Wilson Oryema is a passionate advocate of anti-consumerism. He’s also one of fashion’s hottest new models. Lucy Siegle finds out how he squares the circle

Three and half years ago, Wilson Oryema was on a lunch break from his job as a charity finance administrator in Stockwell, south London, when he was scouted as a model. Weeks later he walked the runway for Maison Margiela at Paris Fashion Week. Afterwards he returned to his job and took annual leave as some of the most fêted names in fashion booked him for campaigns. It was only six months later that he gave up the day job – but he didn’t give up on his devotion to charity or the environment.

Though recent bookings include the 2018 Pirelli calendar styled by Edward Enninful, and Versus Versace and Hugo Boss ad campaigns, Oryema’s primary calling seems to be as a planet defender. When we meet at a vegan café and I ask him how he’d describe his profession, he says “maybe writer and artist” but notably fails to mention “model”. Then he hands me a copy of his latest book, Wait – an elegant treatise on how humankind can wean itself off consumerism. It is a follow-up to his art exhibition of the same name, where he turned trash into a visual commentary on the pratfalls and pitfalls of our escalating waste habits.

In Wait, Oryema, now 24, examines the effects of human consumption on the planet in a thoughtful and sometimes moving way, through short stories and poems. It’s his response to the crises of our age: plastic pollution, addiction, destructive habits and the inability to slow down. That this is less despatch from the wilderness – in the traditional style of anti-consumerist agrarian poet Wendell Berry – and more of a despatch from the Frow is fascinating. But how does Oryema square writing an anti-consumption treatise with being one of the hottest faces in the $3 trillion global fashion industry – a sector that is hardly known for its planet-led approach to clothing humanity?

“I guess I’m a walking contradiction,” he says with a smile. “We all are, to an extent. But I am really picky about the fashion jobs that I take. You never want that feeling where you’re like, ‘My image is being used in this space and these are not my values.’ If it’s not a brand I agree with I’ll turn down the money and it doesn’t cause me any heartache.”

At the Observer Magazine’s shoot, Oryema’s presence in front of the camera is striking. I ask him what appeals to him about the fashion industry. “It gives me so much creative inspiration and motivation,” he explains, “I need to be around people like designers and photographers who live and breathe creativity, because you get to understand them and their processes. Actually creating an image is a very amazing thing. It’s helped me pick up on how to approach my ideas creatively.”

Oryema’s mother, originally from Uganda, worked with charities for most of her career, including a minority rights group, the Salvation Army and the British Red Cross. “I think that set the tone for me from a young age,” says Oryema. “I became aware of just how much organisations really can do for other people.” His father, primarily based in Uganda these days, also works in the charity sector. I ask Wilson if he is like his father. “I wouldn’t say I know my dad well enough to determine if I’m like him.”

He’s still in touch with the charity he was working for when he was scouted and has been able to lend the organisation his burgeoning profile. Oryema is good at maintaining relationships; his core group of friends dates from his days at Jubilee primary school in Brixton. But there is no significant other. “I’m very single at the moment. Sixteen months ago, in order to focus more deeply on my work, I took a vow of celibacy,” he says. I try to conjure an appropriate response: “How’s that going?”

“It’s worked out so well. I just shifted all focus into the work for this book.”

Now that the book is finished, is the vow broken? “Well, not right now,” he says, “because there’s more work to do.”

He has spent a lot of time thinking about the best ways to communicate to a wide audience and has little truck with didactic environmentalism. “I want everything I do to prompt conversation. I want you to tell me what you think. Of course, I’m not going to reach every person on the planet,” he concedes (although I think he might try), “but I definitely feel people are alienated and not aware of what’s going on.”

But how does he want to hear from us? “Any way you like. If you feel you want to respond and see me in the street just shout: ‘Oi, Wilson, I want to speak to you!’”

I suggest that this might get quite wearing. “Oh no,” he says brightly, “sometimes I go to a great vegan food place near my home [he still lives in Brixton] and I’ve been locked into a really interesting conversation for hours.”

Recent studies on how to solve the most pressing problems of our age – such as halting catastrophic climate change and eliminating microplastics – suggest that, yes, we need innovation and policy and funding, but we also urgently require agile thinkers, too: those with a discursive and expansive approach to problems – and a willingness to enter into dialogue.

These are qualities that Wilson Oryema has in abundance. In fact, he’s such perfect a fit that I slightly wonder if he wasn’t once hatched from an egg marked: “Break shell in case of ecological emergency.”

Wait by Wilson Oryema is published now at £7.99