our favourite sustainability resources
DOCUMENTARIES
TOMORROW
today, we sometimes feel powerless in front of the various crises of our times.
today, we know that answers lie in a wide mobilization of the human race. over the course of a century, our dream of progress commonly called “the american dream”, fundamentally changed the way we live and continues to inspire many developing countries. We are now aware of the setbacks and limits of such development policies. We urgently need to focus our efforts on changing our dreams before something irreversible happens to our planet.
today, we need a new direction, objective... a new dream! the documentary tomorrow sets out to showcase alternative and creative ways of viewing agriculture, economics, energy and education. It offers constructive solutions to act on a local level to make a difference on a global level. so far, no other documentary has gone down such an optimistic road…
tomorrow is not just a film, it is the beginning of a movement seeking to encourage local communities around the world to change the way they live for the sake of our planet.
THE TRUE COST
This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make those clothes and the impact it’s having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking new documentary film that pulls back the curtain on an untold story and asks us each to consider, who pays the price for our clothing?
Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth, Vandana Shiva and many more. This unprecedented project invites us all on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.
River Blue
Can fashion save the planet? Through awareness, we evolve.
Following international river conservationist, Mark Angelo, RIVERBLUE spans the globe to infiltrate one of the world’s most pollutive industries, fashion. Narrated by clean water supporter Jason Priestley, this groundbreaking documentary examines the destruction of our rivers, its effect on humanity, and the solutions that inspire hope for a sustainable future.
Through harsh chemical manufacturing processes and the irresponsible disposal of toxic chemical waste, one of our favorite iconic products has destroyed rivers and impacted the lives of people who count on these waterways for their survival. RIVERBLUE brings awareness to the destruction of some of the world’s most vital rivers through the manufacturing of our clothing, but will also act as a demand for significant change in the textile industry from the top fashion brands that can make a difference.
Help propel positive change and protect the world’s rivers.
The Next Black
The Next Black is a documentary that brings together designers, innovators and leaders from around the globe for an open discussion on the concept of clothing. It probes beyond what we are wearing to explore how we produce clothes, how we interact with them and how we care for them. Each person we interviewed has a fresh perspective on the future of the clothing industry - and all of them are using their passions to fuel change. movie available here.
BOOKS
Design for the Real World
Design for the Real World has become the world's most widely read book on design and is an essential text in many design and architectural schools. This edition offers a blueprint for survival in the third millennium.
Victor Papanek's lively and instructive guide shows how design can reduce pollution, overcrowding, starvation, obsolescence and other modern ills. He leads us away from 'fetish objects for a wasteful society' towards a new age of morally and environmentally responsible design.
Looks Good Feels Good is Good - How Social Design Changes Our World
By (author) Anne Van Der Zwaag
Social Design includes all design-related movements that support a sustainable lifestyle and present alternatives to current social and economic systems and solutions. This book explains the concept of Social Design in an interdisciplinary, visual and accessible manner. It serves as a reference work for professionals and students, and as a catalyst for a creative movement and mentality with great potential.
Radical Matter : Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future
Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future presents the eight `Big Ideas' that will shape and inform the choices of materials, design methods and manufacturing processes made by designers in the years ahead.
This book draws from a global community of designers who are pushing boundaries with new and disruptive approaches to their use of materials and design processes that go beyond the notion of `sustainable design'. Holistic systems of design, production and consumption that will benefit our world environmentally, socially and economically are now possible, and material innovation will be a crucial element in achieving that goal.
Packed with expert ideas and radical solutions to the current global changes faced by the design and manufacturing industries, Radical Matter contains a wealth of information to help design professionals and students turn revolutionary concepts into reality.
Let My People Go Surfing : The Education of a Reluctant Businessman - Including 10 More Years of Business as Usual
Yvon Chouinard--legendary climber, businessman, environmentalist, and founder of Patagonia, Inc.--shares the persistence and courage that have gone into being head of one of the most respected and environmentally responsible companies on earth. From his youth as the son of a French Canadian handyman to the thrilling, ambitious climbing expeditions that inspired his innovative designs for the sport's equipment, Let My People Go Surfing is the story of a man who brought doing good and having grand adventures into the heart of his business life-a book that will deeply affect entrepreneurs and outdoor enthusiasts alike.
The Responsible Object : A History of Design Ideology for the Future
Within the design discipline, calls for sustainability and social responsibility have become some of the most common rallying cries of the past decade, generating countless new products, materials and technologies--all designed to change the course of our future. Adjectives like "sustainable," "green" and "eco" describe this new wave of socially committed design. But though today's conditions are urgent and particular, the ideologies behind these new products are often not totally new, but rather a part of design history. Contemporary sustainable design is just the newest chapter of a story that stretches back throughout the previous centuries. The Responsible Object presents a selected history of socially committed design strategies within the Western design tradition of roughly the last 150 years, from William Morris to Victor Papanek, and from VKhUTEMAS to FabLab. It includes about 20 interstitial mini-posters with slogans from the text, printed on different colored papers.
Slow Stitch : Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art
The pleasures of slowing down, with connections to sustainability, simplicity, reflection, and tuning into traditional and other multicultural textile traditions.
Slow Stitch is a much-needed guide to adopting a less-is-more approach, valuing quality over quantity, and bringing a meaningful and thoughtful approach to textile practice.
Natural Processes in Textile Art : From Rust Dyeing to Found Objects
By Alice Fox
More and more textile artists are using natural processes in their work, from dyeing with rust to working with found and scavenged items, and this book is the first to bring these increasingly popular techniques together. It promotes a way of working creatively with what is close at hand, whether gathered on walks by the seashore or collected in your garden, and working in tune with natural processes, bringing the rhythms and unpredictability of nature into your work.
Examples of this type of working include rust dyeing embroidered fabric to give it a natural patina, dyeing with garden fruits or seaweed, weaving with pieces of beachcombed fibre and printing with found objects. In all of this work nature is directly harnessed to make its mark.
The book is illustrated with the finest examples of contemporary embroidery and textile-art work using nature, by artists whose practice is tied up with their experience of and respect for the natural environment, often capturing a very strong sense of place and a feeling of calmness and contemplation.
L'art de la Simplicite (The English Edition) : How to Live More With Less
If simplicity is an art, then Dominique Loreau is a master.
Having lived in Japan for many years and inspired by oriental philosophy, Dominique Loreau discovered the beauty of a life well lived through the art of simplicity. Her lifestyle rests on the principle of 'less is more', and imbues all areas of existence, from the material to the spiritual. She captured her philosophy in the ground-breaking L'art de la Simplicite, which was an massive bestseller in her native France and is now available in the English language for the first time.
Simplify your home, empty your wardrobe, abandon compulsive purchases, eat more frugally but better, take care of your body and mind. From the art of feeling well in your home to the art of feeling well in your body, this compelling and elegant book will transform your life and take you on an empowering journey to happiness. You will feel energised, more confident and free. You will discover the essence of being truly alive and how to live a more centred life. One full of real pleasure, clarity and satisfaction.
Scraps : Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse
By Susan Brown and Matilda McQuaid
The textile and fashion industries globally produce millions of tons of solid waste every year through the many processes used - from yarn production, weaving, knitting, dyeing, and finishing, to apparel construction, quality inspection, and unsold goods - generating waste at each step. Typically, this waste is sent to landfills, incinerated or, at best, recycled in to low-quality fibres used for industrial applications. Scraps, timed to publish concurrently with Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum's exhibition of the same name, presents three designers' alternative approaches to the shockingly high human and environmental costs of textile industry waste. Inspired by the long tradition of using handcraft to give new life to scraps and cast-offs, each of the three featured designers - Christina Kim, Reiko Sudo and Luisa Cevese - takes an entirely different approach to contending with textile waste, but all make recycling an integral part of their design practice.
Why Materials Matter : Responsible Design for a Better World
By Seetal Solanki
What does it mean to live in a material world, and how do materials of the past and present hold the keys to our future? This book tackles these questions by focusing on various issues that human beings face and by discussing potential materials-related solutions. Through the lens of intriguing projects by designers, artists, makers, and scientists, it presents a colorful panoply of ideas, technologies, and creative efforts that focus on the earth's most basic elements, while also showing how these elements can be transformed into entirely new materials. It explores Why Materials Matter serves as both a stimulating catalog of possibilities and a timely manifesto on how to consume, manufacture, and design for a better future.
websites
everything you need to know in sustainability
A Trend Platform co-founded by Lidewij Edelkoort & cecile poignant
LAuren singer shares her simple, cost-effective and fun zero waste living tips.
Self care. Community care. Planet care. Glorious Days is where you will find inspiration on how to care for yourself, those around you and Mother Earth.
your online guide to the best green design ideas, innovations and inspiration to build a cleaner, brighter, and better future.
The world's most influential architecture, interiors and design magazine.
The largest design event in Northern Europe presents work and concepts from more than 2600 designers to more than 335000 visitors from home and abroad.
laura shares her love for plant-based food, minimal design, and slow living.