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Rapanui is an Eco-Fashion company from the Isle of Wight, that makes Organic, Ethical clothing using Renewable Energy with award-winning traceability. Rapanui is about making eco-fashion cool.

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World Responsible Economic Forum

Category: Inside Rapanui

The World Responsible Economic Forum, Lille, France, Nov 2011: A place where the world gathers to share ideas about sustainable economies.

This year Rapanui was invited to talk about their story by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a leading voice for advocates of the circular economy, and alongside Vestas, the world's top wind turbine manufacturer.

Ellen MacArthur set up her foundation to raise awareness and help accelerate the integration of Circular Economies amongst consumers, businesses and governments. Current economies are based on a "Take, Make and Dispose" model, or linear economy, where at each stage of the process there is waste. Current environmental thinking is based on reducing the impact of this model - of recycling some of this waste, or trying to encourage people to 'use less' - this doesn't change the outcome it just buys us time. If the system doesn't work, trying to optimise it is a waste. What if we just changed the system?

This is the focus of the work by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and they promote ideas based on a new economic model - the circular economy - where materials and resources in the economy perform a loop: Imagine that Waste is Food - and that products are designed to be easily taken apart and reformed into new products, and that this whole system is powered by renewable energy? This is a circular economy.

As the principle was provided by the EMF, the renewable energy was provided by Vestas, who make arguably the world's best wind turbines, install them globally and who save us all 40 million tonnes of CO2(e) each year. We've had a bit of a struggle trying to get a wind turbine installed locally - Vestas showed us all that whilst that's been going on, they have been developing a new turbine that's taller than the London Gherkin and has a rotor diameter bigger than Wembley. It really hit home how important the race for green energy is and how easy it is to slip behind and let other countries benefit from a clean and secure energy future.

And then there was Rapanui. We were invited to try to put the ideas and system into a practical context and talk about how we've been putting Ellen MacArthur Foundations ideas into practise, designing a sustainable business model based on the circular economy, and putting some of the principles into practise, such as using Vestas turbines in our supply chain. Basically a case study of the type of new innovation-based companies which will need to be created to turn the market around by making business-as-usual obsolete.

We came home both proud to have been invited to such an event, a bit humbled to meet and be questioned by some household-name brands, businesses and people. It was a bit surreal at first but looking back it felt like a bit of a milestone. It's clear that sustainability is a hot topic, it's not going away and we're stoked to be involved.

Here's a little more on the Circular Economy for your viewing pleasure...