Stella McCartney is among four honorees named to the 2026 TIME Earth Awards, recognized for 25 years of sustainable fashion leadership.
The 2026 TIME Earth Awards has named four honorees whose work across fashion, Indigenous advocacy, clean energy, and corporate sustainability is redefining how the world responds to climate change. Among this year’s class is British designer Stella McCartney, recognized for spending 25 years proving that luxury fashion and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive.
TIME’s case for McCartney centers on a body of work that has gradually shifted what the fashion industry considers standard practice — and a new chapter in which she is extending that influence beyond her own label, leveraging her standing as an advocate, adviser, and champion of responsible practices across the industry. “Growing up with animals all around me and not eating animals, not killing them, I began to make connections that I think were more with the planet,” the designer, 54, told TIME. “Billions and billions [of animals] are killed every year for handbags and shoes and jackets. It’s kind of ridiculous,” she says. “And I’m showing there is an alternative.”
Her Fall 2026 show in Paris featured a collection in which 93 percent of the materials used were sustainable, including knitwear made from yeast fermentation proteins in place of wool, recycled denim produced without water waste, non-plastic sequins, lead-free crystals, and eco-leather derived from fermentation rather than animal skin or petroleum. It followed her Summer 2026 debut of Fevvers — the world’s first vegan, cruelty-free, plant-based alternative to feathers — and a Winter 2025 collection in which 96 percent of materials met sustainable criteria. In January 2025, McCartney repurchased the minority stake held by LVMH, returning to full independent ownership while continuing to advise LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault on sustainability — a role that gives her influence well beyond her own four walls.
“I think the fashion industry is hidden and dark, and there’s a lot of bad stuff going on,” she says. “We’re supposed to be about beauty and escape.”
A season of recognition
Two days after her Fall 2026 show, France’s President Emmanuel Macron named McCartney a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur at the Élysée Palace — France’s highest civilian distinction — pinning a red ribbon and green and white medallion to her dark blue, faux fur-trimmed skirt suit in recognition of her contributions to fashion, sustainability, innovation, and animal welfare. The room included Sir Paul McCartney, Anna Wintour (herself a Légion d’honneur recipient since 2011), Oprah Winfrey, Naomi Watts, Bianca Jagger, and Baz Luhrmann. “This recognition is not just for me, but for my family, my team, the innovators and the partners who have worked tirelessly and passionately to prove that fashion can be both desirable and responsible,” McCartney said.
The rest of the class
Joining McCartney on TIME’s Earth Awards list is Jesper Brodin, the former CEO of Ingka Group — the primary operator of Ikea’s stores — who grew the company’s revenue by nearly 24 percent between 2016 and 2024 while cutting its carbon emissions by 30 percent, and has since taken that data on the road to corporate boardrooms worldwide: “One of the most dangerous things you can do is be left on the station when others are on the train ride,” he told TIME.
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Indigenous Women and Peoples Association of Chad, was honored for elevating Indigenous expertise within climate policymaking — “Indigenous Peoples were never the problem to solve. We are part of the solution the planet has been waiting for,” she said, while Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All and the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sustainable Energy, accepted her recognition “with immense gratitude,” she said, “because this moment is not just about me. It belongs to the extraordinary colleagues and partners I am privileged to work with every day.”
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