Consumer Culture: Why We Need to Buy Less (Josephine Philips)
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The fashion industry is the world’s second‑largest contributor to carbon emissions, surpassed only by agriculture. With such a significant impact on the climate, the question is: what can we actually do about it? Tech entrepreneur and founder of SOJO, Josephine Philips, wants you to stop throwing clothes away and think about what you’re buying.
In her conversation with Amol, they explore the wider issues tied to fast fashion, including exploitative labour practices, overflowing landfills, and the relentless pace of production.
They also look at the rise of second‑hand shopping, from charity shops to online resale platforms, and how this shift is reshaping consumer habits. She says legislation can play a major role in holding large companies accountable for their product life cycle and Josephine shares practical, everyday steps we can all take to reduce our impact on the environment.
TIMECODES
(00:02:17) What is SOJO?
(00:06:22) How the fashion industry impacts people and communities globally
(00:11:03) Corporate responsibility and legislation
(00:13:38) The environmental impact of the fashion industry
(00:21:45) Josephine’s RADICAL solutions
(00:23:38) The growth of second-hand fashion
(00:26:55) Learning to repair our clothes instead of throwing them away
(00:32:20) The downside of overconsumption
(00:35:30) Affordability in sustainable fashion
(00:38:38) Practical advice to help you consume less
(00:50:41) Learning from past generations
(00:54:24) Amol’s Reflections
GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Anna Budd. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Mike Regaard. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | One of the best things about doing this podcast is not just you meet incredible people, but you learn so much. |
| 0:20.1 | And in the course of researching today's podcast with a remarkable young entrepreneur called Josephine Phillips, |
| 0:25.6 | I've become acutely aware of the astonishing impact that fashion has on the earth. |
| 0:31.8 | And I tell you something really interesting, actually. |
| 0:33.4 | For the next couple of weeks on Radical, we're talking to entrepreneurs, two people in their 20s who are really smartly using technology to solve big problems. |
| 0:41.6 | Next week we've got Joe Sedan. |
| 0:43.4 | He's trying to come out with a really smart fix for social mobility in modern Britain. |
| 0:47.7 | And Josephine Phillips's platform, which is called Sojo, is basically trying to celebrate the |
| 0:52.2 | whole culture and crafts work behind repairs and alterations |
| 0:56.8 | and tailoring to make us more intentional and connected to the fashion choices that we make. |
| 1:02.6 | At the heart of what she does is something that sounds pretty simple but is in fact pretty radical. |
| 1:08.0 | We all need in her view to consume a lot less. |
| 1:18.6 | Josephine Phillips, welcome to Radical. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:23.0 | Can I ask you two things about your incredible career before we talk about fast fashion? |
| 1:27.1 | What did it mean |
| 1:27.8 | when you were Forbes 30 under 30? It's not all. It sort of says it everywhere. If you Google |
| 1:34.5 | Josephine Phillips, it says everywhere, Forbes 30 under 30. What does it actually mean? It means it is |
| 1:40.0 | purely, purely title and purely vanity slash I'm obviously very grateful to Forbes for choosing |
| 1:45.7 | me. But it doesn't mean anything other than they've just acknowledged that you're doing something |
| 1:50.6 | cool and you're young and you're doing it. And it is purely title. I think it helps potentially |
| 1:55.2 | open doors, makes you seem like you have credentials behind you. And it's just a way to kind of affirm that you're doing something, |
... |
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