Anya Hind­march designs £5 reusable shop­ping bag

The bag will be available for the month of March exclusively through Anya Hindmarch UK stores and the company’s website, in Dover Street Market, colette in paris, Villa Moda Kuwait and on the We Are What We Do website www.wearewhatwedo.org as part of an exclusive pack with the original inspiration for the bag, Change the World for A Fiver. (Retail price £10.)The bag will then be available nationwide through Sainsbury’s supermarkets from late April. The organisations share the belief that using plastic bags is contributing to long term damage to the environment and wanted to offer an alternative that is stylish, affordable and influences people to make small changes that help to make a major difference. The designer bag will retail for just £5 and no one involved in the project will make any money from the sale of the bags.

Anya Hindmarch said today “As a luxury fashion brand we are in a position where we can influence. I can’t think of a more positive way to do this than producing a desirable and cost effective alternative to a plastic carrier bag.”

Justin King, chief executive, Sainsbury’s, said: “We strongly believe that encouraging customers to shop with re-usable bags is the best solution, and this one-off Anya Hindmarch bag will make it much more appealing for customers to do that. It’s also great news that our 16 million customers will be able to buy an Anya Hindmarch bag as well as helping the environment.”

David Robinson OBE, founder of We Are What We Do said today: “We are absolutely delighted to be working with Anya Hindmarch and our friends at Sainsbury’s once more. This bag is a testament to the power of collaborative effort — like our books, Change the World for a Fiver and Change the World 9 to 5 — everyone has worked on this bag for nothing and without any one of them, we would not be launching such an exciting and important product today”.

“The aim of We Are What We Do is to demonstrate how lots of small actions x lots of people = big change. It doesn’t have to involve radical changes to our lifestyles — there are so many simple, practical things that can make a real difference. Saying no to plastic bags is just one and we hope that while they’re carrying our bag, people will think of other things that they could do while they’re out shopping — buying environmentally friendly products, avoiding excess packaging, choosing fair trade products, supporting local produce, recycling old plastic bags, dropping a few coins in the charity tin or just smiling and thanking the cashier as they leave.

“We are extremely grateful to everyone who has worked on the project with us and in particular thank Tim Ashton of Antidote who was the creative director on Change the World for a Fiver who introduced us to Anya and her team. We hope that this will be the first of many such products which enable people to make a difference to the world every day and demonstrate that they too believe that we are what we do.”

For more information and high res images please contact:

Ella Wiggans
ella.wiggans@wearewhatwedo.org
71 St John Street
London
EC1M 4NJ
020 7148 7665

Editor’s notes:

About Anya Hindmarch
Anya Hindmarch is a leading fashion accessories designer with 30 stores around the world. Her designs are worn by many of the world’s most glamorous women including Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Claudia Schiffer and Kylie Minogue.

Anya is particularly renowned for her attention to detail, bespoke items and sense of humour. Anya won the title of Accessories Designer of the Year at the Glamour Awards in May 2006. She is also a consultant to British Airways and designs the covetable first class amenities kit.

About Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s strongly believes that reusability is the key to reducing the number of plastic carrier bags. Sales of re-usable carrier bags has increased by 7% in the last year. Sainsbury’s is also working to make all of its carrier bags less harmful to the environment. In 2006, Sainsbury’s launched its new green generation carrier bag, a third of which is made from recycled material.

The bag meant Sainsbury’s became the only UK retailer to offer customers a free carrier bag with a high proportion of recycled material, as well as 10% chalk, cutting the use of raw plastic by 43%. Sainsbury’s aim is to increase the recycled content over coming months.

In the last year 100 million carrier bags have been collected from Sainsbury’s dedicated recycling bag units in-store, this is expected to grow this year. Sainsbury’s has been offering this service for two years.

As well as the Anya Hindmarch carrier bag, Sainsbury’s also sold an artist-designed carrier bag earlier in the year to make re-using bags more desirable. The ‘art in your hand’ bags were created with The Arts Council to promote the use of environmentally friendly carrier bags and raise awareness and debate about the role the arts play in people’s lives.

About We Are What We Do
We Are What We Do is a not for profit social change movement which aims to inspire people to use simple everyday actions to change the world. The movement which was originated by the east London charity Community Links (www.community-links.org) was launched in September 2004 with the publication of the bestselling book Change the World for a Fiver. A sequel, Change the World 9 to 5 was published in September this year. In addition to the books, We Are What We Do solicits commitment to action from people all round the world at its website www.wearewhatwedo.org; runs education and community programmes and next year will launch an exciting range of events to enable more and more people to take part. Further information can be found at www.wearewhatwedo.org

*Source — DEFRA
From Change the World for a Fiver