the event, which was hosted by the d.c. chapter of the sierra club in conjunction with the university’s center for environmental filmmaking, office of sustainability and zero waste club, took place in the malsi doyle and michael forman theater at the school of communication.

sierra club’s daniella castiel, one of the organizers of the screening, said that as consumers, one of the first steps in making a difference is seeking out as much information as possible on how our clothes are made, including by reading about the topic online or watching documentaries on it.

“when you know what actually happens, the next time you walk into a store and pick up a pair of jeans, you think twice about it,” castiel said. “when you think twice about something, you are being considerate, you are being conscientious about making that decision, you are looking for a better source, a better place to buy from.”

in her opening remarks introducing the film, castiel spoke about how the fashion industry is currently the planet’s second largest polluter of freshwater resources. castiel also brought up ethical implications of the fast fashion phenomenon, with consumers constantly chasing new trends and expecting cheaper items, leading to inhumane working conditions for many around the world.

“have you ever thought about the power and influence we all have the moment we purchase a piece of clothing?” castiel said. “did you know that 80 percent of garment workers are female teenagers and young adults, women and girls between the ages of 18 and 25, the ages of many of us, in this room?”

directed by andrew morgan, the documentary follows the making of clothes in today’s globalized world, looking at the cotton fields in texas, the busy factories in bangladesh and india where production is often outsourced to, and the fashion runways and shopping malls buzzing with customers. it includes voices from the fashion industry like designer stella mccartney.

the film discusses the 2013 rana plaza factory collapse in dhaka, bangladesh, that killed more than a 1,000 people. it showcases the struggles factory owners often face with retailers pressuring them to lower prices of products, forcing them to ignore the safety measures of the spaces in which their workers are in to keep up with consumer demand for cheaper clothing.

the film also talks about leather factories in kanpur, the leather export capital of india. there, every day, more than 50 million liters of toxic wastewater is produced, contaminating the only source of drinking water in the area with chemicals used to treat leather, causing serious health issues for the residents. major retailers from outside india are able to source cheap products while avoiding all accountability for the rising cost to the planet and human health, according to the filmmakers.

the film closes with morgan questioning how long people will continue to turn a blind eye to the lives of those behind our clothing, and whether or not we are at a turning point on the path to making real change.  

“in the midst of all the challenges facing us today, all the problems that feel bigger than us and beyond our control, maybe we could start here, with clothing,” morgan says at the end of the film.

castiel hopes students become more thoughtful consumers and examine their wardrobe and see the people behind the fashion labels after having seen the film, she told planet forward.

“consumers need to be more curious,” castiel said. “when they put on a t-shirt, they need to think, ‘whose hand has touched this t-shirt? who suffered to make this t-shirt?’”

au students jessica balerna and celange beck, co-presidents of the au zero waste club, said that they thought that while the film was a great place to start the conversation about the negative consequences of fast fashion, they would have liked to see more perspectives shown in the film, like the role of local and national governments when it comes to accountability, and more in-depth analysis and suggestions on how to create a more sustainable world. they said that their club has been working on starting a thrift store on campus for over a year and are currently waiting for approval from the university for their project.

balerna, a senior in the environmental science program in the college of arts and sciences, said the documentary ties in well with the idea behind the thrift store project, which is to try and encourage people to reuse items and be thoughtful buyers.

“instead of buying new and throwing it away, and buying new and throwing it away, you can buy used for less and sort of recycle it,” balerna said. “so when you get bored with what you have, instead of throwing it away, it goes to back to the thrift store for someone else to get excited about.”

beck, currently studying business administration at the kogod school of business, said that if and when the thrift store project is approved, the entire au community will benefit from it.

“the thrift store is another way to improve the community on campus,” beck said. “it’s about caring about the people and the planet simultaneously and having students involved in what we are doing at the store.”

denmark hit a renewable energy milestone in july: its windmills produced 140 percent of the entire country’s energy needs.

still think renewables aren’t a realistic option for meeting our world’s growing energy demands?

denmark has a long history of wind energy, with its first wind turbines — and energy cooperatives — dating back to the late 1800’s. but since beginning my semester abroad in denmark in late september, i’ve been trying to figure out how copenhagen has found the drive to aim for carbon neutrality by 2025 — a mere 10 years away — and, moreover, a goal for the entire country to become completely dependent on renewable energy in the next 35 years.

the key to denmark’s success, though, is not its political drive. in fact, it is quite the opposite.

denmark has a long, inspiring history of community-based organizations that can be traced back to the 1300’s. some 500 years later, the country’s wind energy cooperatives originated with poul la cour. having lived through the start of the industrial revolution, la cour watched as many families migrated to cities and left their farms behind. the families that remained in the countryside had little choice but to continue their labor-intensive farm lifestyles. la cour recognized energy’s potential to revolutionize these lifestyles, so he decided to devote much of his life to bringing the benefits of decentralized electricity to rural communities by constructing wind turbines. despite his moderate success and rural influence, oil became increasingly abundant in the coming years and eventually made its way to the countryside, leading to the decommissioning of the last of la cour’s windmills in 1935.

denmark’s wind energy progress was then put on hold for many years, and nearly all aspects of danish society came to be dominated by this new, high-content energy source. the oil dependency continued until the oil crisis of the 1970s. the crisis absolutely crushed denmark’s economy. by that time, roughly 95 percent of denmark’s energy consumption was dependent on foreign oil reserves. unlike the united states, oil was not just used for transportation in denmark, it was also their primary means of heating and electricity. this blow revealed the country’s vulnerability to energy shocks and how quickly their national security could be threatened. the country was forced to think of alternative, dependable sources of energy — and quick.

one immediate social response to the high gasoline prices was the reinvigoration of the biking culture in copenhagen, a movement that originated in the 1890’s but quickly got phased out as automobiles became the preferred, more convenient means of travel. with the cost of driving suddenly shooting through the roof, danes quickly began biking again, and the government responded by refurbishing old bike lanes and inventing new ones. today, 45 percent of copenhagen’s population gets to work or school on a bike, hence its well deserved nickname “bike city.” (could you imagine this being the case in new york?)

the nørreport station in copenhagen in 2007 is overrun with bicycles. (leif jørgensen/creative commons)

but denmark had bigger issues to tackle than painting bike lanes. the government’s plan to combat the oil crisis was nuclear energy, but this received extremely hostile backlash from the danish population, leading to the creation of the organization for information on nuclear power (ooa). as far as danes were concerned, nuclear power simply wasn’t a viable option for their small, scattered country. after 12 years of anti-nuclear movements and social unrest, danish parliament could no longer contest with denmark’s determined civil society and agreed to look at alternative sources of energy, chiefly wind. this movement toward wind energy actually originated through local cooperatives in which danes, building off of what poul la cour had started 90 years earlier, constructed their own turbines and illegally connected them to the grid. these cooperatives ultimately forced the danish government to seriously consider the prospect of decentralized, community ownership of wind turbines, something that was and is still crucial to denmark’s success with wind energy.

from these accounts, we can understand that denmark has not always been a beacon of sustainable innovation. it took an economic catastrophe and serious social engagement to force the government to fundamentally rethink the nature of their energy dependence. while environmental concerns were certainly expressed at the time, the country’s reasoning behind wind energy was not driven by environmental principles. it was more so a sociopolitical and economic decision, one that originated through civil society and allowed the government to recognize the benefits of putting denmark in control over their energy by making use of the resources around them — which happened to be wind.

the united states, among other countries, is surrounded by an abundance of clean, sustainable sources of energy, including wind, biomass (which can be better sourced from waste so as not to disrupt food supply) and, oh yeah, the sun — that massive ball of energy that is the source of nearly all life on earth. but perhaps leaving it up to the government to recognize this potential is not our best option.

so will it be investors who recognize the long term, sustainable profits available in the renewable energy industry, or businesses that see it as an opportunity to get a head start on implementing these inexhaustible resources for which new technologies are constantly emerging, ones that already are outcompeting and displacing fossil fuels? by looking at how denmark has succeeded, one thing’s for sure: widespread social involvement and innovation is essential. movements like the sierra club’s “beyond coal” campaign have proven extremely successful in the united states, shutting down more than 150 proposed coal power plants in the past three years. by increasing the number of stakeholders involved, funding this renewable and sustainable revolution will be much more feasible, and it would help bring together a variety of epistemic communities that will be necessary to make this radical transformation possible.

(top image: a wind farm in copenhagen in 2009. credit: www.cgpgrey.com​)