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Help X-Ray Fashion Win Two Webby Awards: Vote Now!
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X-Ray Fashion, a Connect4Climate and Vulcan Productions virtual reality experience created by Danish media collective MANND and directed by fashion photographer Francesco Carrozzini, harnesses the immersion of VR to raise vital questions about the environmental and human costs of “fast fashion,” providing participants with a firsthand look at the wastefulness and labor exploitation underpinning a massive global industry.

The mission of X-Ray Fashion to raise awareness and spark concrete change among both consumers and companies aligns perfectly with Connect4Climate’s mandate to disseminate climate knowledge and foster climate action worldwide.

X-Ray Fashion has been touring the globe in an effort to impact as many people as possible, and we are proud to announce that the VR installation has just been nominated for Webby awards in two distinct categories: Best Interaction Design and VR: Interactive, Game or Real-Time.

Follow the links above and vote for X-Ray Fashion if you’d like to see this project recognized with People’s Voice awards—and feel free to circulate these links among any acquaintances you think may also be interested in voting. You can also spread the word by sharing this Facebook video, tailor-made for the occasion. We need all the help we can get if we’re going to pull off a win!

These Webby nominations are exciting and heartening for all of us here at Connect4Climate, and we thank you for your support in this competition and otherwise.

Lifestyle Changes and Policy That Promotes Them Are Key to Protecting Our Planet

If the world is to keep climate change at manageable levels before the middle of the century, changes in lifestyles are not only inevitable, but would need to be radical, and start immediately. Considering current consumption levels, citizens in many developed countries would have to cut their lifestyle carbon footprints by about 80-90% or more, and some in developing countries by about 30-80% within the next 30 years.

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Kehkashan Basu Embodies the Passion of Youth4Climate
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Born in Dubai on World Environment Day in 2000, Kehkashan Basu has rapidly established herself as a global authority on climate issues and a leader among sustainability-minded youth worldwide. Kehkashan spreads urgent messages on the importance of mitigating pollution and conserving nature through educational programs, speeches to youth, and other efforts.
 
At age 8, a nature-loving Kehkashan galvanized a tree-planting campaign that radiated out from her neighborhood and wound up motivating scores of children to take positive action on behalf of the Earth. A few years later, her passion and outreach earned her an influential position in the United Nations: Environmental Coordinator for Children and Youth.
 
A courageous orator with a fresh voice, Kehkashan made waves at the highest levels of international collaboration, and was an early pioneer in the youth climate movement which today is making a difference all around the world.
 
 
Kehkashan is especially proud of Green Hope, an organization she founded when she was 12 that has blossomed beautifully in the years since. Now 18, Kehkashan is humbled by the number of young people she has reached through the organization’s educational campaigns and motivated to take concrete action in defense of the planet.
 
Kehkashan was delighted to be able to speak on Green Hope and its mission at a recent high-level United Nations conference held in Paramaribo, Suriname. Given that the event was an assembly of High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation countries, Suriname was an apt venue: 93% of the South American nation is covered in Amazon rainforest. As someone with an abiding passion for protecting forests across the globe through youth outreach, this event was a dream come true for Kehkashan.
 
 
The work of Green Hope’s local Suriname chapter and other branches worldwide was formally commended by the Surinamese president, and Kehkashan delivered a spirited presentation on “The Role of Youth in Protecting Our Forests.”
 
With leaders like Kehkashan at the helm, the youth for climate movement stands more than a fighting chance of turning the tide of global climate change and ensuring a sustainable and environmentally conscious future for generations to come.
 
Thumbnail image courtesy of Kehkashan5basu. Banner image courtesy of lubasi.
5th International Symposium on Sustainability | How to Engage Society and Deploy Decarbonization

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Venice International University and Alcantara are organizing the symposium "Climate 'How': How to Engage Society and Deploy Decarbonization," which will explore the question of how best to generate engagement with climate change issues across different levels of society. The symposium is supported by the World Bank Group’s Connect4Climate global partnership program.

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World Environment Day - Cleanup of the Anacostia River #BeatPlasticPollution

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Fashion: Part of the problem, therefore of the solution
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The global fashion industry came to COP23 to tell of its efforts to cut out the waste and greenhouse gas emissions in its production, supply and customer behavior which have played a significant part in the linked problems of climate change and sustainability.

Watch how the fashion industry supports the Paris Agreement

The event at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference left the human models at home to shine a spotlight instead on business models and environmentally sound practices that can ensure the transition towards a cleaner, sustainable future, including making fibers from orange juice production.
 
The fashion sector represents an annual global turnover of around 160 billion euros. It produces 60 million tonnes of garments a year, which could reach 100 million by 2030, and employs 60 million people around the world, mainly in developing countries.
 
Fashion event COP23 Enrica Arena, Orange Fiber
Photo Credit: UNFCCC
 
Moderating the event, Costa Rican fashion designer Mitchell de La O outlined efforts to design and promote a new low carbon and sustainable system for fashion production and consumption.
Brands are adopting various climate and sustainability approaches, including by measuring their climate impact and looking beyond the first tier of suppliers, integrating sustainability in core business practices, making efforts to bring transparency to the supply chain and applying a variety of innovative solutions.

Mitchell de La O, Costa Rican fashion designer 

Swedish brand Filippa K’s sustainability expert Elin Larsson shared insights on how resource intensive garment making is. The production of 1 kilo of cotton requires 3,000 liters of water and 1 kilo of chemicals, creating 16 kilos of CO2 and half a kilo of waste. In Sweden, on average each person throws away 13 kilos of garments a year, of which 8 kilos ends up as waste – yet at least 60% could be reusable.  
 
Vanessa Rothschild, the Sustainability Expert at the H&M Group, said the group’s strategy was to be 100% run on renewable energy by 2040 with an entirely circular production model, where the by-product of one industry serves the objective of another.
 
The panelists also discussed how industry players are developing and adopting new tools to lower the carbon footprint of the industry. For example, Filippa K has created a way to classify fiber for weaving according to a set sustainability degree (its biological/organic source, ability to be repaired and recycled or even being of a recycled nature already).
 
Orange Fiber’s innovation, developed in partnership with the Polytechnic University of Milan, uses by-products from citrus juice production to produce a sustainable textile. Enrica Arena, one of the two original entrepreneurs, works at the end of orange juice production to retrieve the waste of the chain, and extract from it the cellulose that helps to create the necessary textile fiber.
 
Filippa K said it was also essential to involve customers in campaigns. For example, Elin Larsson presented the “7 pieces is all you need” campaign, where 18 different looks were created from the same seven pieces to prevent over-consumption of their products.
 
Another campaign is to tell people there is no need to over-wash clothes, which quickly breaks down the fibers, as well as to remind them that clothes can be mended, instead of thrown away. 
 
Banner and thumbnail photo credit to UNFCCC

Connect4Climate is a World Bank Group Multi-Donor Trust Fund powered by Italy’s Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development that drives climate action through advocacy, partnerships, and creative communications.

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