Stephanie Osmond

Earlier this month, Bees Blessing launched its new range of all-natural cordials at the Empire in Petone, New Zealand, serving food and drinks, and demonstrating recipes (including lemon honey mojitos, cucumber socks fizz and spiced syrup marinade).
   The new range comprises New Zealand’s only honey-sweetened all-natural cordials, says the company, which makes its own pure honey from hives at its 22 ha Kau Whero Farm in the Mangaroa Valley, and sources more from local suppliers.
   Offerings include mulled lemon and honey, and strawberry cordial, alongside more traditional fare such as lemon, honey and ginger, cider vinegar and honey, and elderflower. To top it off, they are all hand-made.
   The family business—a New Zealand success story—has grown from selling honey at local farmers’ markets to innovative marinades, dressings and cordials, free from additives and preservatives, retailing at boutique retailers nationally (such as Commonsense Organics and Moore Wilson in Wellington).






Stephanie Osmond and courtesy Bees Blessing

Above Starfish’s Laurie Foon, championing sustainability and living the brand.

As a pioneer in the field of ethical business practices and sustainability, it should come as no surprise that New Zealand designer Starfish is the first fashion label to win a New Zealand Sustainable Business Award. Appropriately, Starfish director and head designer Laurie Foon has been collaborating with like-minded organizations to bring her show to this year’s New Zealand Fashion Week catwalk.
   Wellington’s celebrated eco-fashion label continues on an upward trajectory as Lunatopia, its autumn–winter 2012 collection, dares to dream big. This ambition can be seen through Starfish’s business practices and its ethical choices with their clothes, stores, communications, everyday practices and participation in industry initiatives. Of the choice to secure a range of sponsorship partners who share the dream of sustainable business practices, says Foon, ‘Two voices speak louder than one. We’ve learned that the more we share our experiences, the stronger we contribute to raising awareness and action. Together, we believe we can co-create conscious consumer choices in the daily lives of our customers.’
   Just as all Starfish garments are entirely and proudly made in New Zealand promoting sustainable fashion, Foon notes, ‘The partners we seek are innovative thinkers that have similar ethical values to ourselves. Our partners celebrate with us and contribute their own way. We all understand that being sustainable, or producing with an ethical focus, is fundamental to doing business in the future.’ For New Zealand Fashion Week, Starfish has carefully selected its major partners to be the Body Shop, Electrolux, Powershop and Project Crimson.
   The Body Shop will be using its brand new line, Extra Virgin Minerals make-up, made with 100 per cent mineral pigments and 100 per cent Community Fair Trade cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, to create a fresh and flawless complexion on the Starfish models.
   Foon, who as a young woman was profoundly influenced by the Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick, says, ‘I’m still in complete awe that Starfish and the Body Shop are working together to build a strong partnership. It is really befitting that the Body Shop will be providing our make-up look at New Zealand Fashion Week, and that together we can show people that you can still have great style while making ethical choices.’
   Electrolux, a company that raises public awareness about the plastic waste that fills our oceans by gathering plastic debris from vulnerable marine habitats and produces limited edition vacuums out of it, has engaged with Starfish with its colourful and compelling Vac from the Sea campaign. Laurie Foon and her design team will create a Vac from the Sea cover, as well as distinctive pieces of jewellery using recycled plastic and Electrolux technologies.
   Powershop, a company which allows consumers a choice in which brand of power they use, is actively tracking the power usage of the Starfish show at New Zealand Fashion Week and will then offset the carbon consumed. Starfish is collaborating with Powershop in order to encourage people to manage and reduce their electricity usage.
   Powershop will purchase a Gold Standard carbon offset for Starfish, certifying that the emission reduction has occurred and the carbon offset has been retired.
   Project Crimson, a trust that aims to protect and restore pohutukawa and rata trees in New Zealand, is teaming up with Starfish for the third time to create a limited-edition fundraising T-shirt for the summer. All profits earned from the sales will go towards protecting the trees. Of the partnership with Project Crimson, Foon says, ‘This year we’ve added a special touch by inviting New Zealand renowned artist Shona Moller to join the partnership. Titled Pride, these distinctive New Zealand made T-shirts will be launched immediately following the Starfish show.’
   Lunatopia will be presented at New Zealand Fashion Week on Tuesday, August 30 at
5 p.m. in Shed 2 of Auckland’s new Viaduct Events Centre. Starfish will also participate in the Merino Show on Friday, September 2 at 1 p.m. in the Westpac Shed.—Sabine Ernest

Scott Weiner/Calvin Klein Cosmetics

If recent food price rises have families in shock, Oxfam has a worse outlook in the next 20 years if urgent action is not taken to change the system, says the charity charged with fighting global poverty.
   Oxfam’s Growing a Better Future report forecasts that maize and other key staples will rise in price by between 120 and 180 per cent by 2030, with up to half due to climate change. The world’s poorest, who spend up to 80 per cent of their income on food, will be hit hardest.
   Supporters of Oxfam’s latest campaign include Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, actress Scarlett Johansson, and former president Lula Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.
   Oxfam says the world will hit a crisis point as the planet’s natural resources are depleted, and millions more hungry people will be created. Already eight million people face chronic food shortages in east Africa. By 2050, demand for food will rise 70 per cent, yet the capacity to increase food production is declining. The average growth rate in agricultural yields has almost halved since 1990, ‘and is set to decline to a fraction of one per cent in the next decade,’ says Oxfam.
   ‘In more than half of industrialized countries, 50 per cent or more of the population is overweight, and the amount of food wasted by consumers is enormous—quite possibly as much 25 per cent,’ the charity adds.
   ‘Our world is capable of feeding all of humanity yet one in seven of us are hungry today,’ says Jim Clarken, CEO of Oxfam Ireland. ‘Millions more men, women and children will go hungry unless we transform our broken food system.’
   His counterpart in New Zealand, Barry Coates, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, echoes this view: ‘The food system needs to serve the interests of the seven billion of us who produce and consume food, rather than the interests of big agribusiness and powerful élites.’
   The crisis is, in part, driven by globalized corporations. Three companies—Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill—control an estimated 90 per cent of the world’s grain trade. Their activities help drive volatile food prices and they profit from them, according to Oxfam. In the first quarter of 2008, at the height of a global food price crisis, Cargill’s profits were up 86 per cent.
   Small farms could lead the renaissance in feeding the world, if given the right investment and market access, says the Oxfam report.
   Johansson says, in her statement, ‘Sharing food is one of life’s pleasures. On a global scale, we don’t share fairly. Close to a billion people go to bed hungry every night. The fact is: the global food system is a broken one. All of us, from Kentucky to Kenya, deserve enough to eat. That’s why I’m joining Oxfam’s Grow campaign.’

Stéphane Kossmann/Renault/Getty Images

Above Sonam Kapoor (in Jean Paul Gaultier) and Fan Bing Bing raise the glamour stakes at the Cannes Film Festival.

Celebrities on the red carpet on Sunday included Sonam Kapoor, Vincent Perez, Olivia Ruiz, Michèle Laroque, Fan Bing Bing, Jacques Lang, Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin.
   Among our interviewees, brought to you by Cinémoi, is Niels Schneider. With Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), he won a Trophée Chopard for new talent at the 64th Festival de Cannes, following in the footsteps of prior honorees Marion Cotillard and Audrey Tautou.
   Schneider won for Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats, and told the Associated Press he first heard of his win on April 1. He initially put it down to an April Fool’s prank.
   Schneider received his award from jury president Robert de Niro at the Hôtel Martinez.
   Meanwhile, Jonathan Ross takes a ride in the Renault Fluence EV, which, alongside the rebadged Samsung SM5—the Renault Latitude—ferried VIPs to the Festival. Top Gear it is not, especially not from the back seat, but it gives the new electric car that’s cleaner than a Toyota Prius in terms of emissions some much-deserved publicity.
   Ross also previews Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life prior to its screening. The film has since screened. Ross mentions its stars, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, and how Malick chose to delay the film’s release till 2011, despite the possibility of it appearing at the 2010 Festival. Ross puts it down to Malick’s perfection—this is only the director’s fifth feature in his 40-year career—and initial reviews indicate Pitt has given one of his best performances.
   Shot three years ago, and perfected since, Tree of Life links the story of a Texan family with creation itself, and is deeply introspective. It will be released May 27 through Fox Searchlight.

Stéphane Kossmann/Renault/Getty Images

Niels Schneider

Renault Fluence EV

Tree of Life

US eco-fashion label EcoSkin, founded by Sandy Skinner, has delivered collections for a few years—and has now found an exclusive UK distributor, Kailique.
   EcoSkin is best known for pioneering the use of Sorona corn, a polymeric fibre manufactured by du Pont in an environmentally sound way. The company claims that Sorona production requires 30 per cent less energy and results in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
   Its other materials include organic cotton, bamboo and tencil knit fabrics.
   Its supporters include Amy Smart, Charlize Theron, Christina Applegate and Emily Deschanel.
   UK prices begin as low as £35 for the Puffin bamboo cami top, and reach to £150 for the Hematite maxi bamboo knit dress, shown at top.

Stephane Muratet

In April 2009, Louis Vuitton installed three beehives on the roof of its Parisian HQ on the rue de Pont Neuf. Its first batch of honey is now ready for spring, celebrated through creative displays at many of its store windows worldwide till May.
   It is a nod to biodiversity. As Louis Vuitton tells it: ‘35 per cent of food resources in
the world are insured by nectar- and pollen-gathering insects.’
   Through 2010, 200,000 bees gathered 75 kg of nectar for Louis Vuitton.
   The honey won’t be sold: it will be given to friends and family of the company.

The Jojoba Company’s natural skin care range, based on pure Australian jojoba, will be released through pharmacies in New Zealand in February.
   Pure Golden Jojoba, the hero product of the range, is said to nourish and moisturize skin ‘remarkably close to our body’s naturally produced sebum that skin instantly accepts and absorbs it,’ according to the company. It can be used as a moisturizer, make-up remover, or massage oil.
   Two sizes are available: 30 ml and 85 ml, at NZ$24·90 and NZ$33·90 respectively.
   Jojoba plants are carbon negative: each hectare as grown in Australia absorbs 1·66 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, says the company.

Hélèna Christensen is one of the most active supermodels: today as an Oxfam Global Ambassador and photographer, she is raising awareness of climate change.
   Through her photography, Christensen has been documenting the plight of villages that are experiencing more extreme weather patterns.
   Christensen’s photographs will be exhibited in 2011–12 to continue raising awareness for climate change.
   One visit has been to the Terai region in the Himalayas. Oxfam says there is erratic weather that includes ‘cold waves’, droughts and heavy rainfall, all of which have destroyed crops and livelihoods.
   ‘So we are back again, this time in Nepal talking with people who are suffering the same ongoing consequences of climate change. Despite the fact that there is greater awareness of climate change world leaders have failed to make the big decisions needed which has left our poorest people increasingly vulnerable,’ says Christensen.
   Last year, Christensen attended the COP15 climate change talks in København and notes that little has been done.
   ‘One of the women I spoke to, 55-year-old Kamalawati, told me her home was destroyed during a flood and they had to build a new house with mud and bamboo. She doesn’t have the money to build it on raised concrete platforms and is scared for the next time the rains fall heavily,’ she says.
   ‘It’s deeply frustrating that nothing has changed.­ It’s like we are watching another groundhog day but the frightening reality is that this is costing thousands of lives now. In Cancun at the climate conference next week, governments should not be allowed to once again avoid taking the decisions needed.
   ‘Countries all over the world are drowning yet none of the powerful nations dare to be the first to throw in the lifesavers. They have to deliver real results that will get a climate deal back on track. Progress on a climate fund to help vulnerable people adapt to drastic weather changes is imperative and furthermore will restore trust in the negotiations.’
   One way to help Oxfam as an organization is to consider gift-giving. Instead of purchasing a traditional gift, people can give directly to communities.
   By buying a gift from Oxfam Unwrapped, gifters receive a card to give to a recipient, detailing a gift they have made on their behalf.
   These are not one-offs. Oxfam says, ‘If someone buys a goat, for example, the gift will be used in a project that includes goats and will contribute to the cost of buying local goats, getting them to families they will be helping, training the families in how to care for them and other essential parts of rural livelihood, which helps farmers take their first step out of poverty.’
   Lucire has looked at two gifts in particular: NZ$18 can secure three ducks, which can help change the life of a family in Indonesia. ‘Ducks provide eggs, which in turn produce more ducks and eggs that can be sold to create income. They also eat insects and snails, and that helps farmers protect their vegetable gardens,’ says Oxfam.
   In addition, a NZ$40 gardener’s pack consisting of a shovel, hoe, watering can and seeds can help a family in Indonesia or Papua grow more food, improve their diets, and sell any extra to help their income.
   More details of the purchases can be found at www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz/shopping.asp.