"We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service relationship to humanity." ~Martin Luther King

Mission Statement: Sew It Forward is an international network of fashion designers whose intention is to make concerted efforts to adopt environmentally sustainable business practices wherever feasible. Through the uses of green energy, fair trade, recycling, resource sharing, and the support of responsible agriculture these businesses seek to raise the bar across a wide variety of pop-culture based industries, setting new trends in favor of eco-consciousness.

As a community of businesses we agree to:

• We agree to recycle, whenever possible.
• We agree to explore and implement green energy, wherever possible.
• We agree to support local, organic, eco-friendly farming, wherever possible.
• We agree to take a stand against waste and pollution, wherever possible.
• We agree to share pertinent information, wherever possible.
• We agree to be positive role models wherever possible.

The purpose of this agreement is to make a collective first step in achieving sustainability: we must

Visionary Arts Network Solutions "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

For many of us, the adoption of responsible and environmentally sound business practices is a seemingly unrealistic goal amidst the rigorous production chaos and survival agendas we face. We hope that by creating this agreement we can begin to open the doors to achieving these goals as a collective by 1) demonstrating exactly how simple it is to make many potent changes and 2) coming together to tackle the greater challenges.

For example, many designers in Bali have encountered the challenge of finding eco-friendly fabric to work with. Does that mean there is nothing to do? On the contrary! There can be no better time to spread information. The lack of organic, sustainable materials is a cry for the seeds of information to be spread.

Again, for those designers in Bali, environmental efforts are primarily in their nascent birthing stages. While it is more challenging to adpopt greening methods in a place like this, the whole situation call for a sort of new custom definition of "fair trade" pertinent to the garment industry and location of production, in alignment with but not limited to formal certification standards. This is why Sew It Forward is so important, because it's as important to "be green" as it is to found green friendly systems, even if the latter option means you have sacrifice converting to 100% green to do it. For example, you can be in California recycling at home, eating organic, and buying your electricity from a solar farm vs. you could be in a remote location eating the best you can, recycling when it's available, and forming a city's first local educational program. At this level, these are the realities we have to come into balance with.