolutionary leap forward... It is now time for us to be the most creative we have ever been, the most far-sighted, the most practical, the most conscious and selfless. The stakes have never been, and will never be, higher."?