Last year, Svetlana Petrova, one of the founders of Empty Your Wardrobe, was nominated among the 5 candidates and got awarded with the title of the year’s Climate Hero 2018 in Kolding Municipality.

All the 5 have smart ideas, they all make extraordinary efforts for the climate and the community. They are running projects that are filled with big and sustainable ambitions. Common to the five local projects is that they reduce CO2 emissions. “This is important because CO2 emissions are a significant factor for the changes in our climate,” said Stella Steen Jensen, from Kolding Municipality (source: Ugeavisen).

The ceremony

The event took place on August 24, 2018, during the annual Culture Night / Kolding Kulturnat 2018 event in Kolding, showcasing the 17th Sustainable Development Goals. The city streets were decorated with installations – 17 islands. Every person was able to go to the “island” and get some tips&trucks on how to live more sustainable.

The speech

“These few years I have been very passionate about organizing sustainable initiatives and trying to understand this new disruptive economy, the Circular Economy. That is how Empty Your Wardrobe was born. Empty´s mission is to inspire sustainable living. It explores new ways to extend the life of old fabrics to reduce the impact of textile waste on nature.

Do you know that only 14% of produced fashion garments are recycled while the rest goes to the landfill?

The project works in three lines focusing on prolonging the life of the garments: 1) clothing swap events where participants exchange their unneeded garments; 2) workshops for repairing old/new broken items and 3) creating upcycled fashion items/collections using the fabrics that left after our swapping events.

Here in Kolding, I have started promoting the idea behind the wardrobe, by launching a swapping event in the mid of March. With the help of other international students and our host Building 5, at Nicolai Kultur, we have managed to gather more than 50 people. They were looking for worthy treasures for their wardrobe and swap unneeded items.

And just 2 days ago, at Nicolai yard, with the collaboration of Nicolai & The pizza project, another event related to raising the awareness of the local people towards the benefits of such a sustainable living happened. Around 50 people were engaged in a debate with four speakers, discussing good practices, different lifestyles and daily habits, fair purposes for the future.

What will follow? I am planning the second swapping event and afterwards, would be amazing to collaborate with designers in the creation of a local upcycled fashion line made of the textile waste.

I would like to thank Stella Jensen for being so transparent and supporting my enthusiasm. I would like to express my gratitude for being nominated for the Climate Hero and using this occasion to inspire more people taking everyday small steps towards a better green future.”

Thank you, Kolding!