Gisele Bündchen Takes On New Environmental Role At IWC
Swiss Watch Brand IWC has appointed a supermodel and environmental lovers, Gisele Bündchen, as an advisor to the first environmental & community project.
This brand announced the new role of Bündchen coincided with the publication of the annual sustainability report, where he had written an introduction, which outlines the “ambitious road map for the future” called ‘Beyond Time Technique’.
IWC also announced the introduction of its new Miratex rope, offering alternative crop based leather and minerals without plastic or petrochemicals.
Bündchen has served as the Ambassador of good intentions for the UN environmental program since 2009, involved with reasons for advocates for biodiversity and wildlife and has been respected by Havard and UCLA universities for their long commitment to environmental issues.
Ahead of the announcement, Hypebeast spoke to the supermodel about his new role.
What is the meaning of sustainability for you?
I feel sustainability is to understand the impact you have, we will all have the impact of life on this planet, so it understands and makes aware decisions about how you choose something, the impact we have is based on our choice.”
“It can be as simple as understanding the amount of waste you have, how many times a week you issue rubbish, how do I shop, what I chose, what company I chose to buy, what their policies are, how do they influence the world? Because we chose our purchase. “
I always tell my children, ‘things that are not lost’, when something is made, an object, whatever it is, it exists in the world, it exists and it will end somewhere. Many things are now recycled, but where are they ending? This is not visible, not in mind, ‘I continue to emphasize this to my children, I like everything -reduce, reuse, recycle. “
“How much food do we need? How much food is wasted and thrown away because we don’t plan and arrange ourselves in a better way? It comes from your lifestyle, how do you live, really ask yourself the question, do I need this? “
Are you always aware of the environment or is this the latest change for you?
“I grew up south of Brazil, in a small town. I grew up in a house with two bedrooms and eight people. My clothes came to me from my sister, I have five sisters, or come from my cousin, we always recycle everything, there is never waste. We will buy a food pan and then my grandmother will make jam and use the same pan. So there is no trash, you always use everything again. I grew like that, so it was very natural for me to think like that. “
“I was always fascinated by indigenous peoples, because I felt I had an extraordinary relationship with nature and when I had the opportunity to visit Amazon in the early 2000s, it was amazing to see how they lived, no waste, they had lived in a community like this for hundreds and hundreds of years in this way with a minimum impact. How can I live more like them? Nature is our home, nature is our temple, we need to care for our temple and the more we can live in harmony with it, the better for us and for future generations. Being a mother, it becomes more important, because I began to ask myself what kind of world I left for my children. “
So I grew like that, but motherly really put it in front and middle. “
Can you tell us more about community project elements from that role?
“Social and the environment are not separate, I do not believe they can, because I think when you have a very sick environment – when the area where you live is sick – that the community is sick. Social and environment is one because we are nature. “
“IWC understands that also, this is why the whole purpose of their company is about transparency and responsibility, circularity in their process and really understanding all of that is what I am very eager to learn from them, because they are really in front of the game , they may have been working on this for more than ten years, before people really talk about it, and I have done it for almost 20 years, so there are many things we can learn and share from each other. The question here is how we can make this bigger, how we can expand this, make it more extensive and share what we have learned with other companies. “
How are you involved with IWC?
“They call and say that they are interested in working with me, and I ask anyone that I work with ‘What is your social policy and environment?’ Because I don’t want to work with anyone who is not too serious about it, and and they begin to show all different reports and various things they do and I am impressed. Derived from fashion for almost 27 years now, very impressive to see the level of commitment and real involvement in all different fields of their company and make a commitment to say ‘we will be fully sustainable in using renewable energy in 2022,’ and they do that . Very few companies can say that they have done that. “
“And I like them to make products, where all the goals for them are to be eternal. It is beautiful. In fashion, it can happen, I have a jacket that I have since I was 19 years old and I was 42 years old, and I like it, this is my favorite work. When you make something with quality, it has history, it has energy. Something that can be recycled does not become less, I think it becomes more valuable because it has different energy for that. They recycle all the different ingredients they use. “
“First of them they try to fix the items you have, if you have a 100 -year -old face and you still want to fix it, say it is your grandfather’s watch, it’s amazing, tell me how many companies do that. You bought a TV and two years later it was damaged, my grandfather had a TV and would last 20 or 30 years. So I think it’s amazing to have a company that makes it a priority. The whole world needs to capture this cart, my intention to work with them is how we can help other companies inspired and almost have an open source policy about how we can do all those things and inspire other companies to find out how to do it ourselves. “
