Cara Delevingne on eco-activism and fast fashion: "Being a model was taxing on my value system"

Cara Delevingne has a face most of us are accustomed to seeing in beauty and fashion campaigns. The actor and former model has been a regular fixture on the pages of magazines, the catwalk, and our screens for over a decade. But this time, she’s starring in a short film with a difference.

In collaboration with European energy company Vattenfall, Delevingne appears to advertise a new face mist. The catch? This isn’t a real beauty campaign.

"Looking at the film through a high-fashion lens, it’s just very funny," Delevingne tells me, ahead of the launch. In the promotional video, she can be seen diving into a pool, spraying herself with the face mist and modelling a slinky, silver dress: a camped-up version of the kind of shoots she’s done in the past. "I think it will get people talking."

The spoof project is designed to draw attention to fossil-free hydrogen as a clean energy source—"a fuel that emits water instead of carbon dioxide," explains Vattenfall. To prove just how clean those emissions are, Vattenfall has teamed up with Delevingne–who describes herself as an eco-warrior—to showcase the limited-edition Industrial Emissions Face Mist, made from industrial wastewater and produced by Gerd, a Swedish beauty company. The mist isn't a product you can buy: instead, it's a storytelling device produced solely for the campaign. "It’s a bottle of systematic change, refreshing everyone’s view on emissions," says Vattenfall. Essentially, the waste water is so clean, you could spray it on your face.

"I think the tongue-in-cheek way that we’ve tried to make people aware of the subject is really smart," Delevingne explains. "People approach conversations about the environment and climate change with a lot of fear, and there are so many people who just won’t engage for that reason."

This might be an unusual campaign, but it makes perfect sense for Delevingne, who has been advocating for greater climate change awareness for several years. She’s a trustee of EcoResolution, an education-for-action platform ("it has incredible leaders from the environmental movement giving classes—kind of like MasterClass for the environment") and founded the charity Initiative Earth in 2001, which provides everything from practical ecosystem restoration to educational resources.

When I was a model, I was ignorant—I didn’t know how bad fashion could be for the environment

Recently, she announced the launch of Earthed, an online platform she has co-founded with school friends Christabel and Ruby Reed, which will provide courses on areas like urban gardening and river rewilding. "There are little things that everyone can do, and this platform will educate people from around the world, through different languages. That’s really what our goal was," she says. So far, backers include Sienna Miller, Arizona Muse, and Georgia Jagger.

Delevingne’s development into an eco-activist has been, she explains, a gradual awakening. Over the years, she’s become more concerned about climate change and its causes, specifically looking at the fashion and beauty industries. "Growing up, I wasn’t really aware of environmental issues, but I want to have children, and the world is now a scary place," she says. "When I was a model, I was kind of ignorant, you know? I didn’t know how bad fashion could be for the environment, but learning about it really helped me to move away from it. I think that was part of the reason I did, really."

"There are little things that everyone can do"

These days, Delevingne prefers to use her platform to stimulate change, whether that’s "working with brands like Karl Lagerfeld on a sustainable collection, doing what I can from the inside out," or having some control when she’s acting on set. "I try to have conversations with make-up artists about clean products, because there are so many great ones: I love Tata Harper and Westman Atelier."

Now, she finds her career easier to reconcile with her activism. "When I was a model, that was a lot more taxing on my value system. But generally, when I’m acting, I go somewhere and I stay there for six months. Flying is the biggest issue I have to combat, and I’m not perfect. But if I can be an advocate for trying your best every single day, I think that would really make a difference."

For Delevingne, it’s all about progress over perfection. "I don’t believe in pointing fingers at people, and telling them they’re not doing well enough," she says. "We’ve got to congratulate the small things, and work together. I think that would invite people to be more conscious, rather than nagging them."

It’s this light-touch approach that led her to working with Vattenfall. "I think it’s clever to broach the subject of the environment in a different way. We should use that kind of language more, because it just reaches a wider range of people," she says. "To have those climate conversations may be uncomfortable. People may not be interested. But we just have to keep going."

This article first appeared in Harper's Bazaar UK in May 2023.