Sharing the Table
London, July 2023
REPORT BY LUCY SIEGLE
The second Sharing the Table event of the year brought a kaleidoscope of activist talent together at the Treehouse Hotel London. Hosts and guests shared progress on climate justice, nature restoration and shaking up everything from the creative industries to science and technology.
The hosts Dominique Palmer, June Sarpong, Livia Firth, Tori Tsui, Eric Underwood and Jessie Mei Li
As Livia Firth welcomed the longest of tables to One Hotel’s Treehouse in central London last night, she smiled broadly as if welcoming a (very large) family back together. She briefly reminisced about how the Sharing the Table events had begun as part of the GCFAs (the Green Carpet Fashion Awards) wider programme – with a dinner at the San Vincente Bungalows in Los Angeles.
Since the outset there’s been something very special about the Sharing the Table format and the way it brings an intergenerational mix of activists, entrepreneurs and change makers in close, and supports them. Yes it’s a ‘safe space for big conversations around transformation’ as advertised, but it’s something else too. That’s what’s hard to define. I described the Los Angeles Sharing the Table, as having a Woodstock quality – a vibe that defines the era and lives long in the memory for those lucky enough to be there.
Dominique Palmer, Ellie Goulding and Lucy Siegle at the GCFA Sharing The Table Dinner
So, this second gathering of 2023 had much to live up to, and it didn’t disappoint. This time Sharing the Table was hosted again by Livia but joined in London by Eric Underwood, the dancer and choreographer and change maker, Tori Tsui, climate activist and author; Dominique Palmer the UK based trailblazing climate justice activist and coordinator for youth-led organisation, Climate Live; renowned broadcaster, entrepreneur and author June Saprong and the actor, Jessie Mei Li, fresh from starring as Alina Starkov in the Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone, but with a past life in education.
Attendees included Aditi Mayer, the climate and sustainability activist and storyteller; Keshia Hannam Editor in Chief for Asian media platform Eastern Standard; the New York Times number 1 bestselling author, Rupi Kaur; food entrepreneur Jasmine Hemsley (literally a taste maker!); sustainable fashion supremo Patrick McDowell; the founder and CEO of By Rotation, Eshite Kabra-Davies and the singer songwriter and UN environment ambassador Ellie Goulding, resplendent in a floor length Stella McCartney dress with a cut out back.
I am not sure how all these diaries aligned – respect must be given to the Eco Age team?! Ellie Goulding for example joins from promoting her fifth studio album becoming the holder of the record for longest running single, Miracle in the top three by a female artist of all time. Jasmine Hemsley brought her very new baby and everyone seems to be on a career trajectory which sees them ever more in the public eye. The point is that attendees are grappling with some very big life moments indeed. However, somehow they make it their mission to gather.
The effect was like a collection of butterflies – known as a Kaleidoscope - fluttering in on the jet stream from all over the place. I’m going to stay with butterfly kaleidoscope theme here: Butterflies of course are an umbrella species, that most prized asset for ecologists. They are renowned in that world as the most sensitive indicators of environmental change. Their gathering is often a sign of ecosystem health and resilience. While the appointed traditional leaders – best characterised as the men in grey suits, are failing on every metric to meet climate and nature goals – this kaleidoscope is growing in influence and ambition. Just like butterflies, their targeted protection and conservation benefits everyone. A pound or dollar invested in young climate and nature leaders is an investment worth making.
This is a point made superbly in the recently released Possibilists report which Livia urged all the attendees to read and thanked those who had been involved in this breakthrough study, that also contains 48 recommendations on how we support and amplify youth leadership and activism. ‘We are all possibilists!’ she rightly pointed out, and Sharing the Table is about how we take this learning and understanding on mindset shift and potential forward into the world.
On that note, many of our Sharing the Table community were ready to announce big plans - pieces of the jigsaw of a green transition that they are now putting into place. In her welcoming speech, the night’s co-host Dominique Palmer announced the launch of The Youth Planet Justice fund. Launching in just three weeks, this is the first ever youth based funding for youth based climate justice and we couldn’t be more proud of Domi bringing this to the world. It marks a big step change and a much needed piece of infrastructure. Around the table we had tech apps on funding rounds so they can continue to take market share from unsustainable competitors, programme leaders boosting education on climate literacy and designers building in circular economy to everyday products alongside policy specialists. This is a community (and I feel justified in calling that) not just raising awareness of the dual nature and climate crisis – we’ve already done that! – but working every angle to create a future that is ecologically and socially just. There are no compromises to be made on that.
Scott and Brett Staniland, the sustainable fashion campaigners and activists who have super charged part of this movement explained to me how tight knit this community is, ‘there are groups that are aligned, we check in with each other, we share knowledge on how to hold brands to account or to develop a campaign,’ says Brett. But there’s a closeness without a clique, a confidence without arrogance to this community. It is a meritocracy for the planet, there’s always a seat at the Sharing Table for anyone with a brilliant idea and the application to drive it through. People are not only activists they have careers, specialisms and passions that they carry simultaneously – Brett Staniland for example has a Phd in Public Health and worked on vaccines during the pandemic. ‘Before getting into acting I worked in schools, as a teaching assistant so I know how important it is for people to be educated, to have those conversations,’ Jessie Mei Li said.
Part of the worth of coming together in person and breaking bread – a very RL concept! – is that we also guard a little against burnout and isolation. Whatever the backstory and experience of the attendees, all have become familiar with the downside of this work and eco-anxiety. Sharing the Table reminds each one of us ‘It’s not just you’, obviously the title of our co-host Tori Tosui’s brilliant new book that reframes eco anxiety as the urgent mental health crisis. Tori and her editor, Kaiya Shang (now commissioning editor at Chatto & Windus) talked to us about the process of writing the book and beyond. Ellie Goulding clapsed a copy to her, ‘I definitely need this,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to read it.’
In her book Tori delves more deeply into the workings of activist movements. In the introduction she writes, ‘I often draw from the wonder of fungi as an apt analogy for the intricacies of activist movements ….made up of a network of filaments called mycelium, breaking down detritus, interlinking, transmitting signals and communicating information further than the eye can see’. When I said it was difficult to describe Sharing the Table, I think Tori loans us a useful explainer.
Until the next!