Photographer Page

Luca Locatelli

Visitors walk around an 82-foot artificial tree inside of the Green Planet, a biodome in Dubai that shelters more than 3,000 species of tropical plants and animals. A story in the October 2017 issue documented Dubai's efforts to shrink the city's ecological footprint.

Powered by so-called ‘fast-fashion’, the global clothing industry – which has almost doubled its turnover 20 years – has some damning environmental liabilities. According to the World Economic Forum it is responsible for 10% of humanity’s carbon pollution, and a 2017 report by the IUCN stated 500,000 tons of plastic fibres – some 35% of all microplastics in the ocean – come from the laundering of synthetic fabrics. It’s also the second largest industrial consumer of water and its second largest polluter – yet 85% of all textiles produced are destined for landfill, or burning: a dumper truck’s worth full every second. As such, calls for less waste and more sustainable production, with a focus on circular economic methodologies, is being adopted by environmentally-conscious brands. Here, beside mountains of discarded clothing, a woman and designer model a dress made from the same reused cast-offs in Prato, Italy. In 2019 it featured in a National Geographic cover story entitled The End of Trash.

Is multi-use the future? Can places disposing of waste also be power stations? Can waste itself become a fuel? From wooden skyscrapers to ‘vertical forests’ and dramatic uses for buildings are being created as visual statement pieces to highlight a future that could be more sustainable. This example, in Copenhagen, is an incinerator which produces energy, and also doubles as a recreational site with a ski slope, climbing wall and running track. The waste-to-energy incinerator is billed as one of the cleanest in the world thanks to advanced filtering of its emissions using Selective Catalytic Reduction.

To make this image at the world’s largest aircraft dismantling and repurposing facility, in Arizona, Tom gave photographer Luca Locatelli a camera mounted on a 27-foot pole.

Nestled in a lava field on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, this carbon-negative greenhouse holds up to 130,000 barley plants growing in inert volcanic pumice. Orf Genetics raises the engineered grain to make human growth factors used in such applications as cosmetics to rejuvenate skin. Geothermal energy and heat are supplied by the neighboring Svartsengi Power Station.

”In Italy, the situation is sad and out of control, and I’m in the epicentre of the storm, Lombardy,” says photographer Luca Locatelli. ”The most vulnerable are the elderly, like my mother, an 82-year-old stubborn, tough, and lovely Italian grandma. She can’t understand this invisible tsunami that doesn’t let anyone have contact with her. It’s sad for me to not let her see her nephews, not hug her, and to try to convince her to wear a mask. I bring her food and my camera. After 10 days, it has become our ritual and reality.”

Mountains of wool and cast-off clothes in this Prato, Italy, facility are sorted by colour, cleaned, processed, and used to make new clothing. This dress, designed by Flavia La Rocca (above) and worn by Rose Greenfield, was made from the cleaned and shredded remains of discarded clothes.

At this Prato, Italy, facility, bundles of rags and discarded textiles will be processed and used to create new clothing—an example of the circular economy in action.

Dubai – one of the places some decide to visit, fall in love with, and never leave.

Eating chickens like these in the Netherlands instead of beef can cut our dietary footprints a surprising amount: in half.