Suzy Amis Cameron, the environmental activist and former model and actor, uses the unlikely metaphor of jet fighters to explain how we are running out of time to reverse our unsustainable lifestyles. Fighter pilots refer to ‘bingo fuel’ when they’re out over the ocean and realise that unless they turn around, they will not make it back to base.
“We’re going Mach 10 over the ocean and we’re already at bingo fuel,” says Amis Cameron, who campaigns alongside her husband, Avatar director James Cameron. “If we don’t start making the world a better place right now at bingo fuel, our children will turn around one day when we’re long gone and wonder why we didn’t do something.”
This recognition has spurred Amis Cameron to dedicate her time to promoting her three passions; sustainable fashion, holistic education and meat and dairy-free diets.
Her first foray into the world of fashion was launching Red Carpet Green Dress in 2009, a global design competition to create a sustainable dress for the Oscar awards night. The first year was timed to coincide with the success of Avatar.
Today, Amis Cameron is separately partnering with a fashion company to make a range of dresses, including an affordable version of the one showcased at the Oscars and is working with Beyond Skin to create a stylish limited edition vegan, Peta-approved shoe.
She is also designing a range of sustainable clothes that will be available online. This will see her following in the footsteps of former model Amber Valletta who has launched her own sustainable clothes line, Master & Muse.
“Red Carpet Green Dress really isn’t just about a beautiful dress,” says Amis Cameron. “It’s nice to have a pretty sustainable dress on the red carpet at the Oscars, but we all need clothes every single day.
“So we are looking at creating a line of clothes that is sustainable and that is in a price range for people to be able to afford because it’s so difficult to find them.”
Profits from these ventures will go to supporting Amis Cameron’s ambition to build on the success of her environmentally-focused private MUSE school. Red Carpet Green Dress currently funds scholarships there and Amis Cameron is looking to open more schools both in the US and internationally.
But, after six years of promoting Red Carpet Green Dress, doesn’t Amis Cameron consider it a failure that more celebrities and fashion houses don’t use the opportunity of the Oscars and other high profile events to promote sustainability, given the eyes of the world are on the event?
“Sometimes these things do take time to develop, to get into the stream of consciousness and we’re working together diligently in seeing what more can we do.
“But if you look just in terms of the fabrics, there are so many more available compared with five years ago and a number of household designer names are starting to shift. It is slow because people have a hard time changing.”
Amis Cameron says the general public would like to live in a way that is less toxic to themselves and to the planet but says most people don’t act because of a lack of education around sustainability and the fact that large companies constantly market products that are damaging for health and the environment.
“People get paralysed,” she says. “They think it might be too expensive or that it’s going to take too much effort. And frankly they just don’t even know the first step to take.”
Relatively few celebrities have taken up the cause of sustainability, so what is it that inspired the Hollywood power couple to act?
“Jim and I realised that we have a platform and we’re not shy to use it,” she says. “I started travelling when I was 17 years old and saw back then what was happening in the world and Jim has been writing stories about the destruction of the planet since he was in high school. So I think we’re a perfect union on that front. And I think it just comes out of one of those ‘a-ha’ moments that we need to do something. We need to make a difference.”
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