Instagreen - Final Major Project

Major Project topic chosen was focused on sustainability and how activists can influence change in today’s society from government, businesses to consumers. This topic provided some extremely topical points as how society has been failing, succeeding and progressing to take greater sustainable changes to the fashion industry. A topic identified was the possible use of influential figures to change peoples’ perceptions and thus drive a shift in behaviours. Currently

“73% of people believe influencers are somewhat responsible for the rise in fast fashion” (Jashan, 2019)

Thus, the use of these figures to promote a new ideal will be crucial.

The Final Major Project took this to a grander scale, not just focusing on influencers but all the use of a social media platform geared towards promoting greener ideals, this means being sustainable, ethical and socially strong.

Instagreen campaign will make Instagram the first mass market social media platform that has a dedicated entity to support and encourage both businesses, influencers and consumers to create a greener focused fashion industry.

The Instagreen campaign by Instagram looks to reach the large audience of 1 billion monthly users, but specifically geared towards Gen Z and Millennials who are part of the ‘Media Mindfulness’ tribe, who are social media savvy and influenced by what they see on the platform, as well as having strong green values.

The platform will begin to shift its values from being driven by fast fashion, with several changes; such as Green tick verification, Transparency Links, use of algorithms to put greater reach to green brands and offers incentives for brands to promote through the Instagreen platform.

By offering customers the opportunity to shop greener with full transparency, honesty and ethos at the forefront of the platforms’ future goals, this will encourage businesses and government to make a greater change to their green development and Instagram users will be influenced by this movement and will be keen to become part of the Instagreen community.

In 2016 the fashion industry “generated over 1.8 billion dollars in revenue and employed over 60 million people” and makes the “fashion industry the 4th worst polluting industry.” (Little, 2018)

Therefore, I believe by using my university studies to learn about sustainability is crucial, as undoubtedly there will have to be a great shift in business ideals going forward to ensure the fashion industry’s success and I am keen to be part of these steps to creating a greener industry.

Therefore, going forward into employment I really hope to continue working with companies that have these shared values, even during these times of uncertainty with Covid 19, I hope that this will allow companies to re-consider their priorities. I believe is possible, as I created a “greenforthegram” icon in my FMP, inspired by the “Stay at Home” movement encouraging and influencing people to stay at home and stay safe, clearly demonstrating the power of social media to influence people that can be utilised when considering a greener future.

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