Should the government step in? Why do we need to "fix" fashion? Try because textile production consumes vast amounts of water. Because fashion contributes more to climate change than international aviation and shipping combined. And if current consumption levels continue, the industry could account for 25% of the world's carbon budget. Because our wardrobes are full of clothes we don't wear, yet we keep buying more and more garments, most of which are made from polyester and shed tiny plastic microfibres every time we wash them.

Because we buy fashion to throw it away.

This episode’s guest is Mary Creagh, at the time she was chair of the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) and the Labour MP for Wakefield - the woman responsible for raising these issues with the British parliament in 2019.

Is it time we tore it all down? Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a grass roots activism movement demanding radical action on the global climate crisis. The group formed in the UK in October 2018 on the premise that trying to be a bit more sustainable, tinkering around the edges of the system but essentially carrying on with business as usual, will not save us from climate breakdown. They are calling on governments to declare a climate and ecological emergency, and to act immediately to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.

In this Episode, you’ll hear from some of the XR protestors who staged a “funeral” for London Fashion Week in September, then sit down with activists: Clare Farrell, Sara Arnold and Will Skeaping to find out why they think civil disobedience is the way to go, what to do about the scary science, and where fashion fits in with all of this.

Harmful chemicals be gone! Have you heard the one about rivers turning blue outside of denim factories in China? Or being able to tell the colours of the season by looking at the waterways? Horrendous, right? But change is possible. Meet the Greenpeace activist who led the Detox My Fashion Campaign, which led to an industry-wide commitment to phase out harmful chemicals from fashion.

Meet Kirsten Brodde - the former science journalist on a mission to clean up fashion.

It’s time to tackle land use

The New York Times calls him "the poster boy for zero waste living". He's a florist, artist, restaurateur, architect, inventor and revolutionary thinker. Meet the man on a mission to convince us we can grow all the food we need where we live.

In this riveting episode, we discuss everything from how wasteful the floristry industry is to the microbial power of healthy soil to boost serotonin (yep, it can get you high apparently). What steps can we make to reconnect with the natural world? How might eating seasonally change our health, happiness and impact? Could we really grow all the food we need on the roof and walls of our houses and apartment buildings? What's the future of green cities?

Out in the open

It’s overwhelmingly women we’re talking about

Go for bold

C is for collaborate

Denim is ubiquitous. According to British anthropologists Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, we wear jeans on average 3.5 days a week. In 2017, the global jeans market was worth USD $57 billion. Almost 2 billion pairs were sold around the world in the same year. That is a lot of jeans…

It’s also a lot of jeans waste.

According to The New Textiles Economy report, less than 1% of used clothing is recycled into new clothing. We’re landfilling and incinerating discarded, unloved clothes at increasing rates, while at the same time decreasing clothing use over time.