Westwood pledges £1m to tackle climate change

The designer donated the funds to Cool Earth, a group that works to prevent rainforest logging. She said she decided to make the pledge after learning that just a fraction of the £390m World Bank-directed Climate Investment Funds had been allocated.

‘Tomorrow is too late. Governments have been talking about saving rainforest for 40 years and only half is left,’ she said on Cool Earth’s website. ‘We can't rely on anything but our own actions’.

Westwood’s donation forms the basis of the No Fun Being Extinct campaign, which aims to raise £7m to purchase and return rainforest land to indigenous communities. Cool Earth funds anti-logging efforts in Borneo, Peru and the Congo Basin.

A committed environmental activist, Westwood has also supported deprived communities in Kenya via her Ethical Fashion Africa Collection of recycled handbags. In November, the designer visited the Occupy London encampment to express sympathy with the protesters’ anti-capitalist cause.