G-Star is Phar out...

No we are not in LA but we've gone plastic fantastic.

Pharrell is making the oceans happy by partnering with Dutch denim label G-Star Raw to produce a fashion collection made from recycled plastic. This puts waste to use whilst raising awareness of the plight of plastic pollution.

And thus dear Pharrell is making me happy too :)

Success!

What is the key to success?

One piece of life advice I have heard is to:

"Surround yourself with successful people, as you are the average of your five closest friends". 

I agree with this to an extent. However, I disagree if it is only used with the conventional definition of success: money and degree titles earned, job titles and promotions achieved, assets accumulated. 

Perhaps a more productive definition of success, and one that I would use, is life balance and the simultaneous creation of happiness in oneself and in others. In this sense, it certainly is fantastic to hang out with people who make you smile, make you feel that you can achieve great things and feed your energy, especially when you can do the same for them.  

It seems that many communities are recognising this too. GDP is no longer sufficient to measure the success of a country. Bhutan’s Happiness Index is one of many measures praised for acknowledging that it is the collective happiness of people that determines success. Many ‘liveable cities’ indices also use factors determining happiness in their measurement, as do measures of ‘the best companies to work for’ or ‘the best universities to go to’.

A successful, inspirational and very much loved Uncle of mine made a speech at a recent milestone birthday of his, which went something like this: "many have asked me what the secret of success is, and I tell them that it really is a simple formula: get enough sleep, eat healthily, exercise well and most importantly, spend quality time with your family and friends".

Yet another piece of advice from him is "always keep a bottle of champagne chilled in the fridge, ready to celebrate, as you never know when an occasion may occur!" 

You can decide what success looks like for you, but make sure you celebrate along the way!

Positive Luxury

Don't you just LOVE the word LUXURY?

For me it evokes images of beauty, glamour and sophistication, all three rolling around together in a vast high quality pool of bespoke comfort and exclusivity.

Well, what if feeling that good and looking that good also meant that you were doing good?

Positive Luxury is a membership organisation with an eco label called the Butterfly Mark. This mark is applied to high-end brands with a desire to make a difference in the world. With this symbol on a product, consumers can rest-assured that the company they are purchasing from is taking steps towards become more environmentally and socially sustainable.

Oooh. That sounds good to me.

Of course, The Butterfly Mark is not a 'one size fits all' stamp for eco-friendly perfection. Equally, it is not there to encourage guilt-free mass buy-outs of designer labels ('but, surely, the more I buy, the more I am saving the world?!')

Rather- and this is the part I really agree with- it is about praising companies who are not only conscious of their impacts but are making efforts to ensure that they are effectively measured and managed. I believe in this type of positive reinforcement in sustainable business, as it can also create competition.

Although many of the global affiliate brands are not making transformative (systemic or operational) sustainable change, there are also fully-fledged born-sustainable start-ups with the Butterfly Mark who can act as inspiration.

This is the part I really, really agree with: Positive luxury is supporting the ethos that living sustainably does not have to mean living in a cave and instead should and can enrich your life.

Just one more thing I like about Positive Luxury... Aussie dreamboat Adam Garcia is their Brand Ambassador...

It's as easy as ABC

Communicating sustainability is as easy as ABC.

The basic principles of how to communicate in the world of sustainable business are not rocket science. In fact, they are not dissimilar to the basic principles of how to communicate effectively in general.

I am working for Communicate Blue and have written this helpful and somewhat silly article for them. I think the principles can be applied to some situations in daily life too!

Champagne, Champagne!

Happy 2014!

How appropriate then that I have had over 14,000 page views to date. Thank you for your readership and support!

Apologies for the dead air my end- I have lately been a rolling stone gathering no moss in Australia, China, Malaysia, Singapore and now the UK (soon to be Singapore again).

My blog then did not recognise my location, nor did it recognise me (I have not changed that much, honest!) and through Holmes-level detective work I have only just managed to sign in again. So...champagne!

There is quite a backlog of exciting blog posts... I wonder what the abbreve of backlog is? I guess it would be...blog?! Or klog? There we go: my blog has a wee bit of a klog, soon to be remedied, not to worry.

In the meantime Happy New Year! May 2014 be filled with happiness, good health and hope.

The Dragon Awakens

Oh my goodness I am scared of China!

I recently watched Red Obsession at the cinema.

It is a documentary about the desire for sheer luxe that is virally spreading among China’s elite; an exclusive group of billionaires who indulge in adorning themselves with western-style symbols of wealth.

The latest status symbol to be seen with is a multi-million pound bottle of first-growth Chateau Latour or Lafite-Rothschild red. Indeed, whereas Bordeaux chateau owners and western wine drinkers associate wine taste with the terroir, the area in which the grape was grown, aka the LAND, the Chinese are more concerned with the BRAND.

And it doesn’t stop there. Apparently there are now almost 300 recorded billionaires in China, up from 1 a decade ago. And even then, this is said to be the tip of the iceberg, with much ‘hidden wealth’ in China.

They are not only amassing personal collections of (mainly Bordeaux) wines with a value of $60 million per individual, but they are purchasing the actual centuries-old Bordeaux chateaux, or even creating replica chateaux in their homeland complete with extensive vineyards.

Dominic Barton, the Global Head of McKinsey & Co. recently reported that with the rise of Africa and Asia, we are going to have 3 billion new middle class consumers in the world by 2030. He predicts that about 75 new Proctor & Gamble sized corporations will need to be developed just to service their daily needs and wants.

Like Barton, I believe that regardless of the size of the company or clientele that they service, businesses need to retain their social licence to operate. Of course, whilst China’s wealth is growing enormously in some sectors, the net earnings of the vast majority of China’s population remains much, much lower.

The scale of this shocks me. And leads me to believe that we actually need to re-think the entire global consumer system, at both quotidian and luxury level, to meet the needs of all people into the future.

I am a girl

I am a girl is a documentary really worth watching if you can get to a screening or set up your own.

Made independently in Australia, it follows six girls aged around 16 from very different backgrounds around the world. The documentary is beautifully made and is very powerful as a result.

There are various issues highlighted including family planning, poverty, domestic violence, prostitution, female education, cyber bullying and depression. Of course, these issues are not exclusive to girls, however they are particularly impactful for girls during their transition to adulthood and these girls create a poignant and emotional link to worlds otherwise unbeknown to us.

In addition, various gender and microfinance studies have shown that it is female entrepreneurs in developing countries who can make a positive difference to themselves, their family and communities. If it is the man in the family who earns or is in charge of the money, it is less likely to benefit others in the same way. For this reason it is particularly important that young girls are given the right opportunities to lead them to fulfil their potential.

One thing I picked up was that, up to a point, the level of freedom of choice that you have and the level of control that you have over the situations you are put in is not necessarily correlated with your happiness. Many of the girls had overcome circumstances that many of us would deem as extremely challenging, but had made a choice to come through it and were happy and striving for greater things as a consequence.

I say up to a point because the girl depicted in what is arguably the worst situation probably needs to get out of that situation before she can be truly happy. Kimsey in Cambodia, who sells her body to pay for her mother's medicine and has an abusive partner whom she has a baby with, is sadly just one girl of many thousands in similar situations.

After the first Sydney viewing of I am a girl, I asked the director of the documentary what her hope is for the tangible actions that will come of it. She responded that beyond merely raising awareness which in itself can create change, there is a 'Do Something' tab on the website where you can directly donate to charities related to each issue highlighted, and here it is.