Compassion versus Consumerism

Charlotte Zamboni
Global Action Plan
Monday 30th March 5.00pm

Natasha Parker, of environmental charity Global Action Plan, leads a discussion focussed on the damage of consumerism and how we can all use our compassionate side to challenge these harmful consumerist values.

The discussion will raise the fundamental but tricky questions about the harms caused by consumerism. We will spark the big conversation about what next after consumerism. And we’ll reflect on how we can draw out the compassion which is in all of us to crowd out these damaging consumerist values.

Featuring four journalists and broadcasters who bring a different take to how we meet the challenges brought about by our consumerist society.

Natasha Parker (Chair) is Head of Wellbeing and Consumerism at environmental charity Global Action Plan. She is using her expertise in the science of happiness from her MSc in Applied Positive Psychology to head up our Compassion Beats Consumerism movement which is helping young people explore how they can live great lives with less stuff. She’s so passionate about the project she’s even doing it as her PhD. She became fascinated with what really makes us happy after spending 5 years working with people with addictions and helping them find life exciting again without drugs and alcohol. She’s convinced the answer lies in the quality of our relationships and our experiences and not in what we own.

Wayne Hemingway (Panellist) has been in the fashion and design industry for four decades. He started his career selling old clothes in Camden Market which eventually led to the first collection for Red or Dead. Wayne built Red or Dead into a globally-celebrated label. In 1999, fresh from the sale of Red or Dead, Wayne and his wife Gerardine embarked on a new adventure: HemingwayDesign.
Wayne spent 6 years as a Design Council Trustee Board and having been with CABE for a decade since its inception (as Chair of Building For Life), has been a Mayor’s London Leader and currently supports the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan as a Design Advocate. Wayne co-leads The Good Business Festival https://thegoodbusinessfestival.com/.
He is an advisor to House of Commons Select Committees on coastal regeneration, got an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list of 2006, is a Professor in The Built Environment Department of Northumbria University, a Doctor of Design at Wolverhampton, Lancaster and Stafford, and an Honorary Fellow of Blackburn College, the University of Cumbria and Regents University. (Just call him Prof, Doc, Doc, Doc Wayne Hemingway MBE, BSc, MA, Esquire.)

James Wallman (Panelist) is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and futurist. He runs strategy, innovation, and futures consultancy The Future is Here. Recent clients include KPMG, HSBC, KFC, IDEO, and Facebook. He has written two international best-selling books: Time And How To Spend It (Penguin, 2019 – named one of the Books Of The Year 2019 by the Financial Times) and Stuffocation (Penguin, 2015).
Wallman has advised companies from Absolut to Zurich Financial. He has given talks from Amsterdam to Las Vegas; at venues including the Googleplex and 10 Downing Street. He has forecast the future since 2004. His opinions have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Economist, and Wired. He has appeared on TV and radio from Australia to Brazil and the US.

Lucy Siegle (Panelist) is an independent writer and journalist (broadcast and print). She has been battling to tell stories about the Earth, crisis and opportunity for nearly 20 years in the mainstream media and is the first to admit: results have been mixed. In the fashion industry she is known as an authority on the environmental and social footprint of the global fashion industry. Her book To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing out the World , published by Fourth Estate London, 2011 was also the basis for hit Netflix documentary, The True Cost, in which Siegle appears and is credited as co-executive producer. In 2014 she co-founded the Green Carpet Challenge with Livia Firth. From 2004 to 2018 she wrote a weekly Ethical Living column in the Observer Magazine. As a reporter and presenter on BBC1’s The One Show, she has been reporting on the problem of single use plastic and wider eco issues since the show began in 2007. Her book, Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (and you) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again was published by Trapeze/Orion in August. Lucy is the co-host of a forthcoming podcast on climate and the media in partnership with Frontline Club and Sony Music. She is passionate about securing more airtime for the climate crisis and other biosphere issues.

Jacques Peretti (Panelist) is an investigative reporter and broadcaster based in London. He has written articles for The Guardian, Wired and the Huffington Post.
After graduating from the London School of Economics, Peretti became an investigative journalist whose award-winning television series include The Men Who Made Us Fat, The Super Rich & Us, and Trillion Pound Island.