Climate roundtable: Aoife McNamara, Dr Tara Shine, Conor Spacey and Pat Kane on taking care of the planet
Aoife McNamara: Since I was younger, I've always been obsessed with being outdoors. So, it wasn't that the word sustainable was something that I wanted to have in my clothing brand, it was why I started. Nature was in every single part of what I was doing - from my inspiration to my fabric sourcing. It was so seamlessly integrated into my process.
A huge part of my ambition of a fashion designer is to try and redesign the Irish and international fashion industry to offer more transparent and circular fashion where we don't create any waste.
Pat Kane: I would blame [my passion] on my grandmother. We grew up with her growing her own vegetables; raising her own animals. Not to eat them but more just to have them around which was lovely to see. I was raised by the sea in Rio de Janeiro. The sea was my garden so there was always that respect going on, so it was a natural fit.
I'm the founder of Reuzi, Ireland's one-stop shop for sustainable living goods to help reduce household waste.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB
Tara Shine: To go back to where my interest in sustainability comes from, it predates the word, I guess. That's how old I am. But in less glamourous surroundings of Kilkenny rather than Rio de Janeiro, I had a similar love for nature and curiosity about the natural world.
Aoife McNamara: "What I'd love to see is more of this conscious mindset coming in and that people understand that if they do invest in this garment, they will hand it down from generation to generation." Picture: Anastasiia Redko.
I trained as an environmental scientist. I'm lucky because it has taken me all around the world as a climate change negotiator, as an advisor to different governments and international agencies.
After eight years of travelling with Mary Robinson as part of the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, I decided to turn my attention to Ireland. That led me to write a book, 'How to Save Your Planet One Object at a Time' and to set up Change by Degrees.
Conor Spacey: I'm 37 years cooking which is long before the word suitability even appeared or anyone knew what it was. I founded a company 10 years ago called FoodSpace. I work on food systems here in Ireland but on a global level as well.
I brought out my first book two years ago – 'Wasted' which is based on food waste. That was always my thing – people at home [and] showcasing simple little hacks and changes that they can make to stop food waste in their home.
On sustainability being a 'trend'
Conor: I do struggle with the word sustainability because I think it has kind of lost its meaning, to be quite honest.
Pat: I completely agree and I'm not in the field for so long. I come from a different world, but I think greenwashing is a big problem – people using the word just because they can.
I feel like it has become the trendy little thing. You see content creators that are being sponsored by fast fashion suddenly talking about sustainable fashion. Because it's cool. It feels like you can just use the word – you don't have to find any depth in knowledge or the understanding.
Conor Spacey, Culinary Director of Foodspace Ireland. Picture: Philip Doyle
Tara: I would say though, I've seen a lot of these words come in an out over the years...but the overriding response we get in Change by Degrees when we help people understand what sustainability is - is surprise. They didn't know that sustainability was about human rights; they didn't know it was about their health and wellbeing; they didn't know it was about the representation of women in minorities in decision making – they just thought it was about boring old carbon and pollution.
Helping people understand what the word means so that they're also better able to hold the people who use it incorrectly to account is, I think, important. Just throwing the word in the bin isn't going to solve the problem.
But I understand the frustrations. I have those too.
Aoife: It's funny - it was two years into my business, and I was creating these sustainable clothes, but I felt like I wasn't getting through to people. I felt like I was just talking about sustainability, but I wanted to do more. It was two years in that I started to do Rewilding Retreats.
It was all about really getting people in – and as you said, Tara - educating people on what sustainability actually means; what having a conscious mindset actually means.
Education is the biggest part of my role nowadays.
On politics, the pandemic and where the world stands now
Conor: I think there's a lot of really good stuff going on and it's masked by what's going on in the States and so on in terms of corporations and political moves. Do I believe that Trump can deliver on anything that he's threatening to deliver? I don't. I'm not in any way political but I don't think he'd be allowed to.
When the big corporations which are already taking a hit – when they are affected, it will stop because at the end of the day that's where the money is.
Tara: I'm really frustrated with the state of the world in this current moment. I see an amazing lack of leadership.
That failure is also an opportunity, I hope, for new leaders to be inspired enough to step in and so that our kids might grow up with a different style of leadership.
I think what's really important is we don't all get dispirited and just switch off but rather to say 'I'm going to use my sphere of influence to make the best impression'; do good for people; do good for the planet. Get reenergized by that.
Pat Kane, sustainability strategist and founder of reuzi.ie: "I'm seeing people become more conscious of individual impact, local sourcing is becoming more common; I see this with clients. There is a rise in sustainable consumption practices."
Pat: I do think in some ways we have regressed since the pandemic and the political climate. Sometimes these kinds of things tend to favour short-term solutions over the long-term sustainability initiatives we need to see. Now, we are looking at economic recovery, trying to deal with any sort of immediate issues around immigration, jobs, health. But I do think in many ways we have progressed as well. I'm seeing people become more conscious of individual impact, local sourcing is becoming more common; I see this with clients. There is a rise in sustainable consumption practices.
I do think there's growing public pressure for bigger systemic changes in areas of renewable energy, reducing waste, transportation. Even if I compare my little journey here over the past eight years, people were asking me 'What are you doing?' 'Are you crazy?' and now everybody is like, 'This is it. We have to do it'. I do feel like as collective we're more conscious on where we need to go.
Aoife: It's a hard one isn't it, because there is so much hopelessness sometimes that people feel with sustainability, but I think all of us here are very hopeful – that's probably why we're all in these sectors. You have to be hopeful when it comes to this, especially with what's happening in the world.
We're filming a documentary at the moment all around the impact the fast fashion industry is having on our planet. I was over in Kenya at Dandora landfill – one of the biggest landfills in the world and it was so heartbreaking and so scary to see. But what it also gave me was hope because when I talked about it and when I shared the message online – the amount of interest – I could see people actually cared.
On what the future looks like
Tara: A crisis is always an opportunity for growth and disruption. If you remember back to covid, we talked about building back better. Do you remember that expression? We were going to learn the lessons of a global pandemic and we were going to do things differently. We haven't. We've just gone back to doing things exactly like we used to.
That's a very frustrating part of human nature. When we have such a deep experience, a lived experience, why doesn't it change how we do things?
Now we're in the midst of another crisis around cost of living, around the great geo-political changes in the world... so again we have an opportunity to say, ok in all of this mayhem, what's going to emerge from this?
As people who care about other people and people who care about nature, that's where we need to be putting our heads together and getting organised and figuring out how we're going to find a way out of this current situation and into something better.
Dr Tara Shine: "Suitability doesn't belong to green people. It belongs to everybody, and everybody belongs in the conversation."
Aoife: What I'd love to see is more of this conscious mindset coming in and that people understand that if they do invest in this garment, they will hand it down from generation to generation.
Another big thing that I want to see come to life more is understanding the ingredients. It's very similar to food. Having better quality ingredients in what you have is not only better for the planet, but also better for yourself. It's the same for fashion. The material I'm wearing now is sustainable wool – Irish woven fiber – is much better than wearing a polyester fiber and then if you're looking at the lifecycle of that garment, you're starting from nature, you're ending in nature.
Tara: I do not know why women accept to be dressed in plastic. I don't get it.
Aoife: I feel like sometimes a lot of people don't even know what polyester is actually made of. Or don't want to know.
Conor: Same as food. People don't actually realise what it means. Because these items are given different names it disguises the fact of what they are, and I see that in food as you see it in fashion, Aoife.
It's set up in a way that you have to go Google what you're wearing – because on the label it's going to say 30% cotton 70% polyester or whatever it is and [they're] not realising its plastic. There's more plastic in that top than your credit card.
On where to start and why we don't have to be perfect
Conor: People are more and more aware, but with that comes people being overwhelmed. They don't know where to start.
My youngest - she's 14 now - and she goes to McDonald's. I'm not going to say she doesn't. She goes with her friends, and she has chicken nuggets. I've shown her the videos. I've shown her what the chicken nuggets is.
I was driving her one day from school and she said, 'can we go to the drive-thru' and I said, 'you hardly want to get chicken nuggets – I told you; it's beaks, it's eyes....' She goes, 'hang on a minute, you're all about food waste so if that chicken is being killed, should we not be eating all of it?' This is where you have this young generation who think they know it all and they have smart answers and we have the parents that are trying to make changes, they are aware, but they're overwhelmed.
It's [all about] making out positive, little steps - easy wins that give you confidence. All of a sudden when you see these changes happening in your home, you kind of go 'wow, I can do that.' Don't set yourself up to fail. Be positive. Plan out. Make easy wins.
I know time is not on our side, but to bring people on the journey I always say set out a year. A 12-month plan. In my home, what am I going to do? Make it accessible.
Pat: Coming from my area of sustainable living, I would say try to embrace sustainable habits in your daily routine. Starting with something very simple yet impactful.
It's not a massive lifestyle change. It's a small thing you can do. I'm always coming from a place where I'm encouraging people to audit their lifestyle. Look inside your bins and see what is it that you're wasting the most?
It's such a small thing but at the end of the week, what went into our bins? If there's a lot of food packaging, can I do better on that front? If there's a lot of composting waste, what happened there? Why did we throw away so much food?
It's not a cake recipe. We're not all going to all have the same issues because we have different lifestyles but understanding the problem and setting up your goals and what 'good' looks like could be a good place to start.
It is cost-effective. I would love for people to start seeing that. Why would you go for a fashion haul when you can buy a very good piece or an item that will last you for years?
Aoife: For me, it's can you do something small. Can you look to second hand? Can you set up a vault on your account to start saving for that investment garment?
When you invest in something; when you spend that money and save for it, you really do appreciate it so much more than that fast-fashion or that cheaper purchase that you're not as connected to.
Tara: Suitability doesn't belong to green people. It belongs to everybody, and everybody belongs in the conversation. That is not a conversation for people who are perfect. Conor just said he's not perfect. His kids eat McDonalds, my kids eat McDonalds. That's how it is. There is no perfect in this.
Know where your food comes from, read the label on your clothes, be curious. Then take an action. Do something different. When you take that action, think about how that makes you feel. Human beings are driven by emotional stories so tell the story of your action – not in a preachy way – but rather like, 'it felt so good because I did this'.
Your friends and family and colleagues trust you and listen to you more than any politician, any expert. You are their biggest influencer and that is the great untapped power.
THE PANEL
Dr Tara Shine: Environmental scientist, policy advisor, co-founder and CEO of Change by Degrees
Conor Spacey: Zero-waste, plant-based chef and Culinary Director of FoodSpace Ireland
Aoife McNamara: Founder of B-Corp certified fashion label Aoife McNamara
Pat Kane: Sustainability advocate and chief sustainability officer at Pragmatica and founder at reuzi
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