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#WisdomWednesday with Loop Swim - August '24

August 27 2024

A Dose of Eco Wisdom Every Wednesday

☀️ Loop fam, wow! That was one fast August! We hope you've all had a blissful summer and as we get ready for rooftop-drinks weather, here's a recap of our 🧠WISDOM WEDNESDAY🧩 posts for the month.

#WisdomWednesday 08.21

Yep, we are starting in reverse order! For WISDOM WEDNESDAY last week we wanted to spotlight how the fashion industry’s linear approach of ‘take, make, dispose’ has finally brought it full circle to face the consequences of its actions.

Read our co-founder, Itee Soni's piece, outlining solutions to the challenges ahead for the fashion industry as it finds itself in the eye of a climate change hurricane of its own making.

Click on image to read our full report

For decades fashion’s contributions to global warming hurt the planet in ways that didn’t really impact the industry itself. This is all changing now as extreme weather phenomena (no longer the exception, but the norm) disrupts its supply chain for raw materials, hinders manufacturing, and upends productivity standards around the globe.

In the end the answer is circularity, transparency, worker protections and basic ESG protocols that are not glamorous or anecdotal but entail putting in real work. Will it do it though? Read here.

#WisdomWednesday 08.14

🏅 This week WISDOM WEDNESDAY was an Olympic special. Has there been a more picturesque reminder of sportsmanship, passion, team spirit, and the power and inordinate joy of lifting each other up in these divided times than watching a beach volleyball tournament with the Eiffel Tower in the background or witnessing the first (albeit contested) all-Black podium at gymnastics.

But the legacy of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games goes beyond medal counts, world records, and controversies. Not only were they the first to achieve full gender parity, but aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, they were greenest ever.

Here are our highlights:

🌿 They aimed to cut plastic use and carbon emissions in half. To achieve this, they used and upgraded 95% of temporary or existing venues instead of building all new ones. The venues also used sustainable wood, chairs made from recycled plastic and installed solar panels.

⚡️ They connected sports venues to the power grid instead of highly polluting diesel generators and intend to follow this up for 300 other stadiums in the country.

🚴 The city built nearly 100 miles of bike lanes and new bike parking spaces – 10,000 of which will remain after the games.

♻️ Lasting benefits for the Seine-St.-Denis suburb where the newly erected athletes’ village will provide housing for 6,000 people (nearly a quarter in social housing). The aquatic center that was the venue for the diving competitions will be turned into a community sports center.

🌊 While some of the concerns for the games were the water quality of a cleaner Seine and the impact on marine life in Tahiti (about 10,000 miles away from Paris where the Olympic surfing was held), our concern was also the lack of sustainable activewear options amidst all the uniform sponsors for various participating countries.

⛹️ The exceptions: sustainable brands that stood out were Brazilian brand CARIUMA (uniform sponsor for Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovakia) and German brand PUMA (uniform sponsor for Jamaica). For more on these and other sponsors please check the Good On You app/website.

#WisdomWednesday 08.07

Earth Overshoot Day, 2024 - August 1

🌿 Each year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. It means that for the rest of the year, we are expanding our ecological deficit by using up local resources and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

🌎 Calculated by the Global Footprint Network, an award-winning international research and non-profit organization, Earth Overshoot Day has arrived earlier and earlier since the UN started collecting data in 1970. Human consumption now requires the natural resources of 1.75 worlds instead of a single one, and half of this is just for food.

🗺 A Country Overshoot Day reflects the ecological footprint of a country by comparing the population’s demand and the nation’s biocapacity.

☀️ BUT it’s not all doom and gloom. The campaign around Earth Overshoot Day aims to highlight the power humanity and its institutions have to #MoveTheDate back towards the end of the year. Earth Overshoot Day serves as a reminder that current consumption trends can be reversed to improve our quality of life. The difference we can make by living within nature’s means becomes apparent when we look at 2020. In the wake of pandemic lockdowns and reduced economic movement, Earth Overshoot Day got pushed back to 22 August. But in 2021, it had moved forward by nearly a month, to 29 July.

That's it for #WisdomWednesday for August! We hope you find our updates relevant, illuminating and engaging. Please connect with us in Instagram and Facebook @loopswim for weekly updates.