The Surprising Guide to Sustainability
E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-96267-522-6
Verlag: REDLINE
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
In today's climate crisis, things need to change. However, in trying to save the whales and the rain forest, it far too often seems like our choices are limited to buying sustainable and fair products. But do we even know which of our products count as such? Does the label »organic« on our pizza-box truly mean that this is the right choice? Or is it just another way to pressure us consumers in feeling like each of our choices will have a direct effect on the future of planet earth?
The authors show how navigating the current world of certified labels can often leave one feeling pressured, frustrated and confused. They help the readers find their own form of sustainable living that can be both enriching and fulfilling. With its informed
analysis of the current situation, its practical tips, and its helpful insights, this book encourages the reader to live a more enjoyable and sustainable life. After all, what is good for the world is good for us all!
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
Chaos
Inspiration
In 2012 I started my very first company: Kleiderei. This I did with Pola Fendel, who has been my partner-in-crime since my final year of high school in Cologne. In summer, just about a year after I had arrived in the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Pola and I found ourselves sitting in the kitchen of some friends. I was in my first semester, studying Clothing Technology at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, while Pola had chosen the arts for her study there. It was a fun evening that would change the course of our lives. It started out as a joke, a misunderstanding. Somebody told, how he had picked up his girlfriend from the fashion department of the library. However, the people present, being rather tipsy, thought he meant that she had borrowed clothes there. Kleiderei – the bookshop for clothes, was born. The very next day I called Pola – I could not wait to make this project a reality. To borrow clothes was for me the solution to save resources, to consume in a sustainable way and to still experiment with fashion. All the solutions, to which I had neither found in my training nor in my studies, at once. And Pola was all in, as the free spirit that she was, forever looking for new adventures. Kleiderei was our new adventure and our new mission. The last five years we already had exactly done what we wanted and now we did it again: we started a company. Kleiderei works like a library, but for clothes. We have lent clothes to customers for a monthly subscription. First in small stores at St. Pauli in Hamburg – later throughout Germany. Kleiderei was for us the alternative to a throw-away society. This is how far we got by ourselves in 2012, exactly ten years ago now, in expressing our vision in words. Micha, the journalist who wrote a piece about us for the magazine Brand Eins, brought us new concepts, like ›collaborative consumerism‹ or ›share economy‹. He had his own theory, according to which we were currently at the start of a new wave, a new change, because we had felt something: We no longer wanted to own those things, most of all fashion, that we bought just because of desire (maybe even just out of lust) rather than because of need. We were not sure if others felt the same way, but, well, we were pretty sure this was the case. In May of 2013, a full half year after founding Kleiderei, the piece was published. It was double paged with pictures of Pola and me – and my mini baby tummy. We were in the middle of it all. We were invited to a conference in Berlin as keynote speakers, besides companies such as Spotify and Airbnb, and the moderator asked us what someone must do to appear on a double page in the Brand Eins. Years later he visited us in Hamburg, during a month-long period in which we organized events at the Mercedes Me Store for the theme ›Slow Fashion‹. His question was the same: How did you do it? We did not know it ourselves. To us, the simple explanation was that we were young and that our intuitions matched the spirit of our time. Or… maybe we were so successful by questioning this ›Zeitgeist‹. With Kleiderei we advanced in the, at that time and in the truest sense of the word, rather ›colorless‹ world of sustainable fashion. In 2012 there was truly not much. If so, then the pioneers of Hessnatur, a couple of visionaries like Patagonia in the outdoors section. Still, Armedangels was still relatively small and we could have only dreamed of something as cool as Jan’n June. Secondhand clothing had by that time become less and less popular, as it was mainly associated with the older generation of the environmentally friendly than the young and the hip. To us it was immediately clear: We need colors. And sexiness. That was the vision for our CI, our Corporate Identity: Cool girls (part, of course, from our friend circle), who were all intelligent and therefore preferred to consume sustainably – but who still looked sexy. Basically, we asked ourselves: What is it that we want to see ourselves? What would inspire us? I would have liked to stop here and be able to say: This is by now old news. Today we find ourselves in quite a different situation since we have come so much further. However, except for the size of the Armedangels company, this is not true. It seems that people, just like before, are lost in a world that tells us that consumption makes us happy. Maybe with the small difference that today there is something like the ›perfect buy‹. It can primarily be found in the big cities or online, under the heading ›bio‹, ›fair‹ or ›vegan‹, with a nice logo next to it. But don’t be fooled. These logos are not like the stickers of the bands that we love and put on our laptops. Rather, they are authentication stamps. Authentication stamps that help us to choose between right and wrong, where what is ›right‹ and ›wrong‹ is understood by no one and felt by even less. This has led to massive confusion caused by the sheer immensity of available authentication stamps, for which websites have emerged to help us to make some sense of them. What complicates matters is that just as we can each start our own band and ›define‹ our own music style; companies can create their own authentication stamp or authentical claim of sustainability. Thus, we can find happy green stickers on jeans today that say ›better‹. Better than in the past, yes, but what does this ›better‹ actually mean and is it already good enough? There is no patent on the notion of ›sustainability‹ or ›bio‹, no accepted definition that we can all follow. The idea for this book took shape when my friend Cecilia posted a photo of a pizza advertisement on Instagram: ›Vegan Yoga Pizza‹. The subtitle of the packaging read ›with a sauce of hummus and ayurvedic spices‹, with next to it two authentication stamps: ORGANIC and VEGAN. And a third, which said ›5 cents for healthy soils. Such a pizza advertisement lends itself well for an evening of a drinking-game or bingo: »vegan« – check, »yoga« – check, »organic« – check. BINGO! Burp. I am not saying that choosing a pizza is easy. We have all spent hours scanning through pizza flyers to find the one pizza we want. During our times at Kleiderei, pizza was our go-to meal. When we still had our first store at St. Pauli, we would always get the mini pizza from the wood-burning stove at the pizzeria Alt Hamburg. We didn’t even have to enter the restaurant itself but could order at a little bar outside of it. The wood-oven pizza would be prepared directly under our nose. This was practical, as chronically time depraved young entrepreneurs. But more about this more later. Let’s return to the pizza: crisp, fresh, with a great taste and until today a cult favorite at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. After we went online with Kleiderei and moved our headquarters to Hammerbrook, we kept ordering pizza when we worked late hours on our business ideas (or on our taxes). Spicy pepperoni or no pepperoni? On a pizza, things that we normally would not eat taste great. Take anchovies for example. Choosing the topics to go on the pizza was always a battle. I once had a roommate in Cologne that managed to tell me at every pizza-party in our kitchen that, originally, just tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil should go on a pizza. It will probably come as no surprise to you that he always thought we were too loud at these pizza-parties. A fitting response to this was made by Sophie Passmann in her novel Komplett Gänsehaut: »Since a couple of years ago, whenever someone was eating a pizza, assholes would tell that person that pizza originally was food for poor people. A few years later these same assholes have opened pizza places that put goat cheese, red beets, and honey on pizzas, and in case someone wants it roasted pine nuts as well. By now, these poor people can no longer afford pizza.« Pizza is there for everyone! Nothing works better for a hangover than a pizza. Nothing offers more comfort on the couch. And nothing will tell you more about a personality. Steady or fearful people will always order the same pizza (given that consistency and fear are not that different from one another). Wild people love to try something new and are of course sometimes disappointed too, although they do not really care about that. Very insecure people are more often disappointed by their choice and the only free topping one can find on their pizza is food envy. The smart ones among us immediately make sure that they find a partner to exchange slices with or they will order a half/half pizza to lower the risk of severe disappointment. We don’t want to regret anything anyways. The great thing about pizza is the same as with many other Guilty Pleasures: basically, it makes any form of bodily movement very unlikely – it is a form of slowing down, which can be quite a relief (and therefore something we want). The post of Cecilia showed a pizza that had no longer anything to do with a Guilty Pleasure, but which instead has turned into a Organic Pizza Dilemma that is only interested in telling you the right way. This post was a tipping point for us and we wanted to write something that provided a different perspective on this whole perfect consumption blabla. That which had...
