Can the results be — in addition to
longer lives for the toaster and vacuum — reduced global greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions and a more equitable economy?
If Sandra Goldmark — Director of Sustainability and Associate Professor of
Professional Practice in the theatre department at NYC’s Barnard College,
and the owner of the defective appliances — has anything to say about it, the
answers will be resounding yeses.
To Goldmark, a circular economy (i.e. consumption of goods that generate zero or
little waste, with reuse and repurposing of products becoming the norm) will be
“beautiful, sustainable and accessible.”
Her vision for this is on display until June 28 at Good Stuff, a vibrant
pop-up installation in Lower Manhattan’s Seaport District that features
a plethora of, well, good stuff:
-
Good new stuff: Innovative, socially and environmentally conscious
clothing and home goods.
-
Good used stuff: Reclaimed clothing and home goods, and original
refashioned designs.
-
Good fixes for your stuff: Drop-off repair of lamps, chairs, jewelry and
more; plus workshops that teach visitors how to fix their stuff.
-
Thoughtful stuff: Panel discussions throughout the four-week event delve
into 1) living well in a circular economy, 2) building systemic change
through policy and collective action, and 3) how to extend healthier, more
sustainable lifestyles to communities that have been largely excluded to
this point.
Of course, Good Stuff would not exist without the aforementioned broken
appliances.
“It was Spring of 2013,” Goldmark recalled. “I was home on maternity leave with
my second son. I couldn’t sleep. And my stuff was breaking all at the same time,
it seemed: the toaster, the vacuum and more. I could’ve afforded new stuff but I
wanted mine to work! And I didn’t want to propagate the global system of linear
consumption — extract, consume, discard — that is creating lasting environmental
and social damage. Most importantly, I wanted my kids to grow up in a world that
would be less threatened by the negative impacts of manufacturing of tons of
new, unnecessary stuff all over the world, which all too quickly becomes trash —
to the tune of 150 million tons of landfill annually in the US alone.”
Once she could get her baby to nod off, Goldmark still couldn’t sleep. So, she
kept thinking about fixing lamps, vacuums and whatnot. This is not surprising
when one considers that the Yale Drama School MFA worked for years as an
environmentally minded theatrical set designer in New York. She had gotten sick
and tired of filling dumpster after dumpster with stuff, some of which could
have been reused or repurposed.
Goldmark’s insomnia — along with some funding from Indiegogo and a small
research grant from Barnard — led to the birth of
Fixup, a pop-up repair shop launched with her husband,
Michael Banta. The shop opened for the month of June 2013 in her northern
Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood, in an empty storefront that had been a
pharmacy.
Fixup was an immediate hit: In that one month, Goldmark, Banta and others fixed
500 items, from lamps, jewelry and ceramics to small furniture and more — and
the press followed.
“Michael and I were interviewed on MSNBC after our first Fixup, as exemplars
of a nascent ‘Stuff Movement’,” Goldmark marveled. “I did a TEDx talk in
2014. A potential investor got in touch and asked, ‘What would you do with a
million dollars?’ I didn’t have a great answer at that time — I was just running
this one tiny, experimental shop — but I saw there could be potential on a big
scale for new revenue models that include reuse, repair and maintenance.”
Christmas 2013 saw Goldmark and Banta run a more ship-shape Fixup. They raised
prices a bit, which allowed them to pay their workers $20 per hour. Business
was good and Fixup’s small profit was earmarked to fund the next one. Between
2014 and 2018, Fixup ran two to three month-long pop-ups each year.
The thing is, Goldmark has far bigger ambitions. She wants to play a role in
scrapping the core, linear-consumption-oriented business model that has
dominated the world since the Industrial Revolution. In its place would be a
scaled-up circular economy.
Good Stuff serves as Goldmark’s next step: “It came to my mind last fall. I
thought we needed to go beyond repair — to connect the dots on the full cycle of
consumption. So, I thought about a venue that would also be suitable to offer
good used and upcycled stuff. Good new products, made to last longer and
formatted for reuse, would also be welcomed.”
Goldmark sprang into action. A vacant 2,200-square-foot, two-story space on the
heavily foot-trafficked Front Street in the heart of Seaport was secured in
February.
Knowing that Good Stuff would be a much bigger undertaking than Fixup and that
the space would have to dazzle — in a vintage, lived-in, yet welcoming way —
Goldmark sought out partners. Lauren Fay, founder and Executive Director of
the New Fashion
Initiative, runs her
nonprofit to bring awareness about the environmental impact of fashion. When
Goldmark approached her with the initial idea, she quickly signed on to co-host
the event and develop Good Stuff programming, partnerships and marketing. And
like-minded partner brands including Pact,
Made in NY Fashion, The Renewal Workshop,
Closed Loop
Ventures,
REI, Make Fashion
Circular
and Remade in Brooklyn came on board.
The homey vibe Goldmark and Fay were going for was apparent from the moment I
entered Good Stuff on its opening Friday night.
Living room and dining room set-ups in the front offered a warm welcome to
curious passersby. Shoppers rifled through racks filled with an eclectic
selection of Good New and Good Used clothes. The repair shop in the back was
being readied for an upcoming workshop.
The evening concluded with a thought-provoking panel discussion, “Redefining
growth, or what is the circular economy really all about.” It was packed with
40-50 people, all ready to jump start a circular economy.
The key question is, how do we turn those 40- 50 people into
4,000,000-5,000,000. And that multiplication has to happen quickly: According to
the IPCC's 2018 report, humanity has about 12 years
to decarbonize by 45 percent if we are to avoid the most calamitous effects of
climate change.
Goldmark has long believed “big box” retailers — key facilitators of our stuff
problems — need to be big parts of the solutions.
“Back in 2012, I told Michael that Walmart should have a repair shop in
every store. Fast-forward to today and you see IKEA management
saying
that the West has reached ‘peak stuff.’ These big brands are starting to work on
these issues. The questions are: What will they do about it, and when?”
In the meantime, Goldmark’s team will figure out what worked at Good Stuff and
what didn’t — and then, they will decide how to do it better and much bigger.
To find out more about Good Stuff, including when you can stop by, please
visit http://goodstuff.nyc.
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Lew Blaustein writes and edits the GreenSportsBlog, the source for news and commentary about the ever more crowded intersection of sustainability + sports.
Published Jun 19, 2019 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST