The UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 12.8 is to ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature. That's exactly why the organization Fashion for Good approached our firm with a mission to not just re-educate consumers on more sustainable purchasing habits, but to actually get consumers to commit to changing their behavior on the spot. How could we create that shift in perspective to give consumers a feeling of personal responsibility and agency to create a more sustainable future?

Currently, the fashion industry creates 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions a year (roughly 1.2 trillion tonnes). Fashion is stuck in a pattern of ‘take-make-waste’, which causes devastating environmental impacts, not to mention huge economic losses. On average, we buy 60% more clothing than we did 15 years ago — but we keep each item only half as long. Plus, it is estimated that nearly 60% of all clothing produced ends up being disposed of within a year of being made. The fashion industry can transform from the linear ‘take-make-waste’ model to a circular Good Fashion approach that is restorative and regenerative by design.

The Fashion for Good Experience is the first interactive tech museum dedicated to sustainable fashion innovation. The three-story Experience includes an Innovation Lounge where visitors can discover innovators who are about to disrupt the fashion industry. In its Good Shop, the Experience showcases curated product collections that are built around inspiring themes and swapped out every four months, as well as action stations where visitors can commit to practical action items via their RFID bracelet. At the T-shirt Design Studio, visitors can design their own Cradle-to-Cradle Certified T-shirt and print it on site to take home. Visitors can also take a selfie in the infinity mirror at the entrance of the museum or take a kaleidoscopic selfie in the GIF booth in the Innovation Lounge and send it to a visually-striking installation to demonstrate their commitment towards good fashion.

Our solution to the challenge of changing consumer behavior to more sustainable practices goes into action the moment visitors enter the Fashion for Good experience. Every visitor can take an RFID-bracelet they can use to collect commitments and badges that represent practical actions. Those actions turn into a personalized digital guide, a Good Fashion Action Plan, that visitors can take home to help them become more conscious fashion customers. The engagement continues as guests can stay connected to the Fashion for Good Movement through special programming, digital campaigns, workshops and events that are being organized in the Fashion for Good building.

The three-story museum includes an Innovation Lounge where visitors can discover over 50 innovators who are about to disrupt the fashion industry, and innovative solutions that are already implemented like a Stella McCartney dress dyed by Colorifix using engineered microorganisms or a waist coat made entirely out of mushroom material. In its Good Shop on the first floor, the Fashion for Good Experience showcases current concepts that show good fashion is already available today. The next-generation retail space features curated product collections that are built around inspiring themes and swapped out every four months, as well as action stations where visitors can commit to practical actions via their RFID bracelet. On the same floor in the T-shirt Design Studio, visitors can design their own Cradle-to-Cradle Certified T-shirt and print it on site to take home.

The free Experience is now playing host to hundreds of visitors per day since opening in October 2018, drawing in tourists and locals alike to consider how they as individuals can become better advocates and practitioners of good fashion.

Forbes: “The 40,000 square foot [experience] couldn’t be more perfectly timed or ahead of the curve. One of the things that shines a bright light of hope these days is the surge of caring that is sweeping the world. Hopefully it will serve as a blueprint not just for other museums internationally, but for retailers who want to create more awareness and emotional connection to their customers by setting similar retail spaces that combine gaming, learning and fun together with shopping.”