Nicole Rycroft on viscose and her mission to save the world's endangered forests.

Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Nicole Rycroft is the founder and executive director of the award-winning environmental not-for-profit, Canopy. Since it launched in 1999, the Vancouver-based organisation has worked with more than 950 companies – including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Puma – to ‘develop innovative solutions and make their supply chains more sustainable to help protect our world’s remaining ancient and endangered forests’.

It started by looking at the book industry and persuading publishers to use more recycled paper, before turning its attention to packaging and fashion – shining a light on the industry’s use of viscose, in particular.

Nicole has won a slew of awards and was recently named in the Business of Fashion’s top 500 most influential people.

In this episode we talk about: being a ‘professional treehugger’; dealing with textile waste in India; how viscose is made and its negative effect on the environment; developing new manufacturing models for the material; working with major fashion brands to help them become more circular; her journey from physiotherapist and rower in Australia to activist in Canada; how contracting a life-threatening virus changed her life; running her first environmental organisation at nine years old; documenting human rights violations in Burma; and successfully greening the Harry Potter books with JK Rowling.

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