Earth Logic Fashion Action Research Plan

Earth Logic Fashion Research Action Plan by Kate Fletcher and Mathilda Tham presents an alternative way of researching, buying, and governing sustainable fashion. Fletcher, professor at the Center for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK, and Tham, professor in design at Linnaeus University, Sweden, propose a new paradigm that rejects the fashion industry’s current dependency on growth. The idea to publish Earth Logic was a response to a 2018 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that stated that humans had only a decade to change their actions to avert catastrophic climate change. In the Earth Logic plan, Earth is placed first before everything else, including and especially profit. Earth Logic is a brief, seventy-three page, open-source book (available from earthlogic.info). It begins with an introduction that provides valuable context to the following sections and serves as a helpful glossary to some terms the authors employ. The introduction is followed by three main sections: part 1, “Values-Explicit Context”; part 2, “Earth Logic Research Implications”; and part 3, “Holistic Earth Logic Landscapes for Fashion Action Research.” Part 1 describes eight core values of the Earth Logic research plan. They include multiple centers, interdependency, diverse ways of knowing, co-creation, action research, grounded imagination, care of world, and care of self. The values are linked. Multiple centers involve acknowledging everything that has a stake on Earth, including non-human species, nature, users, community, and non-western perspectives. By bringing in other centers, researchers can begin to see how all things, ideas, and relationships are interdependent and how diverse ways of thinking can evolve from this interdependency. Cocreation with a diverse set of knowledge brings in new skills, ideas, and actions. Once one has considered the interrelation of these values, action research begins. This type of research involves the steps of exploration, practice, and