The Luxury for All campaign aims to embolden political decision makers to be more ambitious for public luxury. We believe there is an opportunity to reframe public luxury as aspirational and popular – for it to become an ambitious, vote-winning manifesto pledge.
We will explore our perceptions of public provision by applying the concept of Luxury For All to six different areas of everyday life – demonstrating the unexpected benefits, making it feel doable, and proving the public mandate for it.
Why this matters
The role of the state is one of the most important political issues of our time. Without an active state, we can’t achieve our mission to tackle the root causes of the climate crisis and to drive solutions that reduce inequality and prioritise wellbeing for all.
Living sustainably is an impossible lifestyle pursuit when the public infrastructure is not there to support us. Excellent public services are essential for an effective transition to a just and low-carbon world, as they provide the foundations for collective wellbeing. To achieve clean air, we need reliable, high-quality public transport and walking and cycling infrastructure. To enable Generation Action to thrive, we need a transformed education system that creates active, participating, socially- and environmentally-aware young people. To create a healthy online climate, we need Big Tech to serve public interest rather than private gain.
Positive visions of public luxury can help to undermine the carbon- and resource-intensive visions of private luxury sold to us. We want to shift the concept of luxury from being exclusive and expensive, to being inclusive and accessible.
How it could happen
Investment in better public infrastructure will cost money. We are calling on leaders to be bold and not shy away from spending to invest in quality services that can improve life for everyone while reaping long-term social and financial returns. These initiatives could be funded using a three-pronged approach:
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Repurposing existing policies at low or no cost – for example, encouraging greater use of government-subsidised buses.
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Raising money to offset the cost of new policies – for example, levying a tax on car manufacturers that missold diesel vehicles to pay for diesel car scrappage schemes.
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Investing (which may require borrowing) in policies that lead to holistic benefits and long-term savings – for example, early years education provides one of the highest financial returns on investment for governments, with additional social and economic benefits.
Homes
Housing in the UK is expensive, energy inefficient, and in short supply.
The cost of buying or renting a home has increased significantly faster than wages. The shortage of homes, exacerbated by second homes and holiday lets, means that landlords can charge extortionate rents and neglect to invest in energy efficiency and insulation to keep homes safe and warm. A lack of effective building regulations mean even new build properties can be cold and inefficient.
In a Luxury for the Few world, a lot of housing is cold, damp, and expensive to buy and heat. People with generational wealth can live in excessive houses while many struggle to keep a roof over their heads.
In a Luxury for All world, everyone has access to housing that is high quality, secure and affordable. The housing is energy-efficient, reducing bills and the impact on the local and wider environment.
Real-life Luxury Homes
Goldsmith Street is a development of 100 social homes built by Norwich City Council. Stringent energy efficiency standards have created warm homes, with 70% reduction in fuel bills for tenants. This award-winning street is providing good quality homes at affordable rents. With hidden rooftop patios and communal tables where neighbours can socialise – who wouldn’t want to live here?
Marmalade Lane in Cambridge is the city’s first co-housing development of 42 homes, each triple glazed, with air-sourced heat pumps to keep them warm. There’s a communal garden, laundry, gym, and workshop as well as a common house with yoga and ping-pong rooms. Designed to be car free, the streets are lined with children’s chalk doodles, clearly stating this street is a place for play, not parking.
Neighbourhoods
Growth in personal motor car use over the last 70+ years has transformed our use of street space which is now largely dominated by moving or parked cars.
The increase in motor vehicles has impacted investment in, and use of public transport and active travel (walking, cycling and wheeling), with many negative impacts on society such as toxic air, climate change, road safety danger, physical inactivity, and greater inequality.
In a Luxury for the Few world, private cars dominate our streets and pollute our air. Public transport is patchy and unreliable, and children have few safe spaces to play. Those who can't afford a car are isolated and cut off.
In a Luxury for All world, neighbours come together, and kids come out to play on safe, sociable streets. Communities co-design active transport routes so they can walk and wheel safely. Public transport is fast, reliable, cheap, and accessible to all.
Real-life Luxury Neighbourhoods
The London borough of Lambeth recognised that 94% of their kerbsides were used to manage parking, but only 40% of households owned a car. Their exciting kerbside strategy re-thinks what, and who the kerbside is for – transforming them for more sustainable uses such as for street trees, parklets, and bike bays.
In Liverpool, the “By Ours” community project, led by Sustrans, Liverpool City, St Helens, and Wirral Councils, is bringing residents together to co-design safer, healthier and more attractive streets. Their goal is to design a vibrant neighbourhood where more people walk to local shops and services and stop and chat to one another, children play out and everyone breathes cleaner air.
Fashion
The fashion industry’s unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are contributing directly and significantly to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution.
Brands want to keep their profits high and their costs down, which leads to a race to the bottom for workers’ rights. All the while throwaway fashion culture leads to clothing being worn just a few times before ending up in landfill.
In a Luxury For The Few world, fashion is cheap and overconsumption is the norm – at a deep cost to the planet. Unscrupulous employers act as if garment workers are as disposable as the clothes they make, and the industry is driving deep social injustice.
In a Luxury For All world, fashion brands create product lifecycles that allow clothes to be valued, cared for and used for as long as possible, and workers are paid fairly. Clothes cost more but people only buy a few, high-quality items a year, which makes them affordable for all.
Real-life Luxury Fashion
Many fashion brands are simply not going far or fast enough when it comes to improving their sustainability and employment credentials. The Fashion Transparency Index ranks 250 of the world’s largest fashion brands and retailers based on their public disclosure of human rights and environmental policies, practices and impacts across their operations and supply chains. Transparency is the first step towards accountability, and this index can help us make informed choices about which brands we wish to buy from.
Less is most definitely more when it comes to genuinely sustainable fashion. As well as buying from better brands, we simply need to buy less. Tiffanie Darke’s Rule of 5 campaign urges us to buy no more than five new items of clothing a year. This number was calculated by the Hot or Cool Institute as the maximum number of items we can all buy to stay below 1.5C of warming.
Jobs
The last decade has seen a proliferation of poor-quality, insecure and low-paid work in the UK.
Wages have failed to rise in line with inflation, and many jobs do not meet the day-to-day costs of a decent quality of life. Austerity has led to cuts in many of our most essential services and a weakening of the social security net for those outside the workforce.
In a Luxury For The Few world, the best-paid jobs are often the most polluting and are geared towards profit rather than social utility. The most socially valuable jobs are often paid the least, have the lowest status, and offer the least autonomy.
In a Luxury For All world, the highest status jobs are those that are the most socially useful and least ecologically destructive. Every job pays a wage that supports a decent standard of living and provides a healthy work-life balance, so everyone can enjoy time with their loved ones and have adequate time for rest and renewal.
Real-life Luxury Jobs
At Dutch non-profit homecare provider Buurtzorg Nederland, self-governing nurse teams mean that nurses are paid according to their education level, work fewer hours (typically 32 per week) and are trusted to make decisions on how they manage all aspects of patient care. They have high staff retention, less than half the normal incidence of sick leave and high patient ratings – all at a lower cost than other organisations.
The cobbler and locksmith company Timpsons is one of the largest employers of ex-offenders in the UK. The 75% staff retention rate is good for business and for society too, contributing to reduced re-offending rates. Employees are paid above the national living wage, with an enviable array of staff benefits including extra leave for birthdays and weddings, access to free luxurious UK holiday homes, support from free mental health counsellors and a packed schedule of social events.
Internet
The way that social media platforms are designed is dangerous for many and incredibly profitable for a few.
Their desire for more users spending more time online so that they can be served more ads leads to systems that promote and target any content deemed to be ‘engaging’ – which very often includes hate, conspiracy, misinformation, toxic beauty, or self-harm. Clever psychological tricks keep us hooked and algorithms drive us towards darker and darker content because this makes more money from advertising. It's not our fault that we can't stop scrolling.
In a Luxury For The Few world, social media is designed to drive engagement and profit at all costs. No consideration is given to the social, environmental and political consequences. It is driving a youth mental health crisis and damaging millions of lives.
In a Luxury For All world, social media enriches our lives by being designed to prioritise safety, truth, agreeable disagreement and fun. We have more control over what content we see and how much time we want to spend online.
Real-life Virtual Luxury
Mastodon is a social media platform where you can follow and engage with people, keep up with topic-specific hashtags and post photos. Typically funded through donations, the platform has a chronological home feed, no ads and allows users to run their own servers and set their own moderation policies. All of these help to reduce its addictiveness and create a more curated experience for users. Global Action Plan is starting to build a space for itself on Mastodon – come and join us and give it a try.
Join our campaign for Safer Socials to take action against the harmful Big Tech business models that put us and our children at risk.
For tips and advice on how to keep your child safe on social media, see the NSPCC’s helpful resources.
Wellness
Nature and leisure facilities are vital for our physical and mental wellbeing but are currently the preserve mainly of those who are healthy, wealthy and white.
2.8 million people in the UK do not have access to green spaces, there is a severe shortage of sport and activity opportunities for people with disabilities, and people of colour have lower rates of participation in sport and physical activity. We need to invest in public wellness facilities that are inclusive and accessible to all.
In a Luxury For The Few world, wellness is for those who have the time and the money to indulge in expensive gyms and spa packages. Efforts to be inclusive are often woefully inadequate for those with disabilities, and exclusion can feel humiliating.
In a Luxury For All world, thriving green spaces and high-quality leisure facilities are free, inclusive and accessible to all.
Real-life Luxury Wellness
Saughton Park in Edinburgh was restored with the active involvement of people with mental health problems and learning disabilities, refugee families and newcomers to the area. It has become a hub for community engagement and wellbeing activities, hosting horticultural therapy classes, cycling classes for people with disabilities and welcoming events for refugees. Nature and wildlife are thriving – a win-win for people and planet.
Kingsland Primary School, a special educational needs (SEN) school in Wakefield, built two play areas to cater for the differing needs of students with a range of learning disabilities. The main play area offers various physical activities and social interaction opportunities. The second sensory integration area is a smaller, quieter place for pupils who find it harder to cope with large crowds. This means that all the children can get outside and enjoy getting active.
