King Charles III Sticking With Green Agenda Despite His New Role
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Lean, and green.
King Charles III has made his priorities as monarch perfectly clear as he seeks to put his unique eco-stamp on Britain.
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He wants a slimmed-down, efficient royal family that’s not too much of a burden on the U.K.’s finances, and that vision will come into clear focus on May 6, during the new king’s coronation.
Members of the king’s immediate family, and likely just the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, are expected to join Charles and Queen Camilla on the Buckingham Palace balcony following the ceremony, which is set to be a shorter and more efficient affair than in the past.
The king, who was once ridiculed for talking to his plants, also plans to pursue his environmental crusades despite the new and varied responsibilities that come with royalty’s top job.
As monarch, he has to remain above politics and cannot express his opinions publicly, but that will not stop him from pushing his values-led agenda on Britain, and the wider world, and exercising soft power whenever he can.
It’s no coincidence that King Charles’ 74th birthday portrait, released earlier this month, shows him leaning against a massive ancient oak tree in Windsor Great Park. Bathed in sunlight, he looks relaxed and at one with his surroundings.
The British journalist and author Anne de Courcy says that Charles was championing the environment, and green causes, long before it became fashionable to do so.
De Courcy recalls interviewing Charles in the 1980s, when he was already addressing themes such as climate change; complementary medicine; public health issues such as loneliness, isolation and depression, and the importance of extended, multigenerational family networks.
“He’s got a very strong, well-calibrated moral compass, as the queen did. He’s always tried to help people, and he started a life of service very early,” de Courcy says.
Although Charles has taken part in the United Nations’ Cop conferences for years, he did not attend Cop27 this month.
He supported the event, though, hosting a reception in early November at Buckingham Palace, where he convened more than 300 chief executive officers of international companies and associations.
His guests were mostly members of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, or SMI, an organization that Charles launched in 2020 at the World Economic Forum at Davos. The aim of the SMI is to encourage economies and companies to operate “in favor of people and planet.”
The SMI has a Fashion Task Force chaired by Yoox founder and former YNAP CEO Federico Marchetti, and it is working to place the industry on a more “regenerative path.”
The Fashion Task Force has set a 1 million euro investment program in the Himalayas to restore wildlife and sustainable farming to what has become an overworked and degraded landscape.
On Nov. 7, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Marchetti talked about the progress made by the Himalaya Regenerative Fashion Living Lab, which is being bankrolled by the Brunello Cucinelli brand.
During a Cop27 panel event, Marchetti said his five years working with Charles “have always been entirely action-orientated. I consider the SMI Fashion Task Force not only a think tank but an ‘action tank,’ which is achieving groundbreaking results.”
Britain’s new king made his first public speech about safeguarding the environment in 1970, and in the mid-1980s he admitted to spending quality time with his plants, talking to them in order to help them grow.
Following that admission, he was viciously ridiculed by the press and the public, yet his passion for conservation only intensified. During his long career as the Prince of Wales he launched projects and initiatives spanning agriculture, fashion and textiles.
In 1976 he founded The Prince’s Trust to help vulnerable and at-risk youths with skills training and education. The young prince famously used his Navy severance pay — 7,400 pounds — to fund a number of community initiatives. They became the founding projects of the trust.
The man who would become king has drawn much inspiration from his late father, Prince Philip, another environmental campaigner.
Philip served as president of the World Wildlife Fund U.K. from its foundation in 1961 to 1982, and president of WWF-International from 1981 to 1996. At the time of his death in 2021, he was president emeritus of WWF.
Earlier this month King Charles took up his father’s mantle, becoming park ranger of Windsor Great Park 70 years after Philip was appointed to the post.
In this new role, he’ll offer oversight and guidance about the day-to-day stewardship of one of the country’s oldest landed estates. Windsor Great Park is well-known for its horticultural displays, woodland shores, wildflowers and deer.
“His Majesty’s passion and commitment to the natural world will be invaluable as we seek to become a center of excellence for environmental best practice, preserving and enhancing the Great Park for generations to come,” said Paul Sedgwick, rural and deputy ranger of the park.
A keen gardener, Charles founded Duchy Organics in 1990 to sell organic food products from his estate in Cornwall. Since then it has become a leading organic and natural food brand, which is now operated in partnership with the British supermarket Waitrose. Its aim is to help small- and medium-sized producers, with all the profits going to charitable causes.
He was also behind the global Campaign for Wool, which began in 2010. The Prince of Wales was keen to raise awareness among consumers about the renewable and biodegradable benefits of the fiber and to boost the dwindling price of wool.
King Charles has spoken at multiple Cop conferences over the years, urging world leaders to commit “trillions, not billions, of dollars,” and to adopt a “warlike footing” to deal with climate change.
In what was to be her final Christmas Day address in 2021, Queen Elizabeth II said she was proud that Charles and Prince William had inherited her late husband’s passion for conservation.
Prince William founded the Earthshot Prize, which is awarded by his Royal Foundation to five winners each year for their contributions to environmentalism. Each winner receives a grant of 1 million pounds to continue their environmental work.
In December, William will travel to Boston, Massachusetts for the second annual awards ceremony.
The new king’s concern for the environment also shines through in his clothing choices.
In an interview earlier this year, Catherine Hayward, the former fashion director of Esquire U.K. and a freelance stylist, said Charles has always taken a sustainable approach to dressing.
“He has been a pioneer of re-wearing — and has an archive of clothes that he’s been wearing for years. He wears them to death,” said Hayward, pointing out that the morning coat Charles wore to Philip’s funeral in April was the same one he donned for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding in 2018.
Andrew Groves, professor of fashion design at the University of Westminster and the director of the Westminster Menswear Archive, said earlier this year that Britain’s new monarch “doesn’t have to dress any way to ‘impress.’ He is already impressive, powerful and puts everyone else at ease with his style.”
Nowhere will Charles’ new style, and values, be more apparent than at the upcoming coronation, a state occasion that will be paid for by the British government.
The ceremony will see King Charles III crowned alongside his wife Camilla, The Queen Consort. Buckingham Palace has already said the event “will reflect the monarch’s role today, and look toward the future,” while being rooted in long-standing traditions and pageantry.
Meanwhile, The Telegraph newspaper, quoting palace sources, has reported that the event will be “shorter, smaller, less expensive and more representative of different faiths and community groups,” per the king’s specific request.
It has been reported that guests will be limited to a maximum of 2,000, with Commonwealth leaders and a diversity of religions to be prioritized among the congregation, at the behest of Britain’s forward-facing king.
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