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- Draw on the rise in demand for sustainable fashion by
consumers, the increasingly high media profile of working
conditions, fair trade and the environment within the
fashion industry, and the growing interest in these issues
from students and staff.
- Reference the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) research into sustainability in the
garment industry: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/
consumerprod/products/clothing.htm
To be inspired by the work taking place at other
higher education institutions in the UK, see the Higher
Education Funding Council for England’s Thinking
Sustainably film available at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/
events/2008/sustain/video/. In the film, the Director of
the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College
of Fashion, the Vice-Chancellor of Bradford University,
Deputy Vice Chancellor at Kingston, and Head of Finance
at the London School of Economics, among others, share
their experiences and why they consider sustainability to
be important.
- Get ownership by key stakeholders including support,
teaching and admin staff, and students
It will be important to ensure ownership of changes
by teaching and non-teaching staff (e.g. technicians,
library staff) to enable the integration of sustainability
issues. Aligning staff values with their own work can
lead to a far greater motivation than if sustainability is a
tick-box exercise forced on them. This could be done
through mandatory meetings, staff training, surveys, and
direct contact with students and staff. Whilst getting
ownership is more complicated than consulting staff, a
comprehensive consultation should take place to find out
what staff are already doing in this area, what the barriers
to integrating sustainability issues are, and how staff can
be supported to ensure the issues are integrated.
- Communicate the school/college/university’s
commitment to sustainable fashion education and how
stakeholders can get involved
- Ideas for how to communicate the institution’s
commitment to sustainable fashion education and to
encourage greater involvement:
- Distribute information during the first weeks of term
to new students.
- Organise clothes’ swaps or a ‘sustainable’ fashion show.
- Set up MySpace/Facebook pages.
- Publish information on the institution’s
website/intranet.
- Produce information packs for students, educators and
support staff who wish to find out more.
- Introduce a section on sustainability issues in the staff
newsletter/alumni magazine.
- Identify an international role model to engage
international students.
- Produce merchandise such as mouse mats.
- Create a strategic plan with priorities, targets and a
time-frame and commit resources
Having consulted with stakeholders, it will be important
to establish a plan of action with clearly defined targets,
time-frame and resources allocated. Targets should be
realistic and the plan should include a process to monitor
and evaluate progress.
- Dedicate staff time to take recommendations forward
Developing sustainable fashion education requires
dedicated staff time. This may mean creating new
positions or freeing time within existing post-holders’
roles to:
- Integrate these issues into the curriculum.
- Ensure that educators and support staff have their
training needs met.
- Produce regular reports of progress in this area.
- Ensure that the school/college/university’s
commitment is reviewed and updated.
- Develop teaching resources and materials.
- Organise events.
- Network with educators at other educational
institutions.
- Facilitate knowledge transfer between institutions.
pEdagogy and InstItutIonal approachEs
