For her Spring Summer 2020 Womenswear Show, Gabriela Hearst worked with EcoAct and Bureau Betak to examine every necessary aspect of its production, design and installation process, in an effort to reduce the resulting carbon footprint to its very minimum.

Bureau Betak worked to minimize the amount needed to be offset, thereafter recording and reporting on power usage, transportation, catering, and waste, for EcoAct to calculate the resulting emissions of the show, evaluate the overall carbon footprint, and determine the consequential offset amounts.

The indicative price for the offset amount was donated to the Hifadhi-Livelihoods Project in Embu and Tharaka Nithi Counties of Kenya. The project is financed and developed by The Livelihoods Fund in partnership with EcoAct. Cookstoves will be provided for these areas in Kenya where access to energy is limited and the communities are dependent on local biomass from forests. The project is not just about reducing carbon, it’s about enhancing people’s lives. Cookstove efficiency reduces wood usage by 60%, which means time spent gathering wood is reduced from 12 hours to 5 hours weekly, impacting women and children primarily. Health is also improved by reducing the emissions of noxious gases in the home.

Guests received a scarf featuring insects that have recently gone extinct and a donation has been made on their behalf to Our Children’s Trust to help secure the constitutional right to a safe climate.

EcoAct (https://eco-act.com/) is an international advisory consultancy and project developer that works with clients to meet the demands of climate change. They work with many large and complex multinational organizations to offer solutions to their sustainability challenges. They believe that climate change, energy management and sustainability are drivers of corporate performance and they seek to address business or organizational problems and opportunities in an intelligent way.