As the Fashion Industry continues to grow around the world, the Fashion’s Carbon Footprint grows with it. The Fast Fashion industry has been a big contributor of the increase in carbon emissions as low quality and careless products are being manufactured with very low concern in environmental and ethical repercussions.

As a result, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in association with Vogue started a new green venture, Clean by Design, where they partnered up with the National Resources Defense Counsel. In 2012, they launched their initiative involving green experts in the subject to contribute and talk about the fashion’s world current damage to the environment.  Issues like China’s intoxicated rivers with dyes, and immense waste of water during manufacturing processes were one of the key factors that drove this initiative to develop in the first place.

“It takes over 200 tons of water just to produce one single ton of fabric, a figure that’s much more alarming when you consider that our demand for clean, safe drinking water is set to double over the next forty years,” experts hired for the initiative explained.

There are not just environmental issues that arise from the fashion industry, but ethical ones as well. For this initiative, Linda Greer, the director of the NRDC’s health and environment program, travel to Asia to get a closer look at the fashion’s outsource manufacturing processes.

“What we found when we got there,” Greer said, “was that the standard of operation of many, if not most, factories was far below global standards and desperately needed to improve … The era of operating without knowledge of your factories abroad is ending, and the curtain is rising above the sorts of problems and aspirations that we have abroad. It’s really time to get moving and not just figure that ‘It’s halfway around the world and nobody will ever know.’”

It is sad to see the lack of transparency from many fashion corporations and find out of all the damages they are contributing to the world. However, it is definitely nice to see that such powerful associations and corporations like the CFDA and Vogue are working in alliance with the National Resources Defense Counsel to change the future of the Fashion industry. The world cannot afford to continue to manufacture and produce they way it has been doing for the past years and it time to start changing that.

Clean by Design has already gained support from some of the fashion industry’s biggest players including Tory Burch, Mickey Drexler, Zac Posen, Francisco Costa, and the outstanding Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg.

As you all probably already know, I am a big fan of the fashion industry and I am a huge advocator of the environment and a sustainability believer and supporter. Unfortunately many people today still believe that these two areas clash with each other, but I couldn’t disagree more! Even though there are already many initiatives of this sort, there is still so much to be done and I look forward to taking part in that change!

http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-04-21/cfda-and-vogue-launch-a-new-green-initiative-to-curb-fashions-carbon-footprint/

http://fashionista.com/2012/04/cfda-vogue-launch-new-green-initiative-find-most-factories-far-below-global-standards/

One of my favourite sustainable and socially responsible based ad campaigns of all times is The Fun Theory Campaign by Volkswagen.

Volkswagen and its ad agency DDB Stockholm came up with a brilliant, eye-catching and both socially and environmentally positive ad campaign. They started with 2-minute videos recorded in Sweden, which captured fun inspired projects aiming to change the behaviour of people into a more positive one.

The campaign’s vision was based on:

“…The thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.”

One of the campaign’s video ads was the Piano Staircase. The purpose of this ad was “Can we get more people to choose the stairs by making it fun to do?”

On a subway, they replaced the stairs with piano-looking stairs and built-in a system that triggered the sound of notes when people stepped on the steps. The stairs were beside an electrical escalator and placed hidden cameras to see how many people they could get to take the stairs over the escalator. People were fascinated by the stairs and at the end of the day, 66% more people than normal chose the stairs over the escalator.

Here is the video:

Another one of my favourites is The World’s Deepest Bin. The purpose of this ad was “Can we get more people to throw their rubbish in the bin by making it fun to do?”

They placed in a sound system inside a trash bin in a park that detected when trash was thrown in and made a “falling” sound making it seem like the bin was very deep and it took a while for the trash to get to the bottom where it would make a “crashing” sound after a few seconds. People were so intrigued by the sound that they would want to throw their trash in the bin rather than on the floor. They would even pick trash from the floor and throw it in just to hear the noise again. In one day, 72kg of trash was collected in the bin, which was 230% more trash than in a bin nearby.

Here is the video:

It is hard to find attention-grabbing advertisement videos that are catchy and promote a social and/or sustainable vision at the same time. I believe Volkswagen did an remarkable job! The managed to catch the viewers attention with the pure subject of the video and accomplished to successfully make a brand placement in the most subtle way possible without throwing brand on people’s face. The drop a simple logo at the end of the video with the caption “An initiative of Volkswagen” and they let the social media do the rest of the work, as people passed the video around, making it go viral all around the world.

This is brilliant brand campaign that succeeded to associate positive green and social actions with the Volkswagen brand.

These projects circled around the idea that by transforming a bin or stairs into something that gave people a bit of joy, they transformed the experience, and thus changed their attitudes for the better.

To see more of the campaign’s videos, go to the official The Fun Theory website to check out more of their campaign videos:

http://www.thefuntheory.com

http://johnstepper.com/2013/02/02/applying-the-fun-theory-at-work/