Welcome to the Education for Climate Talks, the podcast

where we explore how education and green theory can drive climate action.

I am Petra and today we are focusing on green careers,

especially how professionals can bridge the gap between science

and public understanding.

Our guest, Sibille Diederichs, started out as a fashion designer in the 90s.

Just as fast fashion was taking off.

Concerned by the waste and pollution in the industry,

she became a pioneer in circular fashion long before the term existed.

She launched Joseffa Live Twice and later co-founded Seal Up in

Mechelen, Belgium, where she leads an international team and mentors

young professionals in sustainability, design and production.

In this episode, we'll explore

what it takes to build a multifaceted career.

The essential skills you need

and how young professionals can break into circular fashion.

Whether you're a student considering your career path,

a young professional looking to focus on sustainability, or an educator

helping others navigating green career options, this conversation will offer

practical insights

into turning your passion for the environment into meaningful work.

Thank you, Sibille, for

accepting our invitation.

So let's start.

Can you please share your personal journey

into sustainability and circular fashion?

Yes. Thank you also for, first of all,

for asking me, and interviewing me.

My journey, as you said, started in the 90s.

I have done a fashion

bachelor's degree, where I was lucky to have as well as

creative training,

a technical training.

And I worked

for many years, on the creative side.

Always

based on my technical

knowledge, which has always been

an asset in all my work.

I started out in the 90s with big fashion

companies back then, and,

in all my

projects and clients,

I was sensitive

to the problem of waste and the problem of sustainability.

Even when in the 90s, it was not such a big issue.

It was really

not a concern

for most people.

So, waste from production

was something that I saw and I thought, that's a lot of waste there.

And also, I had the chance to participate in a Congress,

an international congress on organic cotton,

in the beginning of the 2000s,

where really it was an eye opener,

about pollution in the fashion industry, which was totally unknown back then.

So then I really wanted to work in

sustainable projects, which was not easy for a freelance designer.

And I was so lucky again that

around 2014,

I had the chance to start my own brand.

And I focused,

I chose to focus on circularity,

because waste is really a problem

that concerns us all, whether we are

into organics or not.

Waste is a problem that we are all confronted with.

And so that's how I built up

my own brand, which is called Joseffa Live Twice

Interesting story.

You also have CiLab Collective, right?

What is it?

And, what are the main goals?

Yeah.

CiLab was founded by

one friend, a researcher for circularity

and myself and a repair artist.

And we were all,

the objective

for all of us was to create a place where circularity

is practically possible.

As from my point of view, I ran into a lot

of practical problems

from how industry and how

sourcing and how distribution is organised,

in a very, very linear way and very, very, optimised way.

But it's not very suitable for circular processes.

So, with the knowledge I gathered

from Joseffa, and with the knowledge from

Jan and

Clinton, back then

we founded CiLab in order

to provide a place where we can experiment

with circular processes in fashion

and provide a service for companies who have leftovers, for companies

who want to start up a repair system

for designers with circular ideas

and to build up knowledge about it

and to provide local production capacity.

So we work with people who come from

other countries who bring technical knowledge

to Belgium, technical experience or whom we train ourselves.

So, right now we are working with

one person from Afghanistan, one person from Syria, one person

from Pakistan and one person from Ukraine.

And it's a very wonderful team.

And, we have lots of very, very interesting projects

in which we can broaden circular knowledge,

offer coaching about circular understanding,

offer assistance in circular design,

in circular pattern cutting and circular production capacity.

That's amazing.

Basically do you work locally

still or internationally?, This is just a follow up

question, just for me and for the listeners to understand.

So if there is a fast fashion brand, you can provide them

with coaching for the waste they have, to give a second life to it?

For example?

Yes, what we do is we provide coaching

if wanted, training if you want it, and also services for reduction

or transformation of waste into something

that will fit into their

commercial circuit.

So we will not transform

waste of others and try to sell it off ourselves.

That's not our business.

We provide the service so that the brand

will be able also to test how their customers

react to a circular product.

See, they will provide their waste,

whether it is production defects or whether it's unsold goods

or collected goods from post-consumer.

And we will transform them into a product

which they can resell to their own customers.

Very interesting this project that you have!

And how do you think it contributes to shaping

green careers in this industry, in the fashion industry?

Well, we have, as I said, most clients who come in,

they have no experience with circularity.

They may have very interesting ideas, most of the time,

but it's their logistics system

and their working system that are not adapted to circular projects.

So we accompany them,

while we're working on their project,

we need to make a design which conforms to their idea.

So we work with the designers, but we also work

with the buying department.

So they get used to circular ways of working.

Then we also

work with the logistics department,

who also have to be sensitised to circularity.

We work with the marketing department because they also want to document

most of the time the projects that are

are being initiated and so on.

On the professional side,

we do a lot of sensitisation by working on the projects.

Gradually during the project, people understand how it works

On the other side, we do collaborations with fashion schools.

We do projects with the students.

Students come in for workshops on circularity.

We have a lot of interns who come in

for either just a week or for four weeks or for three months.

Depending on

the studies they are following,

and they are really immersed into circularity.

You do a great job.

I'm very interested in this theme.

What competencies and skills

do you think are essential in your work?

Particularly those aligned with the green career pathways

In order to set up a circular project or a circular career,

one needs the

the first asset that's absolutely necessary is an open mind

because we have to work in another way than how the system is.

So we have to find solutions all the time, all the time, all the time.

We have to find solutions.

And we cannot have a mind which says,

"OK this is not possible, then we don't do it".

That's not a green career state of mind.

Mindset.

So an open mind is really, according to me, that's the starting point.

And then,

what we notice

is that when we want to set up circular projects

as all departments or all states

of the production of a product are linked,

we need different departments to work together

closely, much closer than what we are used to.

The design department has absolutely to work with the production department

in order to create valid circular design.

Then the production department needs

to work absolutely closely

with logistics and sales and marketing.

They all need to be on the same wavelength

to make it happen.

And that's part of the open mind that I'm talking about.

But also I think,

polyvalence is very important in circularity.

So we cannot be specialised in one option,

like for example, pattern cutting.

We have to

have notions of design in order to be

a circular pattern cutter, in order to be a circular designer,

we have to have notions of pattern cutting

and of marketing and of sales.

And in order to work

on the marketing of circular

marketing projects, we have to understand what the technical challenges

were in order to really understand the value of the product we create.

So we really need to understand every step

of the life of the production

process, actually in order to work on circularity.

That's really what I think is most important

when we train people

to work or prepare people to work on circular projects.

Nowadays we are like

we live in a society that wants things very fast.

So having fast fashion for everyone

that doesn't have time, it's very nice

because you just have new collections every week.

And people just don't think they just buy,

I feel it's just the consumption

and the capitalism speaking per se, but then they don't see the other parts.

Most of the waste goes to Africa.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

And then you see the the ocean near Ghana

and Kenya full of wasted clothes of the big brands.

So, it goes to my next question.

What does it take to engage

people in reshaping the fashion industry?

We have to consume less.

I mean, we cannot continue to produce so much waste, but it's not,

a very sexy message to people.

Many people don't want to think about it.

And many people think, oh, it's

just one piece, and it's not me who will make the difference.

You know?

But what I find is not known to people

is that circular fashion has an incredible variety of styles

because actually, most circular pieces are unique pieces.

And so if we want a lot of variety

in our closet,

if we have all circular pieces, wow, it's

so incredible, unique and so there's such an incredible variation.

If people look at it in that way, people might get really fascinated

by circular fashion and would find fast fashion,

where every piece exists 200,000 times the same,

has no interest anymore.

Exactly. But then they can argue

that circular fashion would be more expensive than the fast fashion one.

So as you said, it's only me.

I cannot change the world.

So it's just one piece.

So I think people should see the facts

and what the waste is generating in our world.

That's true.

We don't,

when we buy, a garment,

we don't have to pay

for the waste that it will generate.

That might change.

Also, what might change is

the price of virgin resources.

I think in the long term

linear, fast fashion can only get more expensive

because resources will get more scarce

and will become more expensive.

And at a certain point,

circular processes will get more optimised

and circular production processes will become less expensive.

And so I think, I hope

prices will go down

for circular fashion and prices will go up for linear fashion.

At a certain point they will meet where then

the choices,

are more based on

what do I really like and not just what can I afford.

I hope we can reach that part.

There will be very good.

Also, you mentioned that you work with interns.

They go to you, they learn from you.

And, do you think that fashion and the education

sectors can learn from each other and support each other?

We can, of course, transmit what

is necessary in our eyes

to become or to to set up circular processes and circular fashion.

But then when we work with young people

from 15 to 25,

they have new ideas they have an interesting view on fashion.

They have

lots of

concerns for sustainability.

So they are very motivated

to take what we can

give them and transform it into something which will make the future.

So for us, it is extremely valuable to work with the young people and for them

we can give them our technical knowledge and, our experience.

So yeah, of course

we are always very happy to work with young people.

And we even would like to... we have even one school who

has started a circular program according to our inputs.

And we think it would be interesting to continue

that and to,

integrate circularity

into fashion programs, based on experience.

And maybe you can replicate that project if it goes well to other schools

so they can start shaping young people's minds

around this problem that is

fashion waste.

So we are coming to an end of our talk.

And if you were to give a

single piece of advice for young professionals,

who want to build a green career and be a positive change in our society,

what it would be?

You have to persist,

you will have to run a little bit

against the wind for a while, but just know that

we have already run against the wind for ten years.

So the biggest wind has already been taken.

We're going up in the lift of circularity and sustainability.

So don't hesitate to choose a green career.

You just have to be really

confident

that that's what makes sense.

And, in order to have something to cling onto,

I always think well, human society

has been based on circular circularity and sustainability

for thousands of generations.

And now in the 20th

and 21st century, we have two generations

who work really in a linear way.

And the world is full of waste,

and we need to do something about it.

And it's totally natural for human beings

to work on circularity and sustainability.

So yeah, just go for it!

Thank you so much, Sibille.

I will just summarize this talk as:

let's have hope and don't give up, right?

Yeah. Thank you Petra.

Thank you. It was very nice talking to you.

Thank you so much.