Our latest FashMash Focus explored the role and responsibility of fashion influencers when it comes to communicating the climate crisis.
A key topic in sustainability is where responsibility lies - who should be leading the charge when it comes to driving change, and how can they do so to best effect? The short answer to a very complex and nuanced challenge, is everyone. If you look at the climate crisis as a ‘Super Wicked Problem’ (a term to Google if you don’t already know it!), then there isn’t a central authority and all of us have a role to play. Included within that are citizens, businesses, policymakers, you name it. But so too, for the incredible power they can have, are influencers.
So this is where we focused our latest Focus roundtable: the new age of influencers. Thank you to our incredible members who attended. Read on for some highlights:
ON VALUES
It’s easy when coming at things from the sustainability angle to suggest there should be an onus on anyone with a large following for sustainable communications. In reality, and to be frank, influencers tend today to split into two camps - those who make decisions on who to work with based on how they align with their values, and those who go with what is on trend and has the most commercial opportunity attached to it.
ON CREDIBILITY
The challenge for many influencers lies in credibility and authenticity. This is not only in the obvious sense of brands trying to work with those who consistently support sustainable causes, but refers to the way in which numerous names with large followings especially, shy away from talking about this subject for fear of being called out over it, or indeed for not coming across as knowledgeable or credible enough.
ON EDUCATION AND EDUCATING
There’s a responsibility accordingly for education - on the one hand for brands to help inform influencers on the changes the industry needs to see, and in a wider sense for influencers to see the opportunity in helping to educate their own wider audiences. To do so, the basis of social media culture needs to shift to allow for individuals to share openly where they are on their learning journey.
FashMash Focus is sponsored by Klaviyo.