Lily Cole is an influential figure in the fashion world; supermodel, actress… and environmental activist? Maybe she’s not as well-known for her humanitarian and environmental work, but it is her involvement raising sustainability awareness that has prompted her impending visit to Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
Alongside her work commitments, Lily supports a variety of worthy causes. As patron of the Environmental Justice Foundation, she has worked internationally to protect the environment and defend human rights, making Lily the perfect candidate to speak at MMU’s Big Impact project about how students and the university can improve sustainability. This event is a rare chance for MMU students and staff to hear Lily speak about climate change and to ask questions regarding her environmental work, as well as projects like impossible.com.
MMU’s Ryan Waugh got in touch with Lily through impossible.com, a social networking site where people swap knowledge, skills and services for free. It is a brilliant website which runs on the idea of a gift economy. After seeing a video of Lily Cole and Vivienne Westwood urging people to help climate refugees, Ryan made a ‘wish’ on the website that one of the high-profile celebrities would come to MMU and talk about climate change – and Lily replied. In return, as impossible.com is not just about taking, Ryan will be performing as an extra in the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre’s production of The Last Days of Troy. By doing this, he is fulfilling one of Lily’s wishes and showing how this inspiring website gives people the opportunity to undertake projects and help others in ways they would never have thought of.
Lily will be talking about her work creating impossible.com, alongside climate change and environmental concerns. She will also be taking questions about her projects from staff and students, who can submit them prior to the event via Twitter using the hashtag #AskLilyMMU or by posting on the Big Impact MMU Facebook page
‘Big Impact in conversation with Lily Cole’ will take place on Thursday 15th May at 3pm. The event is open to all students and staff at MMU. The event is free but you must reserve a place on Eventbrite to guarantee entry.
Featured image and gallery: Hoang Phan Notebooks were carried from one workshop to another. Writers from different generations sat around tables, sharing manuscripts and listening to each other. Outdoors, small groups strolled along Oxford Road, pausing before buildings steeped in literary history. This was the scene during the Manchester Writing School Summer Festival 2026, held…
Featured image: Katja Ogrin With many sore heads and limbs this morning after the most hardcore day of the festival taking place yesterday, many are recovering from the moshing and pit brutality of the previous day’s antics. As the tradition of a morning movie in the Serpents Lair prevails, the crowd sprawls out onto the plush,…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After an electrifying start to the weekend, with temperatures slowly climbing, many lather themselves in suncream, shed their band shirts and rise from their tents to trek towards the arena. Saturday has big things incoming for the humans of Bloodstock 2026. Some pace themselves for the day and hide from the early…
Featured image: Abbi Draper After a memorable Thursday opener, Bloodstock 2026 opens its gates once again onto the Hallowed Grounds of Catton Park, kicking off day two of its 25th-anniversary celebration of metal. As the sun rises on Catton Park, festivalgoers emerge from their tents to prepare for another day of mayhem. The morning brings…
Leave a reply