The unbearable heaviness of sustainability

This article is published in issue 16 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 18 April 2023

An image of Florence mayor Dario Nardella stopping an activist as he throws paint on the Palazzo Vecchio went viral a few weeks ago. Many, practically almost everyone, sided with him: from the tourists present on the square to the social users who transformed the mayor’s shot into a superhero meme. Watching these guys throw buckets of paint on artistic monuments, one immediately wonders: don’t they have better things to do? But what’s the point? But why are they picking on the heritage of art? This number of Vanity Fair is dedicated to the theme of sustainability and the struggle that these young activists are carrying out, risking not only general derision, but various forms of violence and even prison. I ask you to read their experiences, their point of view, because it’s not just a question of understanding how much those gestures are necessary to make us think, to remind us that the issue of respecting the planet and its protection are fundamental. Understanding their thoughts and actions makes it even clearer how the unbearable heaviness of sustainability is a thorny topic that can no longer be postponed. Sustainability, in fact, is not a green fairy tale nor a return to life in nature nor an idyll that requires us all to be more beautiful and good. It is rather a radical revolution that affects not only ecology but people. It concerns us, our work, the consumption we do, the clothes we wear and the necessary changes we must embrace, without ifs and buts, in small everyday actions and in the big projects of the international political agenda. During the Milan Design Week, from 18 to 23 April, we will dedicate the new edition of ours to the theme Vanity Fair Social Gardena garden created in the city that we have entitled this year We Can Be Heroes, that is, we can all become heroes. For six days, in via Bergognone 26 in Milan and in streaming on our website and social channels, we will host meetings, round tables, masterclasses for everyone and even workshops for children where entrepreneurs, young and old, activists and popularizers will talk about their experience of environmental fight and will explain how each of us can truly become a green hero capable of changing much more than we can imagine. It’s too easy to laugh at a paint bucket thrown on a monument. Just as it is too easy to brand sustainability as a heavy, difficult subject, something that in the end depends little on us. The truth is that sustainability depends only on us. And the sooner we realize it, the sooner we’ll be able to find the best solutions to solve a literally fiery problem.

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