Earth overshoot day 2023

Today, our use of biological resources exceeds what Earth can regenerate in one year. To mark Earth Overshoot Day, is to acknowledge our consumer culture and its impact on our shared home.

As habitats of Earth, we must be aware of our footprint and aim to change our lifestyle to better sustain a healthy planet. Enrolled within the fashion system, we are well informed of the unhealthy consumer culture that has become synonymous with fashion culture. Not only is the fashion industry global at scale, creating immense resource demands and waste but it is also built on an unjust system, impacting especially the environments and societies in countries of the Global South. To combat overproduction and overconsumption, and essentially to change our current fashion culture, is of interest to sustain our ecosystems, but also to fight global injustice.

A culture change is found in new mindsets and behaviors, find resources below to inspire and take action in this transition!

The Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook

This playbook, co-published by UNEP and UN Climate Change, provides a shared vision, principles, and guidance on how to align consumer-facing communication across the global fashion industry with sustainability targets. It shows how fashion communicators – marketers, brand managers, image-makers, media, influencers, and beyond – can help advance towards the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals through 1) countering misinformation, 2) reducing messages perpetuating overconsumption, 3) redirecting aspiration to more sustainable lifestyles, and 4) empowering consumers to demand greater action from businesses and policymakers.

Fashion Reimagined

In this documentary, follow fashion designer and CPHFW’s Advisory Board member Amy Powney on a mission to create a sustainable collection from field to finished garment and to transform the way we engage with fashion.

Fashion Values: Nature

In this online course, created by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London Collage of Fashion you can learn to understand biodiversity in the context of fashion and create a plan for fashion that protects Earth’s ecosystems. This course will help you build the knowledge, skills, and connections to reimagine fashion’s practices and develop a plan to put nature first.

The Or Foundation

Working at the intersection of environmental justice, education, and fashion development, The Or Foundation’s mission is to identify and manifest alternatives to the dominant model of fashion – alternatives that bring forth ecological prosperity, as opposed to destruction, and that inspire citizens to form a relationship with fashion that extends beyond their role as a consumer. In Ghana, one of the many countries in the Global South impacted by fast-paced consumer culture and waste creation of fashion driven by the Global North, The Or Foundation works on the site with various projects to support local communities and workers in the Kantamanto market. Alongside they facilitate the Stop Waste Colonialism Campaign.