This essay was a finalist in the How We Saved the World essay contest, where people wrote as if it was 2050 when the world was working, saying how we got there starting with something they did. Here's the intro to this presentation of results, with links to the other finalists and an invitation to make comments about the contest.

11

Fashioning the Future: How We Used Our Voices to Craft a New, Circular Economy

It’s January 1, 2050, so I do what I do every year at this time—I take my kids into the mountains.
It’s cold, so we bundle up. They say snowfalls were normal this year for the fourth year in a row.
My kids are grown, and this is the first year that one of them has a kid of her own along.
Together, we yell as loudly as we can into the valley, the woods, and then we laugh. My kids are
almost old enough to remember why we do this every year, but I still like to explain it to them.
They listen patiently as I tell them how we learned to use our voices, how that changed
everything.

It’s true that some people were always serious about change, about making the world a better
place, but I feel like it was only about twenty-five years ago that more and more of us started
speaking up, that more of us got louder. I’ve thought back on it so many times, asking myself,
“Seriously, we did that? How did we do that?” And I keep coming back to that one thing. That we
used our own, unique voices. It was like a concert, where one voice starts up in the silence,
then others join and a chorus grows until the walls are shaking with the power of those beautiful
human voices. Together.

Here’s what happened.
I used to have a quiet voice. No one believes that anymore, but it’s true. I often felt small and
sort of powerless, especially when I looked at the world around me and the things that seemed
to be going wrong with it. I had some ideas, but I didn’t talk about them. I didn’t connect. I
stayed quiet. Then one day I saw some writers online, and they were using their voices to ask,
“What are we going to do? What are you going to do?”

I said to myself, quietly but out loud: “I do have an idea. I’d like to change how we approach
fashion.”

It was a little idea, really. One industry. One business. It didn’t seem world-changing. And still, I
was so, so intimidated. I had no business experience. I didn’t work in the fashion industry. I had
no safety net and, like everyone, I needed money to live. Starting a business seemed like it was
something you get to do if you’re already rich or powerful.

Right about that time was peak fast fashion. Maybe you remember? People would order
massive hauls of really cheap clothing and unpack it, posting the videos so everyone else could
see what they bought and be inspired to buy their own pile of clothes that might not last six
months. I’d see articles on the news about beaches in Ghana and deserts in Chile buried
beneath piles of old textiles. Clothes were everywhere, we all had a full closet, and still
companies were cranking out more, more, more.

I was just like everyone else—still am!—and I liked to dress well. I liked getting new clothes, I
just didn’t love the fact that there was so much clothing already out there that was going to
waste and I couldn’t bear the idea that people in poorer countries than mine were being
exploited to make clothes for us. I also felt like the world was experiencing so many problems,
collectively, and we’d need collective solutions. Something with community at its heart.

So in the end I didn’t start a company, not exactly. I started a club, the first Circularity Club. The
first location, in those early days, was a bright, welcoming place where members could take part
in redefining fashion. People started to drop off the clothes they didn’t want or need anymore,
and they could pick up something fun and new that someone else had left. They left clothes and
took clothes, and rather than pay by the item they paid a small amount—like the cost of a beer
at the bar, or a couple of cups of coffee—every month. My company also took the clothes that
were too worn and turned them into new things—pillows, blankets, we even invented ways to
make building materials and rope. We reached out to construction companies, furniture makers,
and interior designers to see if they could use what we made, if they had any ideas of their own
for recycled and repurposed materials. They were excited, took what we made and asked for
more.

A community grew, and the club became a space for gathering. Members met up and talked.
We held events where people shared ideas about their own visions of a more sustainable,
healthier world. Everyone’s voice could be heard. The club was working with the people, rather
than exploiting them for more money.

And guess what? The industry changed. Circularity Clubs around the world reduced textile
waste and also spread the word about new clothing startups, ones that make sustainable
options, designed to be shared or reused, repurposed or returned to the Earth that it was grown
from. So many people were members of Circularity Clubs that it became necessary, if a fashion
brand wanted to survive, that they create only durable, fair-trade, and environmentally-friendly
clothing.

It was one of the first times that people felt hope that an industry that had been wreaking havoc
around the world and causing unimaginable environmental damage could be changed—and it
was us, the consumers, that would make the difference. Those first clubs were a big, loud “NO”
to fast fashion.

But it didn’t stop at fashion. Here’s what’s amazing about people: when you build a community
that creates space for new voices, for louder voices, the ideas get better, more organized, and
more powerful. We started to ask, “If my clothing can be good for the earth, why aren’t my
shoes? Why aren’t my electronics and appliances and my children’s toys?” And then, “How can
we improve the food we eat and the energy we use?”

Circularity Clubs began programs to re-purpose, swap, and repair so many of the products we
use in our daily lives. Members wrote letters to their governments, opinion pieces, and books
that insisted on sustainable, livable communities and healthy circular and “de-growth”
economies. They started their own companies that embodied those values. Corporations, afraid
of being left behind, scrambled to prove that their products were the MOST sustainable, the
MOST repairable, the MOST recyclable. Plastic began disappearing from our oceans and our
air and water got cleaner. Our food got healthier. And as factory production slowed down, the
demand for energy dropped worldwide.

Another interesting thing happened: as products got more sustainable and consumers insisted
that the people who made them got fair wages, global inequality started to vanish. It made more
economic sense to grow quality food close to home in the clean land and clean water we all had
access to. Global migration changed, too—people could move for love or family if they wanted,
but they no longer had to flee their homeland due to drought or sickness or industrial pollution.
Every country could offer its citizens good jobs and healthy environments. With the increase in
health and prosperity worldwide, the world became a safer, more peaceful place.

If you described to kids in school today how much stuff we used to make and buy and throw in
the trash, they might not believe you, and that thought makes me happy. I didn’t know how to
clean up the beaches of Ghana or take on the fashion industry. But I was a part of building the
circular economy that now influences the ways in which we manufacture, buy, sell, and dispose
of goods. The small behaviors of lots of people, multiplied throughout the world, created
change.

Opening a business with the goal of changing the world is scary. Speaking up and without
knowing you’ll be listened to is intimidating. I used my voice to share my ideas and create a
community. My community used their voices and shared their ideas. And gradually more of us
stood up to make things happen. We put our ideas into the world, in concrete form, and we
found out that together we were not small. We were not poor. And we were not weak.

It’s a lesson I want to remember, and that I want my kids and grandkids to remember. Which is
why, this wintry January first, I go with my kids and my first grandchild into the mountains. We
yell as loud as we can to remind ourselves, and everyone who hears us, that we have voices.
That when we use them, things change.