Every second of every day one rubbish truck of fashion goes to landfill. 15 million items of second hand clothing arrives in Ghana’s market every week. 40% of those clothes are dumped. We explore where our clothes really end up, the catastrophic damage they are causing and what we can do about it with Betty Osei Bonsu, Project Coordinator at Green Africa Youth Organisation (GAYO), George Harding-Rolls of The Changing Markets Foundation and Amy Nguyen of Sustainable and Social.
Our guests:
Betty Osei Bonsu is an environmentalist who is very passionate about Green Recovery. She serves as the Project Coordinator for Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) where she is championing the Sustainable Community Project and its replication to other regions in Ghana. This is providing green jobs for more than 70 youth in rural communities whiles diverting waste from landfills. She is an environmental consultant and has consulted for the World University Services of Cannada where she provided Green Jobs training to 80 women in the WAGES (West Africa Governance and Economic Sustainability) project involving women in Extractive Areas, additionally, Kal Tire Company to produce its Environmental Annual Report. She recently founded the youtube show called B.ISA (B. Inspired with Stories From Africa) where she is bringing stories on community values, passion and environment to life.
Amy Nguyen is a strategist, researcher and writer focusing on the nexus between sustainable business, fashion, innovation and technology. She works as a consultant for a variety of organisations ranging from environmental NGOs and research advisory firms, through to sustainable tech start-ups in the energy and fashion space.
In addition to being a Forbes contributor, Amy is the founder of Sustainable & Social, a platform dedicated to deconstructing complex climate issues for a millennial audience. Her mission is to democratise the conversation about sustainable development and to educate and empower citizens in the pursuit of climate action.
In addition to a Master’s in International Business from Universitá Bocconi which focused on sustainability and CSR, she is certified by Cambridge University for Sustainable Supply Chain Management.
George joined Changing Markets in 2019 and has worked across campaigns on fashion, fisheries, plastics and food fortification. From leveraging social networks around a cause to coming up with creative tactics to drive campaign wins, George’s specialism is in digital campaigning and engagement.
Prior to joining Changing Markets, George worked as a senior strategist at international sustainability non-profit, Forum for the Future, where he led digital communications and ran the Futures Centre, a global platform tracking developments in sustainability, as well as pioneering the organisation’s ‘Future of Sustainability’ publication series.
While living in China, he worked in corporate social responsibility and philanthropy advisory at Charitarian, and helped to set up non-profit educational outreach programme, the China Development Foundation. A UK national, George speaks Mandarin Chinese, French and Spanish, and holds a first class degree in Chinese and French from the University of Edinburgh. Outside Changing Markets, George is a board member of the Conscious Advertising Network, a coalition of over 70 organisations set up to ensure that industry ethics catches up with the technology of modern advertising.
Links:
The Changing Markets Foundation reports on Fossil Fashion