The Fast Fashion Industry: Formulating the Future of Environmental Change

This Note focuses on the harmful environmental impacts the fast fashion industry has created, and continues to create, on our planet. In the 1960s, consumer attitude towards clothing shifted drastically when demand for new, disposable clothing skyrocketed. These choices led fashion retailers to give life to the environmentally detrimental breed of “fast fashion.” Moving production from a domestic to an international level, increasing the amount of clothing collections on a yearly basis, and lack of transparency in supply chain are just a few examples of the dangers this industry has created for our planet. The fast fashion industry in particular is one that has been overlooked for decades, now only in focus due to the almost irreparable harm it has caused on a transnational level. No clear, collective legal definition exists for “sustainability” in the fashion industry. This Note explores, analyzes and compares current and potential fashion-specific legislation, domestically and internationally, that has not only created definitions but policies going forward for collective action. This Note focuses on the “four c’s”: compliance, caliber, consumers and circularity. These “c’s” create a broad answer as to how some of this environmental damage can be stopped going forward. The solution lies in collective transparency as well as a circular economy. The growth of investment in companies who value environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards has allowed consumers to change past behaviors toward a circular economy. It is vital that consumers invest in spaces they know are working towards a better future, in all aspects

Joy and calm: how an evolutionary functional model of affect regulation informs positive emotions in nature

Key theories of the human need for nature take an evolutionary perspective, and many of the mental well-being benefits of nature relate to positive affect. As affect has a physiological basis, it is important to consider these benefits alongside regulatory processes. However, research into nature and positive affect tends not to consider affect regulation and the neurophysiology of emotion. This brief systematic review and meta-analysis presents evidence to support the use of an existing evolutionary functional model of affect regulation (the three circle model of emotion) that provides a tripartite framework in which to consider the mental well-being benefits of nature and to guide nature-based well-being interventions. The model outlines drive, contentment and threat dimensions of affect regulation based on a review of the emotion regulation literature. The model has been used previously for understanding mental well-being, delivering successful mental health-care interventions and providing directions for future research. Finally, the three circle model is easily understood in the context of our everyday lives, providing an accessible physiological-based narrative to help explain the benefits of nature

Episodic memory for emotional information: Event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies

The neural correlates of emotional episodic memory are investigated in a series of neuroimaging experiments (ERP, fMRI) through the comparison of memory effects elicited during retrieval of emotional relative to neutral information. In the first two ERP studies, it is revealed that emotionally-valenced words influence recognition memory primarily by virtue of their high levels of 'semantic-cohesiveness'. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the arrangement of emotional and neutral retrieval cues at test (blocked versus intermixed) influences processing carried out upon retrieved emotional episodic information. The findings across the third and fourth ERP studies indicate that incidental retrieval of emotional context (encoding environment) gives rise to greater activity in neural systems supporting episodic retrieval than does retrieval of non-emotional context. When context retrieval is intentional, by contrast, emotional and non-emotional episodic memory are associated with equivalent levels of engagement. The findings of the fourth ERP study are consistent with the existence of additional neural circuitry that is activated selectively by emotionally toned episodic information. In a final event-related fMRI study it is revealed that the retrieval of emotionally negative relative to emotionally neutral context elicits enhanced activity in brain regions including prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex. Recognition of words from positive relative to neutral contexts is associated with increased activity in prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, and in the left anterior temporal lobe. The fMRI findings provide further support for the proposal that the incidental retrieval of emotional information enhances activity in networks supporting episodic retrieval of neutral information. In addition, the fMRI findings suggest that regions known to be activated when emotional information is encountered in the environment are also active when emotional information is retrieved from memory. Whilst the findings are noteworthy in their own right, they also have implications for future studies of emotional memory. It is proposed that the employment of paradigms which involve the retrieval of emotional context through presentation of non-emotional retrieval cues may offer advantages over paradigms wherein the retrieval cues themselves are emotional