Emma Håkansson wants Australians to rethink the way they dress.
“We don’t need the amount of clothes that we buy in Australia,” she says. “As individuals, on average, we throw kilos and kilos away each year. So shifting our thinking about how we approach fashion is a really important part of sustainability.”
Håkansson is the founder of Collective Fashion Justice, an organisation devised to address the environmental impact of the fashion industry. As well as educating consumers about making more eco-conscious clothing choices, Collective Fashion Justice lobbies for change at the policy level and works with brands to help them move towards more sustainable materials.
This September at Melbourne’s Fed Square, the organisation will be running a whole-day event that involves a clothing swap, clothing repair lessons, panel discussions and more. Håkansson hopes attendees will come away armed with knowledge about how to dress more sustainably.
Explore how community action can help create a system of total ethics fashion, with Collective Fashion Justice.
“While it’s really important that the weight of responsibility is on the industry itself to make change, that’s not going to happen unless individuals are aware of why that’s important – because of the whole vote with your dollar thing, but also our collective voices can make a real difference,” she says. “So if people understand which materials [have a lower environmental impact], our consumption habits can change.”
Håkansson is just one of the trailblazing Victorians putting on an event as part of Sustainable September, which takes over Fed Square in the heart of Melbourne for the entire month after a two-year Covid-enforced hiatus.
As well as Håkansson’s event, it will involve everything from a yoga class and chat with Nimble Activewear, a Green Brick Road treasure hunt for kids, to the Healthier Cities Family Fun Day, where Bupa Foundation partners like Conservation Volunteers Australia will be teaching families how to build a nest for wildlife, become a nature steward and more. Don’t forget to pick up a free coffee in an edible cup, thanks to Good-Edi, founded by Melbourne-based eco-entrepreneurs Aniyo Rahebi and Catherine Hutchins.
Nimble Activewear will be hosting an hour of yoga followed by a discussion of the brand’s commitment to sustainability led by co-founder Vera Yan.
There will also be art from artists such as Kathy Holowko, who incorporates messages about sustainability into her work. Her sculpture, The Unsung Hero, on display in the Swanston Street Forecourt until 21 September (opposite Flinders Street Station), is a nod to the important work of the worm in composting and soil building.
“I discovered permaculture as a young person and it really was something that just made so much sense to me, and a space where I could find an ideology that [had] positive solutions,” she says.
Holowko wants to encourage Victorians to get their own compost bin going at home.
“Composting green waste is achievable for all of us, and something positive that we can do to produce beautiful soil for plants. By diverting organic matter from entering landfill we can also reduce methane gases that damage our atmosphere.”
Artist Kathy Holowko’s 1.5 metre golden statue of the humble worm is now at Fed Square.
For Katrina Sedgwick OAM, the director and CEO of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation (which manages Fed Square), work like Holowko’s is what Sustainable September is all about.
“Artists lead the way in so many things,” Sedgwick says. “I think the more that we embed artistic thinking into corporate thinking around construction, the more that we’re going to find creative solutions to the problems that we face, simply by using this very lateral thinking.”
While Sustainable September is a chance to put sustainability in the spotlight, Sedgwick says Fed Square’s commitment to sustainability is year-round. The precinct was designed and built with sustainability in mind – a pioneering choice 20-odd years ago. Today Fed Square uses renewable energy, has a number of energy-saving initiatives on site that help it use just 10% of the electricity a typical comparable space would, and collects rainwater in tanks that is used for all of the precinct’s toilets, gardening and cleaning.
“There’s a whole lot of layers that we bring into our daily practice that really keeps the sustainability up at Fed Square,” Sedgwick says. “It’s in our DNA.”
Another of the bright minds contributing to Sustainable September is Kirsty Bishop-Fox, the president of the Zero Waste Festival, which is staging a one-day event at Fed Square on Saturday 17 September that will promote reusing, recycling, and preventing landfill. It will include panel discussions, a sustainability-themed children’s performance, and a repair cafe, to which Victorians can bring toys, clothes and household items that can be mended instead of being chucked out.
Bring the kids to the ‘Healthy People, Healthy Planet: Building Heathier Cities’ family fun day, presented by Bupa. Kids can learn how to be a nature steward with Conservation Volunteers Australia to help protect Australian wildlife, like this Eastern Barred Bandicoot.
“The reality is a lot of things are thrown out that don’t need to be,” Bishop-Fox says. “And throwing something out and getting something new made, it’s just not environmentally sound. There’s a lot of energy and resources that go into producing them and we need to be more mindful and respectful of these resources.
“Really, there’s no point throwing something out which can have a minor repair, without repairing it. It just makes sense to do it.”
For all the big thinkers involved with Sustainable September, sustainability is a message worth shouting about.
Håkansson says: “It matters because it has to matter – the fate of our planet and everyone who lives here rides on people caring about sustainability. The least we can do if we live on Earth is take care of the planet.”
Check out the full itinerary for Sustainable September at Fedsquare.com.
