Encouragement for Action 2021 talks & winners ceremony

Encouragement for Action was instituted in 2018 by Stockholm Fashion District with the purpose to encourage new ideas, new technology and new business models in the fashion industry. For the fourth time, we gather to give our encouragement to Swedish fashion pioneers on September 1.

Talks:

Fashion and existential sustainability
Philip Warkander
Assistant professor in fashion studies, Lund University

“In order to make fashion more sustainable, it is necessary that we place it in a larger cultural context, in this way connecting specific fashion-related issues with how we live our lives, what we view as valuable and how we understand what is ‘meaningful’ in our existence.”

Sustainability and social injustice
Moussa Mchangama
Co-founder of In Futurum

Moussa Mcchangama will base his talk on the following quotes:

“In conceiving of a sustainable human future, we need to do more than think about who we have been and who we are. We need rather urgently to focus on the question of ‘who are we hoping to become’ and how are we going to get there.” (Henrietta Moore 2017)

“I have a hard time accepting diversity as a synonym for justice. Diversity is a corporate strategy. It’s a strategy designed to ensure that the institution functions in the same way that it functioned before, except that you now have some black faces and brown faces. It’s a difference that doesn’t make a difference.” (Angela Davis 2015)

“Overcoming these disconnections, strengthening the threads tying together our various issues and movements, is, I would argue, the most pressing task of anyone concerned with social and economic justice. It is the only way to build a counterpower sufficiently robust to win against the forces protecting the highly profitable but increasingly untenable status quo.” (Naomi Klein 2016)

No more time for bullshit
Hanna Wittrock
Assistant professor in textile management
The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås

”We all know that the environmental situation with regard to sustainability is severe. Many of us also know that the fashion industry is the world’s second most polluting industry, responsible for 10 percent of global carbon emissions and 20 percent of all wastewater. Several projects, both within and between the industry and academia, have been initiated – but the process is slow. It is too slow. What is hindering the process towards sustainability? Why are we still engaging in so much BS? In this presentation, I will share some of my thoughts on the reasons and possible solutions to the BS of sustainability work – without hopefully, contributing too much to the BS myself.”

The talks will be available as a podcast afterwards.

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