Articles

Implementing circular practices can reinvigorate a company, allowing business leaders to  truly live by their sustainability values. Tom Harper, managing director of Unusual Rigging, provides a perfect example of how this can happen, and how the positive effects ripple outward.

HappyPorch strives to constantly support good causes and in that way live our values and improve our awareness about the fact how much our planet and the people need support and help.

The fashion industry is responsible for more carbon emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined. On the production side, garment manufacturing is extremely water intensive, and when it comes to waste, the problems are even worse: So-called ‘fast fashion’ and luxury brands alike burn millions of unused items every year, creating thousands of tonnes of toxic fumes. Mountains of unused garments also end up in landfill, which leads to a slew of environmental problems.

One of the key pillars of the Circular Economy is designing waste out of the system – but in order for this to happen we first need to understand the current situation. According to the World Bank, humans produce two billion tonnes of urban waste each year, with that figure set to rise to three and a half billion tonnes by 2050. Today, at least a third of this waste is mismanaged through burning or dumping, causing lasting environmental damage.

"Business without meaning is just pointless admin". This quote really inspired me when setting up HappyPorch 6 years ago. One of the core tenets of HappyPorch has always been that business should be so much more than the exploitation of people and planet it too often becomes

As part of developing our climate strategy HappyPorch made a net-zero emission commitment this year through the SME Climate Hub commitment. 

As part of our climate commitment, we finalised our carbon footprint report for the UK tax year starting from April 2019 until the end of March 2020. After our previous report’s calculations and results, I think we became more aware of our individual carbon footprints as well as the company’s.

If we are to successfully tackle major issues such as climate change, waste crises and biodiversity loss,  the linear economy has to change. We must transform all elements of the take-make-waste system:

As the Circular Economy emerges, storytelling plays a central role. Beyond logic and rationale, systems level change relies on the clear communication of purpose, meaning and values.