🌍 The great big blue: our oceans 🌊
Plus an awesome aubergine miso glaze recipe, sounds of the sea and an edgy floral design show
Welcome to BRiMM, the collective, journal and planet-positive shop here to help you live a lower-impact life, without life feeling less
First up: a couple of quick diary invites before we submerge ourselves in this week’s (increasingly) hot topic. It’s our last chance to invite you to meet us at the Future Fabrics Expo 2025 over in North Greenwich this week, being held from Tuesday 24 to Wednesday 25 June. You’ll be able to check out products from our Reset Boxes, and chat with us IRL. We’ll also be at Blue Earth Forum in Shoreditch from the party on Tuesday 24 evening, and then during the day on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 June (busy week!) – come say hi if you see us.
This week’s theme is… the great big blue: our oceans 🌊
"I know that the sea comes before and after me, and hold my madness ready."
The Sea Close By, Albert Camus
The ocean has long been used as a symbol of chaos and madness in literature. Think Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and The Waves. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. Which is either entirely fitting or completely ironic – we haven’t quite decided yet – because our treatment of it, and our relationship with it, is, frankly, a bit unhinged.
Water covers 71% our own shiny blue marble. Which means, when you think about it, that what we consider to be ‘normal’ land territory is actually abnormal: The Other. Sealife considers us to be unusual air-breathing creatures (so we’ve heard). As Sir David Attenborough put it on the eve of the release of his latest film Ocean last month (still showing in select cinemas and on Disney Plus): “After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea”.
In the movie itself, Sir David communicates a surprisingly, even excitingly, hopeful message. “The ocean can recover faster than we thought possible,” he says. “If we just let nature take its course, the sea will save itself. If we save the sea, we save our world.” He points to kelp forests and coral reefs with fully recovered eco-systems following fishing bans, the recovery of whale numbers after the enforcement of hunting bans and much more – see the doc for the full, promising picture.
Adding to this climate optimism is the outcome of last week’s UN Ocean Conference 2025 in Nice. Despite the US’s “we’re just observing, we’re not officially here” presence, it symbolised a shared renewed faith in the idea of international partnership, as nearly 200 countries gathered to work together to undo the threats facing the big blue. As we know, there are many, spanning from plastic pollution and deep sea mining to bottom trawling (as demonstrated by Stephen Fry and Theo James in this fantastic clip by The Blue Marine Foundation, as part of its new campaign, The Bottom Line), climate change and plenty more besides. The main takeaway? It looks likely that a key treaty to protect or restore at least 30% of our “terrestrial, inland water, and that of coastal and marine areas” may come into force in record time. For more details on that, keep reading.
You’ll also find in this week’s waterproof mix: ultra-chic cotton bikinis, beautiful refillable bottles that contribute to ocean plastic collection in a major way and the underwater love represented by the rise (or plunge?) of Eco Diving-inspired travel.
Team up, tune in and let’s turn the tide,
BRiMM x
P.s. A couple of extra sea-related finds for you worth sharing: The Marine Conservation Society’s upcoming Ocean Film Festival, touring the UK with ‘the world’s best ocean films’ from September to November; and this UK Pro Surf Movie crowdfunder, aiming to document a bygone dreamy UK surf tour that not enough people know about – yet.
P.p.s. Our limited one-off membership fee, starting from £200 per lifetime rather than £180 per year, for all the same benefits – is going to close soon, so join the waitlist while you can. Refer a friend too and we’ll invest £200 into solar energy for our brands through the BRiMM Planet Fund – and you’ll get a further £20 off each, plus a shot at a free membership.
📢 IT’S A BRIMM THING 📢
In case you missed it in our quick catch-up Thursday newsletter – this week we published a fresh piece by our head of beauty Sam, revealing the reason we decided to start curating our Reset Boxes in the first place. “Because it really is true: you don't have to sacrifice anything in order to buy more earth-conscious brands,” Sam explains. “Together we’ve worked tirelessly to ensure every single product not only works brilliantly but also stands up against conventional alternatives.” She also covers why our first five boxes are focussed on three specific areas of daily life that can “create larger ripple-effects of positive change”. Intrigued? Find out what the categories are and why – check out Sam’s Journal article now.
The BRiMM Life Questionnaire
This week it’s the turn of Laura Rudoe, founder of Evolve – the small-batch, nature-inspired skincare brand we mentioned in our Solstice-themed newsletter last week, that we thought was equally worth mentioning in our ocean coverage, since they offer a reef-friendly product (keep reading to find out what it is…). What’s more, you’ll soon find it in our Luxury British Brands Reset Box.
Favourite walking route
“Lately, I’ve been loving a peaceful riverside walk near our studio in Radlett. It’s the perfect way to reset during a busy day especially when I can turn it into a walking meeting and soak up some sunshine. Being surrounded by nature always brings a fresh perspective.”
Top planet-positive products and why
“Right now, I’m loving our Climate Defence Facial Cream SPF 30, especially in the summer. It protects my skin without harming the planet as it’s reef-friendly, and it's packed with amazing natural ingredients. It’s one of those everyday essentials that really aligns with my needs and values.”
What is love
“Love is the quiet force that expands our sense of self until ‘me’ becomes ‘we’. It is presence, care and courageous kindness in motion – fuel for growth, resilience and belonging. As Jalal al‑Din Rumi, a 13ᵗʰ‑century Persian poet and mystic, put it: ‘Love is the bridge between you and everything’.”
Watch out for the rest of Laura’s answers on wearebrimm.com soon. Fancy doing our BRiMM Life Questionnaire yourself? Get in touch
FROM THE COLLECTIVE
Sam shared this insta reel collab between Condé Nast Traveller and chef Douglas McMaster, celebrating 10 years of Silo – the world’s first zero-waste restaurant, based in Hackney Wick – and its dish greatest hits
Rebecca realised it was British Flowers Week just in time – it ends today – and spread the word about Flowers on The Edge, a showcase of emerging, season-led floral designers happening in Peckham this weekend
Matt’s loving Japanese Walking – apparently ‘the new low-impact fitness trend for a healthy heart’
We love to hear what our collective is finding. Share your links with Becky.
OCEAN’S 60
Discover exactly what went down at the UN Ocean Conference [UNOC3] last week in Nice, France in this roundup on Earth.Org (link below), or this snappier BBC explainer. The headline news? A total of 50 countries have now ratified the UN High Seas Treaty – shockingly, “the world’s first treaty to protect and conserve marine biodiversity in international waters, adopted in 2022” – an agreement to put 30% of the ocean into protected areas. The official requirement is 60 ratifications to make it actually come into force, and lots of promises have been made by other countries that they’ll do so by the end of 2025.
MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLES
We recently met with the guys behind OceanBottle, a seas-saving movement. For every super-aesthetically pleasing and smart reusable bottle you buy, 1,000 plastic ones are collected from beaches where most waste washes up. The fact that there are so many bottles to be picked up an entire business can be based on this idea is compelling in itself. Oh – and they also recently posted a handy little insta review of the UNOC3 too, that’s even more succinct: five points and six behind-the-scenes pics.
→ BROWSE MORE
OUI OUI TO NOUNOU
If premium designer women’s swimwear brand nounou sounds and seems sexy enough to be French or Italian, that’s because it’s inspired by founder Anouchka Houser’s childhood memories of her French-Italian mother’s sun-kissed, care-free 70s beach look. She actually created the line in the UK, in small-batches out of London. But the most cute thing about nounou, apart from this sensationally sensuous branding and the genuinely gorgeous bikinis and swimsuits? The fact that they are made from cotton in an industry that’s still a sea of hidden and not-so-hidden plastics.
→ SEE MORE
UNDERWATER LOVE
One of the most heartwarming travel trends of the last couple of years has got to be Eco Diving. What it boils down to is the fact that more and more divers are now choosing where to go guided by their common desire to love and protect the oceans. In 2022, The Reef-World Foundation, a UK marine ecology charity, discovered that 95% of divers wanted to “book with sustainable operators, but struggled to do so”. Quickly seeing a need, PADI (the Professional Association of Diving Instructors) alongside the United Nations Environment Program and Reef-World, launched a new international Eco Center accreditation in 2023. The application requirements for achieving it are so thorough, including proving your centre has had a direct influence in improving the local environment, that it takes around a year to complete. With 100 accredited PADI Eco Centres in 32 countries now confirmed and more than 300 in 64 countries actively working towards it – why not plan your next diving trip to one, using this locator app?
→ EXPLORE MORE
GLAZE OVER AND OVER
Dr Johnny Drain’s plant-based dish of dreams? “Aubergine miso glaze, roasted till molten. Serve with rice, pickles, smugness.” A food tip from a former Noma collaborator with a PhD in materials science from Oxford is well worth a try. Here’s a more detailed recipe inspired by Angela Hartnett’s version, courtesy of The Balanced Kitchen blog.
→ MAKE THIS
MUSIC TO IMAGINE YOU’RE AT SEA TO
James fell asleep on a lilo this week, and dreamt about being at sea. This is what it sounded like…
The carbon footprint of an email depends what device you use to open it, but sending you this one used about 3.5g of carbon.