Elsewhere, attendees could nosy around the event’s Plastic-Free Land, curated by A Plastic Planet. Alongside plastic-free cleaning products and reusable packaging, there were several fashion and beauty-adjacent innovations on display, including refillable roll-on deodorant brand Rollr, plastic-free performance sportswear brand Mover, bio-based sequin alternative Sequinnova, and nature-based glitter and pigment company Sparxell.
“We wanted to demonstrate that it’s possible for us to make things without toxic, indestructible plastic. Nothing is the same as being here and touching a new hemp and flax-based faux fur, or seeing how you can make something out of banana crop waste and seaweed. There’s nothing like seeing is believing,” says A Plastic Planet co-founder Sian Sutherland. Renewed interest has stemmed from the recent Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox, she adds. “Suddenly, this is not just a pollution crisis, because the pollution is inside us. So the human health message is the catalyst. We have to hit where people care, and really demonstrate risk to industries and governments, especially when there are solutions and it’s entirely possible to scale them up.”
A Plastic Planet co-founder Sian Sutherland at the Plastic-Free Land exhibition, holding a plastic-free faux fur stuffed animal by BioFluff.Photo: Ludovic le Couster
The climate conference was also a stark reminder that many of the proven solutions fashion urgently needs to scale apply to other industries, too. Regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, decarbonization, ocean degradation, and biodiversity loss are just a few of the sector-spanning issues and solutions.
“What helps me most as a leader is understanding how others lead through challenging situations,” says Elisa Niemtzow, VP of consumer sectors at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and co-founder of sustainability platform Racine. Niemtzow moderated a panel about leadership for social impact, during which Accor hotel group chair and CEO Sébastien Bazin discussed the need for “south to north leadership”. The idea is that you know what to do in your gut (stomach), she explains, but you have to do it with humanity (heart) and make decisions on timing (head). “A key thing for me this year was seeing truly engaged CEOs and non-sustainability leaders on-stage. It feels like we’re making progress when business leaders are talking authentically about sustainability and inclusion, and how it supports business performance.”