Lush Grafton St, located across from the College, will remain closed tomorrow morning in solidarity with those taking to the streets for tomorrow’s worldwide climate action strike.
In addition to Trinity’s closest Lush outlet, the cosmetics company will cease operations worldwide for a half-day to demonstrate that climate change is not “business as usual”.
Speaking to The University Times, Jessie Doyle, a supervisor at Lush Grafton St, said that the company “feel[s] obligated to stand with the strikers”.
“We are an ethical company and we do have a lot of environmentally sound products”, she said. “That’s kind of what our stance is as a company, that’s why we are closing.”
All Lush production facilities, offices and 250 stores will close the morning of the strike. Lush Grafton St will re-open at 1.30pm.
“We want political change. We want the environment to be put at the forefront of government bodies and plans, to benefit everyone, not just businesses”, Doyle said.
“We have to stop ‘business as usual’, we have to stop manufacturing things, stop absolutely everything, just to make a statement that we’re in solidarity with the strikers and that we want what they want as well.”
Lush sells handmade skincare products, bath bombs and cosmetics. Over half of its products are sold “naked” without packaging.
Trinity Extinction Rebellion will be participating in the protest, which will start at Custom House Quay and finish at Merrion Sq.
The march is part of the Fridays for Future movement, started by teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in Sweden. On Friday, March 15th, 2019, at least 1.6 million people, many of them schoolchildren, took part in a global climate strike in 125 countries on all 7 continents.
Yesterday, Alan McGinty, the principal of Blackrock College, a private school in south Dublin, courted online controversy when he called the protests “infuriating”.
The Irish Times reported that McGinty wrote in a letter to parents: “Why do they have to be held on a school day? Why on a Friday?”
“Please ensure that your son remains in school on Friday. I look for your support on this. It is in everyone’s interests that school and the home are ad idem on such matters”, he wrote.
Emer Moreau also contributed reporting to this piece.
