Amber Valletta Is British Vogue’s First Contributing Sustainability Editor

Amber Valletta is joining the British Vogue masthead as the magazine’s first sustainability editor. The 46-year-old model and activist has dedicated herself to speaking out against the industry’s environmental evils throughout her career, and in her new role will report directly to British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, leading the editorial agenda when it comes to sustainability issues.

Valletta has always seen good environmental practices as equivalent to positive business decisions. “We have the opportunity to really influence society,” she said, of the fashion industry, in an interview with British Vogue’s Critic Anders Christian Madsen in 2017. “It should just be smart business: if you’re less wasteful, you’re going to save money. If your factory is capturing energy and reusing it, or recycling water, you’re going to be much more profitable. Instead of making new fabrics, recycling and using biodegradable fabrics is just logic.”

Today, commenting upon her new role, she says: “British Vogue is disrupting the entire fashion industry and it’s never been a more exciting time to join Edward and the team as Contributing Sustainability Editor to support the positive conversations happening across the industry right now. I look forward to driving the momentum forward on sustainability at British Vogue.”

Edward Enninful, cognisant of the myriad environmental conversations taking place across the industry, knew Amber would bring a unique voice to the magazine. “I’m thrilled to have Amber Valletta join British Vogue as Contributing Sustainability Editor, honouring the British Vogue values of challenging the status quo, where she will help to shape and change conversations around the most pressing issue of our time: sustainability. Amber’s expertise around key environmental issues mixed with her love of fashion makes her the perfect voice to drive these conversations forward.”

Valletta is committed to promoting responsibly made fashion through the lifestyle brand she founded in 2013, Master & Muse, in partnership with Yoox. She co-founded A Squared Films, whose first project was “Driving Fashion Forward”, a series of documentary shorts on the topic of sustainability in the fashion industry. She serves as an advisor to One x One, the Conscious Design Initiative in partnership with the UN. And since 2015, she has hosted and acted as an advisor to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit.

“[Sustainable fashion] needs to be accessible to people who are working hard all day just to put food on the table,” she told Vogue, in 2017, of her mission to make sustainability part of people’s every day. “It’s not for the elite.” Watch this space for her regular eco fashion highlights.