During the Fashion & Sustainability (lusafona.pt) conference in Cascais, Portugal, Irene Maldini gave the key note speech entitled Overcoming growtharchy: why we need limits to (clothing) production volumes, concluded three days of exhibitions, parallel sessions, project presentations and keynote speeches in the first edition of this biannual event.
In her talk, Irene Maldini stressed that overproduction and overconsumption are core challenges in aligning the fashion sector with the limits of our planet. However, strategies aimed at reducing clothing production volumes at company and policy levels tend to focus on indirect methods, with questionable environmental benefits. Actions aimed at reducing production volumes directly, are avoided, as they challenge the idea of endless economic growth and the interests of those who benefit from it.
Therefore, overcoming growtharchy (a society ruled by economic growth) is a condition for enabling less impactful ways of living for humanity. This entails that we acknowledge cause-effect relations between volumes and speed, different levels of power and responsibility in driving necessary changes, and the role of the economy as a means for wellbeing rather than an end in itself. Given its characteristics and the crisis of meaning that fashion is going through, this sector can drive this transition, opening doors for other sectors to reconsider their dependency on growing production volumes.
Irene Maldini is one of the key partners in the CHANGE project, and her work will be addressing this issue.
12 years ago, Selbu spinning mill was established, focusing on wool from traditional, Norwegian heritage sheep breeds.
From the beginning, cooperation in projects has been important. Let’s do a deep dive!
Why do Selbu work on projects? Well…. Exchange of competence and skills, development of own competence and skills, new challenges for the employees and because project work is a part of their business plan. Check.
So HOW do they work on projects? They need to be involved in the application process from the outset! Their competencies are: Wool sorting and classifying, processing of wool for project partners, development of new products, testing of new methods in production and courses/workshops covering crafts and skills, as well as excursions to endangered seminatural landscapes, formed by grazing.
In WOOLUME: Selbu’s role is to test the production of a range of products made of wool from the Polish (Carpathian) milk sheep breeds, a wool sorting workshop in the Koniakov mountain village, with the main challenge is to find the best use of coarse wool, exchange of knowledge: traditional farming in cultural landscapes. Here you can read about the last trip to Poland.
Founder, Ingvild Svorkmo Espelien explaining during the Polish WOOLUME Partners visit to Selbu Spinning Mill.
In hiWool: Selbu’s role is to look at traditional sheep breeds in Norway and Portugal, wool sorting and processes, exchange of competence, also for textile traditions, and finally a knitting challenge with pattern development.
Ingvild and the hiWool team examining Portuguese wool on a visit to Portugal.
In the Estonia/Norway cooperation project, Selbu’s role is about wool sorting from traditional sheep breeds in both countries, exchange of experiences and competence, spinning yarn for weaving twill textiles for fulling and feedback from the textile tests, and coordinating education in Estonia and Norway.
Nordenfjeldske Fibershed – Fibershed Norway is Selbu spinning mill’s latest venture. This is a network and cooperation system based on local resources, craft, traditions and farms. This will be part of the development of Fibershed Europe and a chance to build a functional cooperation for sustainable production.
The CHANGE researchers met in Copenhagen the last week of September. CHANGE is an international project with clothing researchers from all over the world. Liudmila Aliabieva (Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences), Irene Maldini (Lusófona University, Portugal), Lucrecia de León (Escuela Universitaria Centro de Diseño, Uruguay), Kate Fletcher (The Royal Danish Academy), Else Skjold (The Royal Danish Academy) og Iryna Kutcher (Design School Kolding) participated, together with the clothing research group from SIFO and Tone Skårdal Tobiasson. It was a wonderful week, with a lot of fruitful meetings and discussions.
Almost all of the CHANGE team!
The wardrobe seminar at the Royal Danish Academy was the main event, with around 90 in-person participants and 40 online participants. After the workshop Else Skjold launched KLOTHING – Center for Apparel, Textiles & Ecology Research (kglakademi.dk), a new centre under the Royal Danish Academy. We look forward to following the work!
The KLOTHING team, Else Skjold far left, Kate Fletcher, far right. Photo: Johanne Stenstrup
In the following, you will see a summary of a political lunch meeting, a mending workshop and finally some reflections from our team member from Uruguay, Lucrecia de Léon.
The lunch-meeting
During the day spent at the Royal Danish Academy, Else Skjold had arranged a lunch meeting with a nice mix of academia, policymakers and trade organizations. The participants were from the Danish Energy Agency, the Danish Lifestyle & Design Cluster, Continual, Danish Fashion and Textile, the Danish Consumer Council TÆNK, Danish EPA and several Danish universities, alongside the CHANGE team. The European Environmental Agency turned up for the workshop and more informal discussions later on.
To open up the discussion, Ingun and Tone had prepared a short presentation showing the increase in clothing volumes directly related to the increase in synthetics, an overview of the value-chain with percentage impact (only 12% for fiber stage) and the obvious data-gaps (also at the fiber stage, but of course the use phase and the end-of-life phases). Ingun and Tone also addressed how hard it is to capture meaningful information with the data-gaps, with the complexity of the value-chains, global average data and the mismatched boundaries of natural and synthetic fibers. After the short presentation, the floor was open for questions and discussion.
We were positively surprised at the openness and interest in research that we met, and how the research can actually contribute to policy – specifically the volume issue. There was also a genuine surprise related to how ‘un-democratic’ the process is in the technical committee for PEF, and there later emerged a discussion around the more democratic consumer protection laws in Norway – which make it much easier for civil society to actually make complaints against global textile giants (as seen with the ruling from the Norwegian Consumer Authority that brought down the Higg consumer-facing label). EEA’s representative facilitated a discussion with the representative from the Danish EPA in the Nordic Council of Minister’s new textile project, and also advised that the EU parliament needs to understand the points Ingun and Tone made during the lunch about volumes, and what actually makes a difference and will impact climate and environmental impacts.
Happy participants, from left Tanja Gotthardsen, Lars Fogh Mortensen and Arne Remmen. Photo: Johanne Stenstrup.
The usual frustration around ‘if we can no longer base our decisions on Higg, what do we do?’ also arose, and this discussion needs to be addressed in a better way. Why these tools, that are proxy both for trust and for the total lack of material and fiber knowledge on properties, have gained so much power, needs to be tackled in a more proactive way. When they are used and misused by those with no or very limited understanding of data (including LCA experts) and later by buyers and those sourcing materials who have no idea what properties the fibers actually bring to the table; it’s a disastrous set-up with equally disastrous results.
Mending workshop
Mending is about love, care and fun!
On the final day of the workshop, the CHANGE team was invited to take part in a 2-hour mending activity organized by Liudmila Aliabieva and Iryna Kucher. To make that happen we asked everyone to bring one clothing object with holes, tears, stains, or other kinds of damage which they would like to repair. At the beginning of the workshop, we asked everyone about the item they brought, why they brought it and why they decided to mend it, if they had an idea how they would like to approach the damage – that served as a very productive starting point not only to begin the workshop itself but to initiate a very lively discussion of the stories, skills, senses and emotions behind the clothes and mending as a practice of care. Some of us brought their mending kits with them which turned into a fun activity of its own as we explored the mending tools some of which might look mysterious these days for example a darning machine (see the photo) which was in great use in the times of scarcity in the USSR when people, limited in their clothing consumption practices, had to take much greater care of the things they had in their wardrobes.
Darning machine
We also asked the participants where and when they learnt how to repair things: it turned into a very intimate flow of telling stories with a lot of fun details. Storytelling plays a huge role in co-creative and community building activities such as mending workshops which help people mend away their fears and anxieties.
We hope we can mend it!
Reflections from Lucrecia de León
Words from Uruguay.
CHANGE has been a transformative experience for me.
Little could I imagine in mid-2020 and in the midst of a pandemic, that an email from Irene Maldini with the intention of linking Uruguay to what appeared to be an ambitious research project, would end up being consolidated into what is CHANGE today. For this reason, on my way back from this project meeting in Copenhagen, I allowed myself to write these few words.
I can only be grateful for having been able to share conversations, discuss methods, and problematize new concepts with the best researchers in the field of wardrobe studies. I also embrace the emotional connection made with a group of wonderful women: generous, committed, activists.
I have absorbed everything and more. Additionally, I have also tried to contribute to this community from my Latin-American perspective, with a focus on cultural decolonization. I come from a public university whose main characteristic is the great social commitment based on education, extension and research. Therefore, I get deeply engaged, as a way of living.
From now on, the diffusion, spillover, and expansion of this learnings -and, above all- the construction of knowledge, will continue. In a context where clothing design is increasingly centered on people and planet’s needs, wardrobe methods will definitely be a new tool for Uruguayan students and researchers.
Last week SIFO hosted a conference for The European Sociological Association (ESA)’s Research Network of Sociology of Consumption. The theme for the conference was “Consumption, justice and futures: Where do we go from here? (oslomet.no)“. 146 participants from all over Europe gathered for the event and most of SIFO’s clothing researchers were among them.
The clothing research group’s Vilde Haugrønning presented her work in the i CHANGE project and discussed the preliminary findings and method development on the basis of the pilot study carried out in Norway o, Uruguay and Portugal. The title for the presentation was: «Occasions and clothing volumes: wardrobe pilots in Norway, Portugal and Uruguay». You can read the abstract using this link (conftool.org).
Clothing as part of the thematic
The conference contributed new insights and as one of the large areas of consumption, clothing was mentioned in many contexts. In the form of fashion, it was only natural that clothing was used as the major example and how consumers are primed for getting a «taste for variety» in Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier’s keynote presentation: «Why do we consume so much? Exploring the lock-ins of affluent consumption».
Julie Madon’s presentation «To make or not to make objects last? Consumers between prosumption and the desire for simplicity», was closely related to the theme in our Lasting project and examined several product groups. An important point from the presentation was how subjective the judgement of when something is used up is – for some, holes in the shoes are acceptable, as the shoe itself can still be used, but for others would throw them away at any visible sign of use. You can read the abstract from the presentation here (confrool.org).
In the same session, Victoire Sessego presented «Do-It-Yourself practices throughout generations: the effects of digitalisation». She pointed out that even though her presentation was part of a “Sustainable Consumption”-session, many of her informants’ DIY practices were highly unsustainable. You can read the abstract here (confrool.org).
Clothing as the main research topic
In addition to these presentations and others that included clothing and textiles as a part of the scope, several were also focused specifically on clothing.
Reka Ines Tölg presented her PhD work at Lund University, about the circulation of responsibility between consumers and producers of clothing. The title of her presentation was «Consume with care and responsibility! The material-semiotic making and distribution of responsibilities in green marketing». We, in the clothing research group, noted in particular that a story of the fragility of clothing was being told by the clothing producers and how this transferred responsibility onto the consumer if the clothing should break. Our question would then be if the producers shouldn’t instead make clothes of better quality to begin with? You can read the abstract by following this link (conftool.org).
In the same session, Gabriella Wulff from the University of Gothenburg presented her work on discount practices: «The Future of Discounting Practices? Materials, meanings, and competences in the Swedish Fashion Retail Sector». From our perspective, it was particularly interesting how the sector itself sees these practices as a necessary evil in a business model based on economy of scale and large advance order quantities. Simultaneously, they do attempt to “activate” garments in different ways to avoid reducing prices as much. The findings point to other aspects of the overproduction that is rampant in the clothing industry. You can read the abstract here (conftool.org).
Consumption of second-hand clothing was also discussed when Ariela Mortara talked about her research on the users of the Vinted App in Italy in the presentation «Second-hand clothing between savings and sustainability: Vinted case history». You can read the abstract via this link (conftool.org).
Authors: Vilde Haugrønning, Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Anna Schytte Sigaard
Norway leads the way in methods for studying the use of clothing. This is knowledge that is important in sustainability studies of apparel.
How many clothes are there in our wardrobes? What is used a lot and what do you seldom wear, and why? Which clothes have the largest environmental footprint? What causes clothes to be cared for and repaired?
There are many unanswered questions when the desire is to understand the connection between the consumption of clothing, and climate and environmental impacts. We need to understand why someone has a wardrobe full of clothes and still nothing to wear. To answer these questions, methods that can reconcile the concrete material with the way we use, buy, repair, launder, choose and not least throw away clothes, are required.
The method called “wardrobe studies” is very central in studies of clothing’s environmental impact. Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) at Oslo Metropolitan University has been at the centre of the development of these methods for 23 years. Today, the method is included in research, teaching, product development and design worldwide.
Research in people’s homes
The method involves the researcher and informant going through the informant’s wardrobe piece by piece, together. In some studies, the entire wardrobe is reviewed and in others, selected parts such as passive clothes, leisure and sports clothes, or favourite clothes are specifically studied. When the clothes are reviewed, the researcher asks the same questions for each garment. This gives us opportunities to analyze differences in the way different garments are used.
The method is time-consuming but provides detailed and reliable knowledge. Ideally, we do this at the informants’ homes and thus also gain knowledge about details around the organisation, storage, laundering and care of the clothes.
Clothes are complex
Wardrobe studies are particularly suitable for studying practices that we often take for granted. The practices are important to understand in order to gain better knowledge of consumption patterns, and thus how they can be changed in a more sustainable direction. The special feature of the method is that the clothes are at the centre of the analysis.
Clothes are very complex materially, socially and culturally. They are made from most types of materials, from animals and plants, including metal and chemicals and increasingly plastic. They are used to camouflage the body, keep it warm, decorate, protect and show belonging to cultures, groups, places and positions in society. Clothes are important for self-respect, security and social participation.
In order to embrace so many different aspects and see them in context, methods are required which have the capacity to connect the actual material with the practices and their many different meanings, both for the individual and society.
What properties do the clothes have?
Wardrobe studies lead to more knowledge about the use of clothes. This stands in contrast to studies that are concerned with clothes related to fashion, often understood as the novelty value of the clothes. In such studies, some things are often excluded, namely the material properties of the clothes, as well as all the nuances in the relationship between the wearer of the clothes and the clothes themselves, and the interplay between the clothes in the wardrobe.
After conversations with people about clothes over several decades, we have rarely heard informants say that fashion is important to them, and it is much more common to say the opposite. Fashion is an aspect of our clothes, but for most people, there are completely different reasons for both what you buy and what you wear. Fashion can make it difficult to find something you like in the store, such as the colour you think suits you, or a shape that is perceived as flattering.
Few know how many clothes they own
To capture the material in wardrobe studies, various techniques are used to obtain information about each individual garment such as photos, interviews, registrations and technical analyses. This gives the advantage that the information becomes concrete and tied to both the material and social aspects, and thus not so dependent on words alone.
Clothing habits, like other parts of our daily lives, are something we don’t usually think about. Therefore, they are also difficult to put into words in a conversation or interview situation. It is easier to describe the clothes and how they are used when we talk about specific garments. It will then be possible for us researchers later to see the relationship between the clothes and the wearer, and pursue what lies behind the words.
Very few know the average age of their own wardrobe or how many clothes they actually have. We ask people about what they know and have a relationship with, but compile the information ourselves with national or global averages, or qualitatively based interpretations.
Knowledge to inform policy
Today, SIFO has several ongoing research projects with wardrobe studies: CHANGE, Wasted Textiles and Belong, all funded by the Research Council of Norway. Here the wardrobe studies are used to study how we use clothes for different occasions and the importance of variation in clothing habits, how we can reduce the amount of textiles and specifically synthetic textiles, and the importance of clothes for belonging.
In all projects, wardrobe studies contribute to important knowledge about the importance of clothing and textiles in our everyday lives. This knowledge is crucial to developing policies capable of drastically reducing climate and environmental impact, and at the same time ensuring everyone in the population has access to good clothing.
An important challenge in the work with clothing and the environment has long been very inadequate life cycle analyses (LCAs). Without knowledge of lifespan, disposable products are compared to clothes that are worn 500 times or more.
No one would argue that such a use of LCAs is correct, but going from this point of departure to finding methods to include lifespan in LCAs of environmental impact, is quite a challenge. SIFO has further developed the wardrobe studies method in a quantitative direction in order to obtain knowledge about global clothing habits suitable for such analyses.
Consumption is important
In these studies, we work with detailed information on 53,461 garments which gives the opportunity to ask questions about, for example, differences between different types of garments, fibres or what the clothes are used for. This is very relevant when the EU is now developing a new labelling scheme, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), which will include textiles. SIFO, therefore, contributes to the development of the rules specific to clothing in this labelling scheme. There, as in many other contexts, it is difficult to get the impression that consumption is important.
The work with wardrobe studies shows that in research it is not only important to develop good questions, but that the methods must also be adapted so that we researchers are able to deliver the knowledge that society needs. Climate and environmental problems cannot be solved without knowledge of people, society, politics and regulation. It is urgent to take the fact that we humans have created the problems seriously, but that we can also solve them. For that, we need more knowledge about ourselves and our habits and the way we use products that burden the climate and the environment a lot, such as apparel.
A comprehensive overview of research and projects that use wardrobe studies can be found on this web site and publications related to wardrobe studies can be found by clicking here.
This article draws on the following research:
Fletcher, K. and Klepp, I. G. (eds.) (2017) Opening Up the Wardrobe: A Methods Book. Oslo: Novus. Klepp, I. G. and Bjerck, M. (2014) ‘A methodological approach to the materiality of clothing: Wardrobe Studies’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 17(4), pp. 373-386. Klepp, I. G., Laitala, K., & Wiedmann, S. (2020). Clothing Lifespans: What Should Be Measured and How. Sustainability, 12(15). Laitala, K., Klepp, I. G. and Henry, B. (2018) ‘Does Use Matter? Comparison of Environmental Impacts of Clothing Based on Fiber Type’, Sustainability, 10(7). Laitala, K., & Klepp, I. G. (2020). What Affects Garment Lifespans? International Clothing Practices Based on a Wardrobe Survey in China, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA. Sustainability, 12(21), 9151.
Ingvild and Lisbeth visited Poland the last week of June. The goal of the trip was knowledge transfer and during it, they held three workshops/seminars.
At the University of Bielsko-Biala, teachers and pedagogy students were invited to a workshop about teaching wool to children, emphasising the creative potential as well as cultural aspects of wool. Through a short lecture, they were introduced to how different actors in Norway work with wool and children, and then we worked practically with wet felting, carding and hand spinning. At the university, they also held the seminar “How can wool replace plastic?”, discussing the advantages and obstacles to this, building on SIFO’s research reports on wool products published last year in this project. The example of Selbu Spinning Mill was used to show how the local wool comes into play in this context and underline the advantages of wool compared to plastic in relation to preserving heritage, creating a circular (bio-)economy and degrowth.
Felting with teachers and pedagogy students
The last workshop was a wool sorting workshop held by Ingvild at Maria’s venue in Koniakow. It gathered 20 people, both sheep farmers, other local people and academics. The sorting showed great variety in the quality of the wool, from finer longer fibres to coarser fibres, but also that through it, the variety of products possible to make from the wool greatly increases, including softer yarns for garments like socks and sweaters.
Wool sorting workshop
In addition, they visited local museums in Koniakow and saw the milking of the sheep, getting a great insight into the cultural heritage that the pastoral practice upheld in the Polish highlands is such an important part of! (Not to mention the lovely cheese it results in!)
Museum of a local painter who documented traditional lifeMuseum guide showing traditional musical instruments
Kirsi Laitala and Ingun Grimstad Klepp have submitted feedback on the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation proposal on behalf of Consumption Research Norway. In the following, you can read the introduction. Click this link to read the whole feedback document (eu.com). The clothing research group also sent feedback on the Sustainable textiles strategy to Miljødirektoratet (under the Ministry of Climate and Environment), click here to read the feedback.
Feedback from Consumption Research Norway (SIFO)
Consumption Research Norway (SIFO) would like to thank the European Commission for the opportunity to give feedback on the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation proposal. Our feedback concerns textiles that are very complex products, socially, aesthetically, functionally, and technically. The main problem lies in overproduction, and therefore setting requirements for eco-design can have unintended effects. For example, when setting criteria for more physically durable clothing, longer-lasting products will first and foremost contribute to greater accumulations and when they are discarded, they still retain the potential useful lifespan. Only about 37% of garments are disposed of because they are worn out or broken. Therefore, it is important that the directive also takes into consideration the other design aspects that impact length of product lifespans, such as changes in fashion, and poor fit of garments.
EU policy places great responsibility on consumers to bring about the reductions in environmental impact by choosing the least polluting products. However, within clothing, the difference in environmental impact between products is not large enough, and secondly, there is a lack of reliable information available about these differences. There are no «sustainable clothes» – rather there is rampant overproduction. The main problem is related to the quantity and not to the individual items. In connection with product passports for textiles, access to information about production year will ensure a greater opportunity for consumers, authorities, and the waste industry to map how long things are used and last. The fiber labeling should also be updated to include information about the content of environmentally harmful chemicals.
Most clothes can be mended, and the majority of repairs are quite easy. When they are not repaired, it is usually because they are so cheap that this does not “pay off”, either in terms of using time or money for the repair. Therefore, determining repairability should be connected to the value of garments. Examples of non-repairable clothing include those with non-replaceable batteries or fabrics with Elastane. Elastane in fabrics can make them more durable, but when the Elastane has lost its elasticity, the clothes can no longer be repaired.
We recognize the urgency of building a larger second-hand market and a textile recycling industry in Europe. This will prevent landfill and the export of waste to countries without proper waste management. However, this entails the danger of continued spread of chemicals and materials including plastics. The requirement of using recycled fibers can in some cases lead to products with poorer use properties. Due to the global overproduction of clothing, there are many products that are not needed or wanted, and that must go away somehow. What are the alternatives if the destruction of unsold consumer products is prohibited? We believe that this problem should be tackled earlier in the value chain, for example by using financial penalties against overproduction/import, measured for example by the number of unsold products, or that are returned, go on sale, or otherwise clearly are not desired.
We wish you all the best with this important work and hope to contribute to that the knowledge of consumption will be used actively in the design of the directive to avoid unintended adverse effects of good intentions.
The report, that Ingun and Kirsi have contributed to, identifies key areas that are not aligned with other EU environmental strategies and that will have detrimental environmental effects if not amended.
Key whitepaper findings:
Issue #1: The PEF system does not currently take into account microplastics
Omitting microplastics as an indicator effectively assigns zero impacts to this form of emissions, which risks unintentionally guiding consumers towards plastic products and fibres.
Therefore, the system does not align with the CEAP, The Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, the Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles or the EU Strategy for Textiles Roadmap
The white paper proposes an ‘inventory-level’ indicator – this is a simple summation of modelled microplastic emissions across the life cycle
Issue #2: The PEF system does not currently include plastic waste
The increase in consumption of synthetic fibres has been accompanied by an increase in the mass of plastic waste originating from the textile supply chain
The absence of plastic waste in the PEF methodology therefore has the potential to contribute to an inequitable comparison of natural and synthetic fibres
Therefore, the system does not align with the CEAP or the Packaging Directive
The white paper recommends the PEF system should include plastic waste as an indicator
Issue #3: The PEF system does not currently take into account renewability or biodegradability
The current methodology does not take into consideration the renewability or biodegradability of fibres. This means that synthetic fibres, which are made from non-renewable resources and disposed of in landfill, may be scored as more sustainable than natural or recycled fibres
Therefore, the system does not align with the CEAP or the Bioeconomy Strategy
The whitepaper proposes introducing circularity indicators such as the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) into PEF
Hybrid event, 8th June 2022, 17:30-19:30 CET Online and at Sentralen, Oslo
How can we bring the local alternatives to the forefront of the sustainability debate and in policy?
We have important decisions ahead to ensure a just transition to more sustainable ways of living. The new book “Local, slow and sustainable fashion: wool as a fabric for change” from the clothing research group at Consumption Research Norway SIFO, uses “wool as a lens through which to see important aspects of the contemporary world: corporate capitalism, consumerism, standardisation and their opposites: localised crafts and practices, quality of life, sustainability” (Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen).
The clothing research group’s (world-renowned) wool and clothing research sits within the institute’s important research areas of local consumption and sustainability.
17:30: Welcome by Eivind Jacobsen, Institute Director at SIFO
17:35: The editors, Prof. Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Tone Skårdal Tobiasson introduce the book and the authors
17:40: Perspectives from authors and readers of the book, led by the editors:
Prof. Kate Fletcher, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, UK Rebecca Burgess, M.Ed.,Executive Director of Fibershed, California Gunnar Vittersø, Senior researcher at SIFO and the Amazing Grazing Project Dr. Lorrie Miller, University of British Colombia, Canada Elisabeth Stray Pedersen, Designer and owner, ESP Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes, Associate Professor, Hanken School of Economics, Finland Dr. Tone Smith, Member of Advisory board, Rethinking Economics Norway; Editor, Degrowth Norway Gisle Mariani Mardal, Head of development, Norwegian Fashion & Textile Agenda, Oslo, Norway
18:55- 19:30: Streaming ends – in-person discussions and mingling
For the past three months Lea Gleisberg, a student from the Master in System Design program at HTW Berlin has been a part of our team. For her master’s project, she is developing a clothing swap concept for Berlin, to increase re-use and make it attractive to more people.
While working with us and participating in our fieldwork and tasks, she has also been applying her knowledge of systemic design to our research. Through this, we have learned about systemic design and Lea has shown us how it can contribute to our analysis and research.
Now that her stay is coming to an end, we are looking forward to seeing her project come to fruition and wish her the brightest of futures. We’ve greatly enjoyed having her and welcome her back any time.
Lea says:
“My days at SIFO started with a seminar trip to Finnskogtoppen with the research team I would be working with. This was probably the best way to get to know my team and parts of the Norwegian culture. Throughout my stay at SIFO, I got a wide variety of opportunities to participate in different events, seminars, field research and everything I was personally interested in. I liked that it was not only about being in the office but also about taking part in field research and that I was able to work on my own project too. My time here has greatly impacted my master’s project, and I hope to stay in touch with the team even though my time here is limited. Until then, I hope to contribute some more systemic design approaches to the work of researchers, and I am curious to see to what extent they can be of value in the research field. I appreciate the very respectful, relaxed and down to earth atmosphere among all of the colleagues at SIFO. I can recommend it to every student who is motivated, likes to work independently and wants to learn something about theoretical and practical research, to spend some time here with the SIFO-team!”
Kristiane Rabben, Ingun Grimstad Klepp, Lisbeth Løvbak Berg and Lea Gleisberg sorting very dirty textiles for the Wasted Textiles Project. Photo: Kristiane Rabben.
