The self improvement industry is seeing annual growth of 6%, with an expected value of over $13 billion by 2022. As well as coaching and speakers, much of this spend is on self help books and audiobooks. This growth is being driven primarily by millennials, who are spending twice as much on self improvement than the generation preceding them.

We’ve become obsessed with self growth and the optimisation of our lives. YouTube is filled with 5AM morning routine videos, showing us the best habits to have a productive morning, from meditation to journaling to apple cider vinegar concoctions. ‘Hustle culture’…

With growing awareness of the environmental consequences of consumer-driven, wasteful, modern lifestyles has come new approaches to encouraging people to repair and reuse before buying anew.

Libraries of Things enable us to borrow seldom-used items for a fraction of the price. The right to repair law is set to be reintroduced in the UK. Zero waste shops encourage refilling of household items to cut packaging use.

In Japan, though, these notions of repairing and reusing are part and parcel of the culture and way of life. …

Last week a new world record number of daily deaths from Covid-19 was hit, in India. The situation in India is bleak, with rising cases, overflowing hospitals, shortages of oxygen, and mass cremations taking place in car parks to deal with overwhelming piles of bodies.

Yet, rewind just a few months to the start of 2021, and Covid-19 was thought to be under control in India, with very low cases. So what happened? Of course, it’s impossible to pinpoint the reason for this huge second surge. But, it’s clear that there were numerous ways in which India was vulnerable.

Despite…

Let’s start with a confession. I’m firmly against capitalism, but I work in marketing. There’s a huge oxymoron at play in my working life. Isn’t there?

Marketing is the core enabling force for capitalism. The very aim of marketing is to persuade an audience to do something. Working in marketing usually means finding ways to influence consumers to spend more of their money on your product or service. Marketing stimulates consumer spending, propping up our capitalist society.

As you’ll see from my Medium profile, I’m deeply concerned about climate change and its impacts. Our capitalist society, with it’s focus on…

H&M has been trying to position itself as a sustainable brand for a while now, most notably through their so-called Conscious Collection, which (quite rightly) got them slapped with a lawsuit in Norway for misleading marketing.

Their latest stunt has been their #looopit campaign, which has also marked the launch of their partnership with Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams, who has been appointed as their ‘Global Sustainability Ambassador’. …

Is there any major societal issue other than the climate emergency that we expect individuals to solve? I can’t think of one.

We’ve relied on governments and global health organisations to enforce mass rules to reduce the spreading of Covid-19 (to varying effect). If we’d left it up to individuals to choose to make the right decision, we know there would have been a mixed response.

We expect those holding the power — political leaders, institutions, large businesses — to lead change on important issues.

But when it comes to the climate emergency so much emphasis is placed on individual…

Fast fashion refers to the business model which replicates catwalk high-fashion trends, mass-producing for the mainstream consumer to purchase at a much lower cost.

It’s a model which thrives on constantly developing new styles, moving away from the traditional seasonal basis of new fashion lines being released. The low prices and constant new trends push consumers to buy new styles of clothing monthly, weekly — even daily. And it’s not helped by social media influencers who are now commonly paid to showcase and recommend these new styles, even creating their own lines in some cases.

Of course, this business model…

Have you ever noticed that female characters in film tend to take a backseat? Their role in the plot is all too often solely as the love interest or family member of a male protagonist. Women on screen also tend to be highly sexualised — think of the James Bond films, Tomb Raider, or pretty much every rom-com ever made.

Well, what if you could screen films before you watch to make sure women aren’t represented in this way? That’s where the Bechdel Test comes in.

Alison Bechdel brought the idea of the test into life in her 1985 cartoon…