Dynamic Realities
Featured Sustainable Fashion: Textiles and Microplastics
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Alessia Vacca
The global fashion industry is one of the largest and influential industries in the world. There is a plethora of applications of plastics in the fashion industry. Synthetic fabrics shed microplastics when washed and end up in the oceans posing risks to marine species and human health. Indeed, about 60% of textile fibres are synthetic. Most of our clothes contain plastics like polyester, nylon, rayon, acrylic and polyamide. This fact poses the question of both legal and social accountability of the fashion industry to reduce the production of plastics. This paper explores the efficacy of the current international and regional legal frameworks (EU) that regulate the use of plastics in the fashion industry. In order to tackle the problem of plastic-use in fashion industry, the ‘sustainable fashion’ concepts will be explored, which sit opposite with ‘fast fashion’. Based on the assumption that ‘sustainable fashion’ should the way forward to achieve ‘sustainability’ leading to circularity in the fashion industry, to what extent the current legal instruments support the sustainable fashion concepts will be the heart of this presentation. The successful promotion and the practical implementation of the sustainable fashion trend encouraged by the mixture of soft and hard law will ultimately lead to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and to the reduction of the plastic-use in the fashion industry, which is relevant to combat climate change. The relevant stakeholders should also have a pivotal role for climate action, for reducing the use of plastics and protecting the sea/ocean.
Dealing with Climate Change: How “Generation Z” Copes with Complexity and Ambiguity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Janne Fengler, Stefanie Greubel
Dealing with climate change and its effects and finding a way to respond to it can be seen as one of the most pressing challenges of our time. In the face of this far-reaching global development, the so-called “Generation Z” is currently facing particular challenges to prove itself in a world which is experienced as volatile, uncertain, complex and full of ambiguities. The paper focuses on the overarching question of how young people of this age group deal with this challenge and to what individual behavioral goals are being achieved. In a quasi-experimental study, N = 2219 German students aged 12 to 18 years from schools with different pedagogical focuses were surveyed with questionnaires. The constructs included personal, systemic and social resources, environmental knowledge, attitudes towards sustainability and environmental behavior. Descriptive and multivariate analyses show that students are very sensitive to sustainability issues. The data provides a differentiated insight into the relationship between attitudes and behavior and shows that young people experience similarities and discrepancies in their own internal and external dealings with the climate catastrophe. Implications for education, social work and politics can be derived from this understanding.
Sustainability of a World of Time: Proposed Elements of Sustainability and Their Opponents
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maximilian M. Etschmaier
We define sustainability for a world of time in which everything has a beginning and an end, as does time itself, and as does, on its own, every element of the world. Every creature and every material element represents a purposeful system that descended from the original purposeful system which was created at the beginning of time and possessed all information necessary to evolve (unfold), through its offspring, the entire world, while fully respecting the free will of every offspring. Based on the free will, every element, within its unique circumstances, is charting its own path, from its beginning to its end. And sustainability can only be realized by every creature on its own, seeking harmony with, and respect for the uniqueness of all other creatures. Humans represent only a small part of this world. They contribute to sustainability through an evolutionary process of emerging policy measures. Access to information and the truth is of critical importance and needs to be freely available to all persons. Ethical norms as well as technologies and economic orders directing benefits to select individuals and groups impede the overall sustainability system.
