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he world today is complex, interconnected and undeniably in peril. From Greta Thunberg’s trek across the sea to september’s Global Week for Future, a week of strikes demanding action addressing climate change, the rapidly changing climate has taken center stage and poses an existential threat to humanity.
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owever, climate change does not simply show up in political headlines and scientific studies — climate change is an issue that affects every aspect of culture and society, from the clothes on the racks of stores to the storied halls of museums across the world.
B3 History of Georgetown Sustainability
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B11 Sustainable Fashion - Maeve Silk
Student Sustainability Groups - Amber Gillette and Yu Young Lee
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B10 Sustainable Museums - Annah Otis
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Supply Chains
Workers’ Rights - Michelle Brown
Student Sustainability Groups - Amber Gillette and Yu Young Lee
B7 Georgetown’s Beehive - Arden Fitzpatrick
B6 Core Pathways - Elena Ergener
Contributing Editors: Julia Alvey, Steven Botsoe, Michelle Brown, Maggie Fouberg, Amber Gillette, Natalie Isé, Mina Lee, Yu Young Lee, Subul Malik, Timothy McNulty, Allan Navarro, Samuel Nelson, Zain Sandhu, Megan Wee DESIGN BY: STEPHANIE PARMITER AND ROSY LIN
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Sustainability Hindered by Lack of Communication AMBER GILLETTE AND YU YOUNG LEE Hoya Staff Writers
One pervasive rumor about Georgetown University’s sustainability persists: The university does not recycle. In fact, Georgetown does recycle, but skepticism leads many students to simply toss all their waste without sorting any of it, making recycling bins unrecyclable. However, student advocates push to raise awareness among their peers and demand action from the administration. In light of the increasing severity of the climate crisis, students have stepped up, from composting initiatives to campaigns seeking an end to the use of and investment in fossil fuels on campus. The university’s Office of Sustainability and student environmental clubs are the primary sustainability actors on campus. The tension between getting the university to enact structural change and getting students to understand that their individual actions make a difference in the university’s overall sustainability defines environmental activism and policy on campus. Both goals get hindered by a lack of communication and transparency among the administration, student groups and the general student population. The path to a sustainable campus might be defined by gradual small steps, but student groups have pushed what good environmental practices look like.
GREENER THAN EVER
Over the years, Georgetown and its students have made strides implementing sustainable practices across the university, from improving its recycling system to building environmentally friendly infrastructure. The Office of Sustainability is Georgetown’s main driver of sustainability policy and action. Established in 2013 under the Office of Planning and Facilities Management, the office has made efforts to reduce stormwater runoff and increase the amount of sustainable transportation avenues available to students, including bike-friendly roads and free transit options, according to a statement to the Hoya from Audrey Stewart, director of the Office of Sustainability. To date, seven on-campus buildings have received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification at the gold or silver level, an accreditation standard for sustainable building practices given by the U.S. Green Building Council. The seven LEEDcertified buildings are the Rafik B. Hariri Building, Regents Hall, Nevils Hall, Healey Family Student Center, Ryan and Isaac Halls, Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Hall and Thompson Athletic Center. However, the university still has much to do, according to Victoria Boatwright (COL ’22), the communications coordinator for the Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network. No building on Georgetown’s campus has obtained a platinum LEED certification, and the university must update older buildings, such as Lau-
inger Library and Healy Hall, to improve its ecological footprint, according to Boatwright. “I know that these are buildings are old, so renovating them would be hard,” Boatwright said in an interview with The Hoya. “But that’s what you have to start doing.” Although renovating entire buildings takes long-term commitments and investments, recycling has become a meaningful channel through which to make campus more sustainable. Since the 2018-19 school year, the university has been transitioning to single stream recycling, meaning students can place all recyclable materials into the same bin. As part of this transition, single stream recycling is being piloted in several locations across campus, including the Intercultural Center and parts of the Leavey Center, according to Giulia Manno, the program and metrics manager in the Office of Sustainability. “This transition is meant to make recycling simpler for our University community members and reduce recycling contamination,” Manno wrote in an email to The Hoya. Composting on campus, both pre- and post-consumption, has also become a related area of sustainable engagement. Preconsumption compost, which entails food scraps produced during meal preparation being placed into special bins to be taken to a composting facility, has existed in O’Donovan Hall for over a decade and has now expanded to restaurants at Hoya Court in Leavey.
Post-consumption compost, which entails individual consumers putting their own food waste into composting bins, is newer to sustainability initiatives on campus. This September, Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network and Compost Cab collaborated to launch a post-consumption compost program in 50 student households, both on and off campus. Despite the good that smaller projects like recycling and composting can do, the greatest step the university can take toward sustainability is pursuing clean energy, according to GREEN President Amelia Walsh (SFS ’20). “Any large organization like a university just uses so much energy to light our buildings and power all of our computers and heat and cool everything,” Walsh said. “And we do really well in terms of efficiency, but we still rely heavily on coal and natural gas and fossil fuels.” Georgetown receives its power from the Potomac Electric Power Company, and the company sources only 5.8% of its energy from renewable sources. The university has taken steps to limit its usage of fossil fuels, including a recommendation by the board of director’s Committee on Finance and Administration in June 2018 to avoid investments in companies that profit off tar sands, a form of petroleum that requires more energy and water to extract and process, to produce energy. The recommendation came from Georgetown’s Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility, a body composed of students,
RIGHT: ALEX BAKER FOR THE HOYA, LEFT: @GEORGETOWN.GREEN/INSTAGRAM
In response to the increasing urgency that comes with the impending threat of irreparable climate change, both student groups and the administration have made strides to mitigate the environmental impact of the university. However, these steps, especially ones taken by the university, have been mired in a lack of transparency and openness.
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faculty and administrators, after reviewing a proposal put forth by Georgetown University Fossil Free. GUFF advocates for even more drastic clean energy action by the university, and the club has run a student-led advocacy campaign since 2013 with the sole mission of pushing the university to diverge from fossil fuels, with a secondary focus of fostering transparency in the administration. “We could talk about a bunch of different things, but I think that it all in the end comes back to energy,” said Boatwright, who is also a member of GUFF.
BUREAUCRATIC BLUNDERS
In its efforts to create a more sustainable campus, Georgetown has hit its fair share of roadblocks from a lack of transparency and poorly thought-out planning. In September 2017, Georgetown entered an agreement with Origis Energy to install solar panels that would decrease the university’s reliance on fossil fuels by half by 2020. This deal, which proposed cutting down 240 acres of forest and harming the native heritage of the land itself, was met by protests from student groups, members of the Sierra Club and members of the Piscataway Kanoi tribe. This August, Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles denied Georgetown’s permit request to build the solar farm, citing harm to current projects restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The initiative is inoherently flawed because of its lack of scope and campus input, according to Boatwright. “They didn’t really talk to the students about it, which was the biggest problem,” she said. The university has often been opaque on its sustainability efforts, leaving students confused on the status of projects, according to Rowlie Flores (COL ’22), chair of sustainability for the Georgetown University Student Association. As chair of sustainability, Flores mostly helps to promote events run by student organizations and attempt to bridge the gap between what the student body wants and the administration’s own sustainability projects. “I try to lead open forums, once in a while, to discuss issues with certain clubs, and these are open to the public usually.” Flores said in an interview with The Hoya. “It’s kinda hard to get admin to attend these meetings.” Boatwright agreed the university has a broader problem with communication and transparency — one that is not limited to the administration itself. Student groups also have difficulty coordinating their various efforts because of little communication and collaboration among groups on projects. In just one example of communication failures leading to less comprehensive sustainability campaigns, the rumor that Georgetown does not properly recycle or does not recycle at all after the recycling manager position of facilities was left vacant in 2012. This position has remained vacant, and recycling is now managed by the Office of Sustainability. Even though the university does recycle, too much nonrecyclable waste in recycling bins can make an entire bin unrecyclable, according to Boatwright. The skepticism in Georgetown’s recycling program then sets the university back because doubtful students who throw away
ALEX BAKER FOR THE HOYA
Though several buildings like the Healey Family Student Center and Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Hall have achieved LEED certification, the university still relies on fossil fuels, and efforts by the university to decrease this fossil fuel dependence have been muddled. their waste indiscriminately cause the very lack of recycling that they notice, according to Boatwright. “It’s not a problem of the institution choosing whether or not to recycle; it’s a problem of whether the individuals choose whether or not to recycle,” Boatwright said. “I hate when people are like ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter if I do this or not.’ Because if you think that ,then any other person can think that, and that’s how waste is generated.”
TOWARD A PROMISING FUTURE
Though small, the community of students involved in environmental clubs on campus constantly makes small, meaningful gains. The discourse around climate change and environmentalism has rapidly matured to include tangible, concrete solutions to intensifying environmental problems, according to Walsh. “My freshman year, people were like, ‘We should have a trash clean up!’ That’s great.” Walsh said. “But now, people are coming to me all the time asking, you know, ‘Why isn’t GREEN talking more about completely
divesting from fossil fuels?’ It’s a much more nuanced and interesting point.” The membership of GREEN has increased over the past several years, signaling the increased urgency students are feeling, according to Walsh. “Our membership when I was a freshman was maybe 10 people per meeting,” Walsh said. “Now we easily have 60 people per meeting, so it’s really skyrocketed.” These on-campus environmental advocacy groups are acutely aware of the need to communicate with administration, according to Boatwright, especially as the university sets grand goals and works to improve the shortcomings of recent developments. “At Georgetown, [if we raise student awareness], it only makes changes for four years,” Boatwright said. “Where if you engage the administration and the faculty, that’s long term change.” Student activists’ optimism is evident in the smaller-scale projects that find success and have the potential to make structural, lasting changes. Flores praised the recent paper-free initiative passed by GUSA senate
that urged the university to switch to paperless academic practices. And Walsh gushed as she explained the aquaponics garden set up in the Maker Hub as a division of GREEN, as well as the success of the 50 households that now have a compost system. Overall, students agreed the most worthwhile undertaking by the on-campus environmental groups is to empower students to make smarter, greener choices every day by themselves. “When we talk about what GREEN does, it’s education, advocacy and enjoyment of sustainability,” Walsh said. “We’ve been really successful in creating a much larger way for people to become engaged in sustainability in a natural way, whether it’s recycling, composting or energy conservation.” Bit by bit, environmentally conscious students like Flores see that individual actions can compound and turn into more lasting change. “A lot of my projects are more focused on individual actions, things that people can do themselves,” Flores said. “Just small things. Because small things add up.”
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Core Pathways Tackles Climate Change in Classroom ELENA ERGENER Special to The Hoya
Every semester, students spend the days before registration fiddling with new course catalogs and scheduling apps to create their ideal list of classes for the next term. Fulfilling the core requirements often presents an obstacle in that scheduling process — a forgotten science or humanities requirement can shatter an otherwise perfect schedule. Over the past three years, Georgetown University’s Designing the Future(s) Initiative has been sponsoring a new method for completing the core requirements: the Core Pathway. Currently, two different pathways exist, allowing students to take core-fulfilling courses focused on either climate change or technology, according to the program’s website. The topic of climate change fits the Core Pathways model so well because of how climate change has the potential to affect almost every aspect of human life, according to Randall Amster, climate change Core Pathway faculty coordinator. “Climate is a paradigmatic issue, it’s a generational question, it may even be an existential one,” Amster said in an interview with The Hoya. “By its very nature it impacts all of these different disciplines.” Approaching the issue of climate change from multiple disciplines allows for more creative and innovative solutions, according to Dagomar Degroot, a history professor who teaches two of the Core Pathway courses. “When we combine all of that information — science, social sciences, humanities and people who work in these different disciplines — we end up getting really interesting answers to questions that seemed like they already had answers, or we start to think of different topics that we couldn’t approach from just one discipline,” Degroot said in an interview with The Hoya. The Core Pathways program allows students to identify other methods of combating climate change beyond involvement in environmentally focused groups, according to Degroot. Degroot’s courses focus on the impact of climate change on different societies globally, allowing students to consider the societal effects of climate change while exploring the sustainability practices of a wide variety of communities. “If you work for social justice, for example, even if you do your job with a sense of what’s just, what’s moral, then I think you are fighting climate change, because climate change is a massive social justice issue,” Degroot said. “There’s all kinds of work that students can do that does not have to be strictly focused on environmental issues for them to be fighting climate change.” The focus on climate change in core coursework could have a larger impact on students’ involvement with sustain-
ability issues on campus, but sometimes experience in activism leads students to the classroom. Students can complete the coursework and capture more direct engagement with their campus and community affiliations, or sometimes people already have that engagement and offer the Pathway offers places to anchor that coursework. Students like Chelsea Hafer (COL ’22) originally joined the program because of her interest in learning about climate change and sustainability. (Full disclosure: Hafer formerly served as a staff writer for The Hoya.) The program incorporates integrative days where all Pathways students col-
laborate on projects, adding a unique, hands-on experience to a model that is particularly productive in increasing student involvement in sustainability efforts on campus. These interactive days bring Core Pathways students to the forefront of both on-campus sustainability and the program itself, according to Hafer. “A lot of the projects that we were working on last year were suggested by Core Pathways students the year before,” Hafer said in an interview with The Hoya. “This is an opportunity to hear what students want done sustainability-wise.” The combination of interdisciplinary exploration and broader student en-
gagement sets the program apart from other curriculum on campus, positioning Georgetown on the cutting edge, according to Degroot. “I think we’re setting the standard for other universities and how they tackle this topic,” Degroot said. Georgetown’s own campus culture, which emphasizes altruistic ideas, helps the program fit into the broader discourse around climate change and social justice, according to Degroot. “I think [Pathways] is part of what Georgetown does at its best — emphasizing that scholarship should actually mean something for the broader world, and that we should try and serve the broader world,” Degroot said.
@GEORGETOWNUNIVERSITY/TWITTER
The Core Pathways program was launched last fall and centers on holistic approaches to understanding sustainability. The program aims to help students work together to think about more creative and innovative solutions to climate change from different disciplines.
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GEORGETOWN’S BEEHIVE
Hoya Hive Supports, Nurtures Pollinators on Campus ARDEN FITZPATRICK Hoya Staff Writer
The past 20 years have seen a rapid decline in the honey bee population, facilitated by industrial agriculture, climate change and damaging pesticides. While social media is abuzz with calls to “save the bees,” understanding the ecological role of bees and how the Georgetown University community specifically has taken action toward this environmental threat turns that trend into substantive action. A thriving bee population benefits human livelihood and the broader environment as a whole, according to Cynthia Wei, associate teaching professor and director of science education within the School of Foreign Service’s science, technology and international affairs program. “[Honey bees] play a critical role in pollination of many agricultural crops,” Wei wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Almonds, for example, are 100 percent dependent on honey bees, and commercial beekeepers ship their bees to California each year to pollinate almond orchards.” Other crops like blueberries and peaches also depend on honey bees for pollination, making it clear that honey bees aid in the health of agricultural ecosystems, according to Wei.
“Humans fundamentally depend upon ecosystems to sustain life, from the air we breathe to the water we drink, so it’s critically important to conserve and restore ecosystems for the health of the planet and all its inhabitants,” Wei said. Hoya Hive, the honey bee team within Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network, aids in awareness of ecosystem restoration and pollination. The team arose after Apis Saxa, a division of GREEN, won a grant to keep bees yet had no idea how to do so. To fulfill their bee-keeping aspirations, they worked on securing permissions, funding and site approval for the bee hives that exist on campus today, according to Elizabeth Nguyen (SFS ’21), the current president and founder of Hoya Hive. The club, formally established during the 2018-19 school year, holds eight-session beekeeping classes at the hives by the observatory that are open to all students, typically at the beginning of each semester “[We are] trying to teach as many students as possible how to beekeep so that they can beekeep in the future,” Nguyen said. Other public events hosted by Hoya Hive have included honey tastings and educational events with outreach groups, with the goal of increasing awareness about the importance of pollination. One educational event
held last year hosted an artist from The Good of the Hive, an organization whose goal is to paint 50,000 bees across the world on murals. Hoya Hive continues to grow in size and structure and recently established a “Bee Board” including various administrative positions. Allyse Smith (NHS ’21) is a Hoya Hive member who assists with the logistical aspects of the club and sees her time in the organization as very formative. “I’ve always loved nature and getting involved in the Hoya Hive has taught me a lot about conserving biodiversity. It has changed the way I react to bees and it is something that has really marked my time here at Georgetown,” Smith said in an email to The Hoya. Georgetown’s attention to the bees and pollination does not end with Hoya Hive. Georgetown is in the process of applying to be a “Bee Campus” through the Xerces Society, a conservation organization focused on pollinators, according to William Hahn, adjunct professor in the SFS and faculty mentor of Hoya Hive. The Bee Campus project is a collaboration across Georgetown faculty, students, staff and other organizations such as D.C. Beekeepers Alliance and the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment. More importantly though, the “Bee Campus” project is broadly focused on the promotion of native pollina-
tors, which includes butterflies and hummingbirds. “In terms of honey bees being this magic wand to fix all the natural pollinator problems…that’s misguided,” Hahn said in an interview with The Hoya. “[The goal] is not just talking or teaching about conservation, but actually doing it.” Efforts to support native pollinators through native plant gardens and nesting sites are exemplified by the Davis Garden under the Leavey Esplanade and at the podium at the Georgetown University Medical Center. Education also comes in the form of a new beekeeping course, “Bees and Beekeeping,” which will be rolled out next semester and is intended to be accessible to those with or without a science background. The class will begin by studying the biology of honey bees and will spend the second half of the semester doing hands-on activities with the bee hives on campus. Georgetown concentrates efforts not only on the role of honey bees as pollinators, but also native pollinators in general. Education on pollinators’ roles in ecosystem sustainability and biodiversity comes in the form of courses, clubs and conservation efforts, and Georgetown does its part to make Washington, D.C., a healthier ecosystem for bees to thrive within.
GEORGETOWN BEEKEEPING/FACEBOOK
Hoya Hive is part of a growing Georgetown effort to support ecosystem sustainability and biodiversity on campus. The campus beekeeping team is a division of Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network and offers educational events in addition to other attractions to increase awareness of the role of pollination in ecosystem sustainability.
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WORKERS’ RIGHTS
Businesses, Watchdogs Emphasize Human Rights in Labor MICHELLE BROWN Hoya Staff Writer
Before any product reaches the hands of a consumer, it passes through a network of actors catering to its production, distribution and, eventually, sale. Each step in this supply chain determines a company’s social and environmental footprint, or the effects a product has on its manufacturers and the environment. With 65% of consumers worldwide looking to reinforce ethical production practices through their purchases, factors such as considerations of human and labor rights and occupational health and safety comprise important elements of a firm with ethical practices, especially given that human beings are wrapped up in these long processes of production, according to the Medium blog Firm Ethics. Transparency, spanning from the very first stages of sourcing raw wool to the creation of the final woven piece, plays a critical role in creating an ethical supply chain, according to Mihai Patru, cofounder with Diana Iovescu Tătucu of the social business Mozaïque, based in Washington, D.C. Mozaïque markets linens, rugs, blankets and the like, handwoven by artisans in Guatemala and Romania, but does so with the ardent goal of creating financial predictability for the local farmers and weavers who source and produce its products.
“We [have] been very focused on really understanding who is involved and what are the resources that are part of the production process,” Patru said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “And usually those people that are ignored, they need to get paid.” For a social business like Mozaïque, creating a well-defined, traceable supply chain that forges direct connections between small farmers and weavers means providing those individuals with a stable and predictable source of income, according to Patru. “Establishing a connection between the small farmers and the weavers — a direct connection — the weavers will have access to good quality wool, and the farmers will generate additional income by selling the wool,” Patru said. “Once they are able to predict their income for, you know, the next six months or the next month, everything changes.” For larger corporations that are not social businesses and do not apply a careful eye to every step of their supply chain and production process, independent monitors of workplace ethics fight to identify violations of workers’ rights and establish ethical standards. The Worker Rights Consortium, which Georgetown University co-founded, applies these standards to collegiate licensed apparel supply chains and contracts made between manufacturers and universities as a totally independent body. The Consortium has 172 colleges and
universities as affiliates, which must disclose every factory in their supply chain so that the WRC may investigate any complaints by workers of the companies licensed to produce apparel. The WRC then reports this information to universities to enforce their contracts with the licensees to correct any violations of ethical conduct. The WRC serves to promote the actual remediation of unethical practices by apparel brands rather than cutting ties with those factories, according to Vincent DeLaurentis Jr. (SFS ’17), program coordinator at WRC. “The brands that source from the factories have a clear obligation to improve the conditions and to fix the violations, and not to just cut and run from the factory,” DeLaurentis said in a phone interview with The Hoya. “Because, at the end of the day, if the brands were just to abandon the factories, another brand would either step in and fill that order quota, and the problems would still be outstanding, or the factory would close, and the workers will lose their jobs, which would leave them in a bad position also.” This remediation is facilitated by a combined effort of consumers, affiliate universities such as Georgetown, student activists and the WRC, as in an instance earlier this year concerning the factory PT Kahoindah Citragarment in Indonesia. Factory management intimidated
workers to resign to avoid doling out severance payments of $4.5 million, but the WRC’s investigation recovered those severance payments, the largest amount the organization has ever won back for workers, according to a memo from the WRC. From withheld severance payments to gender and sexual orientation-based discrimination, rights violations, and therefore unethical supply chains, come in many different forms. Even the seating hurts the quality of life for factory workers with long-term health problems, according to DeLaurentis. “Maybe, at face value, [seating] doesn’t seem like the biggest issue. But if you’re going to be a garment worker for 30 years, and you’re going to be sitting in the same chair every day for those 30 years that doesn’t have a back support, that isn’t set up to make sure that you’re supported in the correct ways — eventually it’s going to break down your body totally,” DeLaurentis said. A commitment to making consumption less exploitative lies at the heart of creating ethical, sustainable business practices, which means making a concerted effort to create better work environments, according to Patru. “Maybe, probably one of the most important lessons that we’ve learned: It’s a process that takes time,” Patru said. “You know, doing all the small things and [at] the end of the day you have to be sustainable, being happy having an ethical approach.”
@MOZAIQUE/INSTAGRAM
Whether at the level of small businesses or large, independent labor rights organizations, sustainable business practices have to take both environmental and ethical standards into consideration when estimating their effect on the communities that consume, ship and manufacture products for international markets.
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Suppliers
Source raw materials and send to be manufactured
Manufacturer Processes the raw material to create the product and prepares for distribution
Distributors Distribute goods to retailers
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47% of corporate respondents to the 2016 Ethical Corporation Survey by Reuters Events identified “human rights� as the essential focus of their supply chain ethics
Supply chain operations account for over 80% of greenhouse gas emissions
Supply chain accounts for over 90% of consumer sector damage to the environment (air, land, water, biodiversity, geological resources)
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KASSIDY ANGELO FOR THE HOYA
Museums and artists in Washington, D.C., showcase exhibitions on sustainability, exploring how artists can incorporate reusing and recycling into their work and educating audiences on environmental responsibility in an engaging and meaningful way. These exhibits allow artists to connect their works to the world around them and encourage sustainable practices.
Museums Embrace Sustainability To Preserve Past, Future ANNAH OTIS
Hoya Staff Writer
Shining jewelry created from waste left on tropical beaches and eclectic furniture produced from repurposed materials are just some of the ways artists have attempted to transform their works to reflect notions of a sustainable world. Environmental concerns, like the onset of climate change and the impact of pollution, have inspired this new generation of artists to move beyond traditional materials and representations as a means of reconciling destructive human practices with cultural and aesthetic demands. Artists seek to make information about climate change accessible, understandable and personal by putting aside dense scientific data in favor of interactive or visually appealing projects. Museums and galleries have likewise launched ambitious sustainability efforts, and many of them regularly host environmentally inspired exhibits. In 2016, the Smithsonian Institution released an 87-page Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan in accordance with an executive order passed under former President Barack Obama, which directed federal agencies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Feasible energy-saving solutions must work alongside the Institution’s pre-existing waste-reduction mea-
sures, according to the Performance Plan. “Scientific evidence makes clear that climate change is underway and will pose increasing challenges in the coming years. Sea levels are rising, temperatures are increasing, and storms are becoming more intense, among other effects,” the Performance Plan states. “Climate change is already a threat to Smithsonian collections, buildings, grounds, operations, research, and personnel.” Several Smithsonian museums have also featured climate change-related exhibits in recent years, including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, which features a number of pieces collectively titled “Nature By Design.” Each piece demonstrates how humans have reappropriated natural motifs and materials into functional designware. On a more local scale, the pieces on view in Georgetown University’s Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery until Dec. 15 all repurpose materials to create multi-purpose works of art. “Design Transfigured/Waste Reimagined” features 30 international designers who transform waste and byproducts into attractive, functional objects. The exhibit includes pieces from the Roosegaarde Studio in Rotterdam, Netherlands, that incorporate condensed smog particles from industrial-strength air purifiers into jewelry. Artist and self-proclaimed innovator Daan Roosegaarde makes considerations in
his art for waste of all types, with acclaimed works like his Space Waste Lab, an outdoor visualization of space waste that constitutes an aesthetic and educational marvel. Exploring waste in its various forms, the Malai Studio uses agricultural waste from the coconut industry to make vegan accessories, and the Nienke Hoogvliet Studio creates furniture from the cellulose in wastewater. The objects themselves are beautiful, but their origin stories make them notable and memorable. Still, a debate exists about whether artists have a responsibility to use environmentally conscious materials, or if artistic work is exempted for the sake of cultural enrichment, according to Al Miner, director of the Maria & Alberto De La Cruz Art Gallery. “The primary responsibility of artists to society is to create artwork that impacts culture, whether that comes in the form of a painting whose imagery sparks dialogue about important global issues, or a sculpture that adds beauty to our landscape,” Miner said. “To impede the creative process does not serve humanity well.” For museums and galleries, though, reconciling their commitment to preserving the past with the modern demands of climate change is important but challenging. Sustainable practices can be financially and culturally draining, even for wellendowed institutions with good environmental habits, according to Miner.
“Museums exist to preserve and make accessible cultural heritage. This responsibility will and should always be their top priority,” Miner said. “Like many private citizens, museums struggle with the higher cost of some sustainable practices.” Climate change also affects many museums’ capability to create stable and protective climate environments for the artifacts and works of art that they house, according to Miner. “Something people outside our profession may not understand is the extent to which climate can impact museums,” Miner said. “Museums and conservators struggle to control climate inside their display and storage spaces; a big flux in temperature or relative humidity can cause irreversible damage to an art object.” The topic of sustainability is as big in the art world as it is in any other sector. Artists, curators, gallery directors and administrative staff are all working on the front lines of climate change. The artwork created, exhibited and promoted by these individuals forge the path for heightened awareness, according to Miner. “As more and more people, including artists, acknowledge the impact an individual can have on slowing or reversing devastating climate change, more will volunteer to embrace environmentally friendly materials,” Miner said.
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SUSTAINABLE FASHION
Pond Mesmerizes With Theatrical Dreamscape
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In the wake of increasingly wasteful and harmful practices, the fashion industry has recently come under fire for prioritizing profit over sustainability. However, many activists, stores and nonprofit groups have made great strides in ethically sourced clothing and environmental responsibility, serving as a powerful example of sustainable fashion.
Sustainable Fashion Moves Toward Ethical Sourcing MAEVE SILK
Special to The Hoya
Whether as an art form or as a means of self-expression, students use fashion as a marker of identity and representation while speaking to their personal values and beliefs. Fashion has come to represent this same intersection, as some voice moral complaints to increasing trends of fast fashion, which focuses on overseas factory production to minimize costs. Sustainable fashion aims to fill this niche and offer guilt-free clothing that, while more expensive, is ethically sourced. With the current political and social focus on environmental issues such as climate change, fashion has also been scrutinized as a potentially wasteful and harmful industry. Some are gradually beginning to replace the desire for a large quantity of cheap clothing with a new appreciation of sustainable quality over expansive quantity. While the definition of sustainable fashion can vary in specificity, it generally includes clothing that is ethically sourced and ecologically responsible, which involves the fair treatment of works and respect for the greater environment. While broad, this definition has value because it allows for a broad understanding of sustainable fashion for everyone, according to Emilia Ferrara (COL ’10) an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and
a board member of the D.C. Sustainable Fashion retailers within the GeorgeFashion Collective. town neighborhood are increasingly “There’s a very vast definition of sus- emphasizing the importance of sustaintainable fashion today, and that’s not a ability in fashion and one of them is The problem. It doesn’t need to be narrow and Phoenix. The boutique opened in 1955, specific, doesn’t need to be in a box.” Ferr- selling sustainable clothing, jewelry and ara said. “It just means that the definition housewares and has been sourcing its is varying as wide as a lot of different key items solely from ethical sources for deplayers and stakeholders cades. can participate, along The Phoenix features with people like you and many local and small me.” designers and creators, The DCSFC, a nonprofand uses its wide range it group founded in 2018, of fashion items and works to promote conhousewares to emphasumer education about size their diversity in sustainable and ethical creativity. The Phoenix practices in fashion and ensures that all of its supports businesses and products are created individuals working toethically by working ward sustainable fashion directly with creators, practices. according to Samantha The collective hosts Hays-Gushne, owner of different events, inThe Phoenix. EMILIA FERRARA (COL ’10) cluding an annual con“When my grandGeorgetown Professor ference called Fashparents started the ion Revolution Week, store in the 1950s, which aims to increase awareness of that was their ethos,” Hays-Gushne said sustainable fashion through panel dis- in an interview with The Hoya. “They cussions. Ferrara joined the board after were working directly with artists and attending its first annual conference artisans and so it was really sort of a last year, where she was moved by its natural progression for when I took the message of promoting fashion sustain- store over that we would maintain that ability in Washington, D.C., through its throughout the years.” interaction with locals and businesses. This ethos works to both help the art-
“There’s a very vast definition of sustainable fashion today, and that’s not a problem. It doesn’t need to be narrow and specific.”
ists and make the customers feel better about what they are purchasing, according to Hayes-Gushne. “The nice reactions that we get from the lines that we’re carrying, that people react really nicely to so that’s part of the reward,” Hayes-Gushne said. “Both working with the artists, but also secondarily having the customers react in a positive way.” While these stores are important and are furthering a vision of a sustainable world, Georgetown students on a personal level have other issues to focus on. Overconsumption is the biggest issue that students should be focused on within sustainable fashion, according to Ferrera. “It is very helpful to not buy new clothes and also very helpful to buy secondhand, if you were to shop that vintage stores that carry high luxury brands,” Ferrara said. “Or if you were to shop at, you know, smaller used clothing can use clothing the cheek or even Goodwill.” Students can also engage in activism, which includes sharing social media posts and articles highlighting issues within the fashion industry to get involved in the movement, according to Ferrara. “If you are reading about the sustainable fashion movement, if you are posting things on social media and if you are emailing friends and family articles, you can be a part of the sustainable fashion movement,” Ferrara said.
ILLUSTRATION BY: SAMUEL NELSON/THE HOYA