It has taken way too long, but fashion industry is finally taking the sustainability issues seriously – although not seriously enough, yet. By fashion industry, I don’t mean just the brands: while it’s ridiculous that they’ve gotten away with doing nothing for so long, the fashion media and influential bloggers haven’t really pushed them very hard in that direction, either.

It is my personal belief that overall, we cannot expect individual consumers to save the planet through their choices. There needs to be a policy framework in place that ensures that, it is unfair to expect a single mother (or father) in rural Estonia to go through all the information, analyse it and make purchasing decisions that are right for the environment, climate, animal welfare, fair labour practices, and whatever other issues we need to tackle. This does not mean that people cannot exert pressure and cannot make better choices. Every plastic bag not purchased is one plastic bag less potentially harming the planet. Every ethically made garment represents better pay for someone and less burden on the environment.

Sustainability presents specific challenges for bloggers and influencers more broadly. People create different content, of course, but classic (life)style bloggers generally need to buy new things to provide the content, look right and keep people excited. For many (not including me, obviously:)), there are also flights to exotic places and glamorous hotels, not necessarily great for one’s carbon footprint.*

The fact is that the best thing we can do is to buy less. This is, however, not what most of us want to do. We want to keep consuming, just without the guilt. I don’t think capitalism is going away any time soon and I personally am not ready to stop buying clothes (although I have cut down). There are things we can do, though, and one of them is to go for pieces that are (more) sustainably made. While it may not solve the world’s problems, it will nudge the market in the right direction and yes, make you feel less guilty. IF we are going to consume anyway, we can at least do it a little bit better.

Through a happy coincidence, H&M was launching another of their Conscious Exclusive collections as I was thinking about this piece. This seemed like a good omen, as I did not want to buy any clothes for a piece on sustainability – for obvious reasons. Fortunately, the collection is also really lovely and H&M is doing genuinely interesting things with the materials. This is what I appreciate when it comes to H&M: they do some serious innovation which I think is necessary if we want to reconcile our desire for the new with actually having a functioning planet.

This time around, they have used orange fiber made out of citrus peel; Pinatex that is made of pineapple leaves and looks like leather (I will show you the boots soon!) and BLOOM Foam, made of algae. The blue dress I’m wearing here is literally made out wood (Tencel), sustainably managed of course, and the golden sequins of the other dress consist mostly of recycled plastic. The printed maxi dress uses more conventional organic linen, but it’s just beautiful.

I fully understand and respect that many people are suspicious of corporations and their sustainability efforts and also here, I don’t think we can have enough progress without regulatory action. That said, I think that for a big company like H&M, to already have 57% of all the materials recycled or sustainably sourced and aiming to become carbon positive by 2040, is a big deal.

Do you make any efforts to shop more sustainably? Any favourite brands?

*Before we judge them too harshly, let’s keep in mind that this is their job. Businessmen flying between continents on a regular basis are not vilified on social media for that.

Images by Getter Kuusma, MUAH by Erle Taklai. All the pieces (apart from the golden Zara sandals) by H&M Conscious Exclusive, borrowed for the shoot and available online as of 11 April. H&M helped me out with the photographer, but no other perks have been involved. I am very grateful to Oivaline for letting us shoot at their lovely cafe.