People For The Planet
Rick Davy
Founder + Director of BK Style Foundation & BK Fashion Week
Rick Davy
Meet Rick Davy @rickdavyfwbk, bridging fashion and community and championing emerging sustainable talent.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”?
I am driven by the amazing talent we have across the globe who don’t get the opportunity to share their work and stories, so I am inspired to create a space for them to shine and jump-start their career.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Providing opportunity and a platform for creatives and makers to share their talent and work.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
I am committed to using one glass bottle that I refilled with water, I bike and use public transport, big advocate for clothes swapping.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
My hope for the planet is that we all come together spiritually, together as one human race with different cultures we can embrace, while we keep our planet clean for future generations.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? (https://sdgs.un.org/goals)
SDG 1: No poverty, SDG 2: Zero hunger, SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation
Robert Meeder
Co Founder of Selyn Textiles
Robert Meeder
Meet Robert Meeder, the Co-Founder of Selyn Textiles @selynfairtrade, a sustainable textile brand in Sri Lanka. With a global career in craft, design, and sustainability, he inspires students and consults with various organizations, companies, and governments to promote doing better by being better.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
For the love of craft, people, and culture! Artisanal and indigenous craft is fundamentally the first objects our societies created, it’s part of our DNA, language, and identity. It is also a potential solution and approach to many of the problems our modern societies face eg. broken supply chains, lack of transparency and authenticity of productions but more importantly an approach to design that is far less impactful on our environment.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
I am most passionate about discovering and developing solutions and connecting the dots between communities, designers, and our environment. How one man’s waste can be another man’s textiles. Working within the textiles industry I believe we play a significant role in promoting sustainable practices and protecting the planet and people – we have to!
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Beyond the obvious day-to-day actions that we should all be doing, I volunteer virtually and give as much of my time to support aspiring leaders around the world in their communities trying to make a difference. If I can help, mentor, raise funds or create awareness for those who are fighting the adverse effects of “developed” societies’ misgivings – that’s where you’ll find me!
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
My hope for the future of the planet is that we will still have one! At this rate we know that we have to slow things down and find long-standing solutions and changes to our societies and habits – there is no Mars or Plant B for 99.99% of us, so why would we delude ourselves and destroy our environment for the 0.01% who will be able to leave? As a collective, we have the power to be the change needed to do good and be better!
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Bridget Artise
Founder + Designer + Author
Bridget Artise
Meet Bridget Artise founder of @sustainablefashionweekus. A Sustainable Fashion Crusader, Bridget has been promoting sustainable awareness since 2001 via her brand Born Again Vintage. The brand is one of the earliest upcyling brands which allowed me to author the book Born Again Vintage in 2008. Afterwards I created one of FITs first sustainable classes called “How to build a Vintage Business” in 2010. From there I have implemented Sustainable Fashion Afterschool Programs in the NJ/NYC area then opened my 1st brick and mortar House of BAV. Which ultimately led to me founding Sustainable Fashion Week US in 2019. Currently I opened the first sustainable store at Tanger Outlets partnered with BK Style Foundation called House of BAV BK Style.
IRK: Tell is your “Why”
My “Why” changes periodically. I would say initially it was feeling a passion I had not felt by cutting up clothes and wanted to continue to feel that. Then it was learning the horrors of the fashion industry and wanting to spread the word. Next it was about putting on emerging designers because I remembered how hard and lonely it was for me when I first started with not many designers like me out there. I keep going because there is still so much to do, I believe in what I do so that will always drive me to keep at it.
IRK:What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and planet?
As mentioned above, I am passionate about supporting newbies, students and emerging designers. I will always believe we are stronger together if we are truly about making an impact.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Well, I haven’t shopped retail in over 12 years nor have I driven in almost a year. I repeat my outfits frequently and encourage all those around me to thrift as oppose to shop retail.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
I truly hope we can go back to a day of less consumption and less production and really loving our clothes. I hope our future looks more like our past.
IRK: What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
I definitely align most with Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production.
Syrett
Editor IRK Magazine + Artist + Gallerist Runway Gallery
Syrett
Syrett is an artist who showcases his work on @runwaygallery. His latest series is a stunning collection of pieces created using found sea plastic and ghosting netting off the beaches of Ireland, England and Thailand.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
Syrett: I got mad in all honesty. In the U.K. we had a public vote on whether or not to leave the EU. Politicians lied, dirty money backed certain groups, newspapers spun their preferred stories and I felt helpless. Democracy is something we all cherish, but if lies, money and big business can influence democracy then what chance does the planet have over profit? So, I got mad and started to do stuff which will affect small change and hopefully my actions will encourage others to change their actions too.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Syrett: I feel our leaders/politicians have lost their way. Our home, the creatures that live on it and humans. Must come first in every decision before profit, the share prices or indeed the optics.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Syrett: I’m a member of a local beach cleaning group, that retrieve sea plastic from the beaches around my home. I ask all my associates agree to removing bubble wrap (single use plastic) from all deliveries to me. My big mission though is to reduce the amount of plastic containers in my bathroom! With my beauty regime that’s a mammoth task.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
Syrett: That it survives!
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
SDG 13: Climate Action, but we have to tackle all of them at once… Or non will be achieved.
Haushala Thapa
Educator + Community Leader + Founder of Haushala Creatives
Haushala Thapa
Haushala Thapa @haushala.thapa, is a dedicated educator and social entrepreneur, known for her work in providing quality education to marginalized communities in Nepal through her organization Children and Youth First Nepal (CYF). Her creative memory education approach and use of nature as a tool for learning have enabled accessibility and nurtured growth for over 80 children. Haushala’s work also extends to promoting sustainable fashion through her clothing repair and swap brand, Haushala Creatives, and her role as country coordinator for Fashion Revolution Nepal and Nepal ambassador for Global Fashion Exchange.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”?
Haushala Thapa: Nature is my first and foremost inspiration and then the children I work for. Every day on our farm from the caterpillars, ants, earthworms, and the weather pattern changes teaches and inspires me that this is a cycle of learning. Besides that, what keeps me going as well is education and a safe childhood space to create healthy memories should be the right for every child. I started this because where we belong and where we are born shouldn’t be the factor of if we receive education and care or not. Every child in the world deserves a dignified childhood.
The spirit that drives me is when every time a child finds honor and respect in their own culture, language, and food and when their enthusiasm to learn more is expressed, that spirit helps me do more. Remembering that we all have a child in all of us and just because some or the system doesn’t acknowledge that we should never crush that spirit. A child’s spirit is that similar to the weather patterns, of that of the farm you work on, and similar to that of understanding where lives do need attendance at the right time needed so that the results are healthy.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Haushala Thapa: I myself come from an indigenous group called Magar and Gurungs. I am extremely passionate about nature-based learning for children and adults. Nature has its unique tools to help us, understand and move forward in the healing process. If we allow and give ourselves permission to listen to nature, there is a lot of compassion, balance, and understanding. I advocate passionately for the saving of natural forests and habitat conservation which aligns directly with our existence of being. Children thrive the most when they are in natural environments and are with the tools of nature to learn from.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Haushala Thapa: I have made a conscious action to repair my clothes as much as possible and also use toiletry items that are not harmful to the earth. Meaning I buy items that are refillable and when the end life is reached the material is consciously good for the soil.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
Haushala Thapa: Being an educator and working with children, I am a hopeful person. But I believe that the future of the planet now more than ever lies in the hands of big corporations and governments to steer towards a certain direction which makes this place we all call home a livable place. I have read somewhere that humans are one of the only species that destroy our own home whereas the rest of the species work towards saving it.
A hopeful future means a place where there is clean drinking water for everyone, clean air to breathe, and safe soil to grow our food. We do have limited time not just because of climate change but if we head in the same mentality that there is enough land to dump things, there will come a time in the near future when there might not be enough land to grow food or formulate towards a livable planet. Thus the generation now and the one that is growing to be part of the global economy should not be discarded in that conversation about the future of the planet. If every individual adds to the global economy, every individual does have a right to demand safe drinking water, clean air, and safe soil to grow food for the present and the future.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? (https://sdgs.un.org/goals)
Haushala Thapa: Living in Nepal, I align myself with all the goals but specifically with the work I do, I align myself to SDG 1: No poverty. But also redefining what poverty means. Access to quality education for every child, zero hunger, bringing access to nutritional food and access to land to grow your own food, gender equality, clean drinking water, and sanitation. Affordable clean energies for everyone, decent and dignified work for the betterment of the economy, climate action centering indigenous people, and global partnerships with strong peace and justice institutions that are free from political/business alliances.
Anna Sacks
Environmental Activist +
Anna Sacks
Anna Sacks is a passionate waste reduction advocate who is deeply involved in legislative efforts to promote sustainable practices. She co-founded the #SaveOurCompost coalition and shares her journey on social media as @thetrashwalker.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
Anna Sacks: Because we created these systems and we can create better systems.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and planet?
Anna: Community composting is my first love. It restores our soil and creates local, green jobs.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Anna Sacks: I have a few self-imposed rules: if tap water is potable, which is a privilege, I am not allowed to drink from a single-use bottle. And I can only drink coffee in a reusable container.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
Anna Sacks: That we respect the physical boundaries of this beautiful planet and create a world in which each person can not only survive but thrive.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Hadeel Osman
Designer + Social & Environmental Educator
Hadeel Osman
Hadeel Osman @fashrevsudan, @mshadeel, is a sustainable fashion consultant, researcher, stylist, and designer who is passionate about spreading awareness and education about sustainable fashion. She leads the Fashion Revolution Sudan team and strives to promote better methods in the fashion industry and encourage conscious consumerism while embracing indigenous practices.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
We deserve to make clothes, enjoy them and all while living on this Earth without contributing to its demise. Small collection actions, embracing life as an experience and living slowly truly inspired me to fuse my love for our planet and fashion together, to do better.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Fusing innovative approaches with indigenous practices, which reduce waste and increase the responsible human experience.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
I rarely shop, and when I do, I buy secondhand or support local brands and locally made products and I also upcycle clothes and accessories – and always advocate for reimagining and reusing what already exists to reduce our waste output . I also stray away from single use plastics.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
Slow, regenerative and calculated steps towards a future that does not deplete natural resources and mistreats the people.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Lewis Perkins
President & CEO Climate Expert Apparel Impact Institute
Lewis Perkins
Meet Lewis Perkins @lewisbperkins, the President & CEO of @apparelimpactinstitute, a visionary and passionate leader in sustainable product design and manufacturing. With a focus on identifying, funding, scaling, and measuring solutions to decarbonize the fashion supply chain and address critical environmental targets, he is making a significant impact in the industry.
IRK: Tell us your “Why”
It is a paramount time in our world and history where the transition of all systems to be good for people and planet is the work of our generation. I am driven to be a part of this change.
IRK: What are you most passionate about with respect to taking care of people and the planet?
Just transitions which honor economic livelihood, human health and wellness within thriving and diverse ecosystems.
IRK: What are some conscious actions you implement in your daily life?
Leading with inclusivity, kindness and an open-heart. There are many actions we can take to be more sustainable, but I also believe that solving for big issues requires patience and deepening of relationships. It is a joy to do this work with likeminded leaders.
IRK: What’s your hope for the future of the planet?
Equitable access to all resources in a sustainable, renewable and generative world.
What Sustainable Development Goal do you align with the most? https://sdgs.un.org/goals
