Environment

A 3-post collection

Two Clothes Hooks

It has flown by, but one of my highlights in January was attending the Better Business Summit in Manchester.

Inspired by the Better Business Summit

It’s an annual gathering of inspiring people running businesses small and large, all finding ways to do business in a better way. There were conversations on all the topics you might imagine — paying staff fairly, making products with sustainability in mind, and questioning what each of us can do to both sell and shop more thoughtfully.

Rather than relay the whole thing here, go check out the post I wrote on the EcoSend Blog about the Better Business Summit.

Patagonia, clothing, and going back in time

One of the images that has stuck in my mind since the Summit was from the impossible-to-pronounce Patagonia movie about how our habits around buying clothing have changed over the last few hundred years.

There was a time, some years after we evolved from Neanderthals, but some years before today, where we had clothes, but significantly fewer.

There was a time where each of us had just two clothes hooks.

One hook was for our everyday clothes — the ones we wore to work the land and around the house for six days of the week.

The other clothes hook was for our special clothes — the fancier of the two options that would be worn to church on a Sunday — that we kept clean and pristine.

Some years later, supposedly the French aristocracy invented something called “fashion” and it’s all gotten a bit out of hand since then.

In today’s world of fast fashion, things have changed somewhat. Even compared to 1980 (quite recent in the scheme of things), as a percentage of household spending, spend on clothing has halved, while the number of items purchased has more than doubled.

What can I do about it?

It prompted me to ask, not just for my clothes, but for all aspects of my life: do I need as much stuff?

What do I need? What do I want? And what can I give to a better home?

Last weekend I found it therapeutic to clear out over 30 items of clothing, sending them all to the local charity collection.

I now have much more space in my wardrobe. I can see more easily what I have. And I appreciate the clothes I kept.

And I still need a LOT more than just two clothes hooks.

Other things

  • I never normally catch the Super Bowl, but I always love to see the ads. Nike’s ad was my favourite this year. Incredible marketing, and a great sound track. So Win.
  • Also Super Bowl related — the Half Time Show is quite something. Here’s a look at how they put on a full-on concert in the space of about 15 minutes. I am such a geek for insider information like this!
  • The Art of Fauna is my favourite new iOS app / game — it’s a beautifully made puzzle

A few things I learned this week

A handful of things I learned in the last week:

  • Carpetright was taken (back) over by its original founder, Lord Philip Harris who grew up in Peckham near where I live. He started with a market stall in Peckham, and built it up over time to become the most successful carpet retailer in the U.K. The story of the takeover and Lord Harris’s empire is outlined in The Times. It’s also available to Apple News+ subscribers.
  • By switching to using a compostable toilet you can save 27,000 litres of fresh clean drinking water per year.
  • I was on the “Can marketing save the world?” Podcast talking about EcoSend and responsible email marketing.
  • Nestle built a supermarket on a barge to sell confectionary to communities along the Amazon river. Years on, these local communities have experienced greater rates of obesity as locals began to prefer processed foods over their native diet. I learned this while reading the truly life-changing book: Ultraprocessed.
  • The Olympic opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 games happened on Friday. Despite many dismissive reports of the ceremony, I thought it was full of incredible moments. The Eiffel Tower looked stunning, and I have no idea how they have achieved the floating balloon for the Olympic cauldron!

A quote for the week ahead

"If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it."

— Charles Kettering (an American inventor and the holder of 186 patents)

Email is not free

For pretty much ever, it's been free to send email.

But just because there's no charge on your credit card every time you send an email, it doesn't mean there is no cost.

The costs of email are hidden.

Sending email is not free in terms of the time and attention of the recipient. Some studies show that people spend over 25% of their working day handling email. How much is their time worth?

Sending email is not free in terms of the data that can be gathered by other parties along the way. Gmail is "free" for good reason.

And an eye-opener for me this week, after the hottest day on record in London: sending email is not free in terms of its impact to the planet.

But despite all of this, at some point, we told ourselves email is free. Look at your inbox (and, if you dare, your spam folder) to see how many people treat email as if there are no costs at all.

We’d do better as senders, and as recipients to think of email as being just as costly as posting a letter in the mail.

Because in many ways, it costs a whole lot more.

P.S. I realise there is some irony if you are receiving this post via email. I hugely appreciate you subscribing, and I hope it was worth the cost on this occasion.