“It takes a collective mindset to fix it.” - Anjana Aravind We all feel the weight of climate change from time to time (or daily!) as we try to take in the size of the problem and how to solve it. Now imagine being in it, everyday, as a climate researcher and seeing first hand what’s really going on with our planet. In this episode, Anjana Aravind joins the Curated Consciously podcast to break down the misconceptions about climate change, and how our systems, consumer choices, and the media play...
Oct 23, 2020•41 min
In episode 31 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Jitendra and Shivani Sinha, co-founders of SAI Sustainable Agro. SAI Sustainable Agro is a social venture working to improve the livelihoods of tribal and marginalized farmers in Odisha, India, using agroforestry to redevelop degraded land. The goal: to develop a truly inclusive and sustainable business model that uplifts marginalized people and farmers worldwide. Jitendra is a veteran of the agricultural industry in India and a passionate s...
Oct 01, 2020•37 min•Ep. 31
In episode 30 of the Impact India podcast, I welcome back Kriti Tula, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Doodlage . Doodlage is a fashion brand based in New Delhi working with post-production and post-consumer textile waste to curate womens, mens, and accessory collections. During the pandemic, Doodlage has been working to partner with homegrown brands aligned with their upcycling and zero waste values. Their most recent collection Indigo Chronicles was curated with Iro Iro, a zero waste B2B te...
Aug 24, 2020•30 min•Ep. 30
In episode 29, I sit down with fellow co-founder of Sustainable Travel Network, Kelsey White. Sustainable Travel Network is a community of sustainable travel leaders breaking the silos of the industry and fostering collaboration across the sector. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on India have been devastating, especially as we have watched our beloved tourism industry crumble before us. However, as travel begins to open up in India and around the world, this is our opportunity as leaders ...
Aug 05, 2020•32 min•Ep. 29
In episode 28 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Pallavi Yadav and Mehak Tariq Beigh of WeAreLabeless, an eco-conscious brand aligned with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals led by the United Nations. Working closely with craftspeople across India, with a focus on employing women, their goal is to help achieve SDG 5: Gender Equality, and SDG 12: Responsible Consumption & Production. Pallavi has always been passionate about incorporating sustainability into the fashion industry. She...
Jul 28, 2020•40 min•Ep. 28
In episode 27 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Nidhi Lodha of June, a homegrown brand reviving the crafts of Gujarat by making wearable art. Nidhi is a copywriter by profession with a passion for working with textiles and colors. After her short stint in advertising in Mumbai, she returned home to Gujarat to specialize in working with Kutch handwork. This led to the launch of June. June is led by a team of female artisans reviving Kutch handicrafts, native to Gujarat. The team uses vinta...
Jul 21, 2020•35 min•Ep. 27
In episode 26 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Shradha Kochhar, a knitwear designer, textile artist, and the co-founder of LOTA India. Shradha’s work combines sustainability and craftsmanship, and although based in New Delhi, is being recognized globally for her talent. Her latest works were seen at London Fashion Week 2019, which featured her knitted ‘khadi’ fabric, using Kala cotton, and knitted sweaters for the ASHISH AW19 collection. LOTA India is an exploration into the intersection...
Jul 16, 2020•39 min•Ep. 26
In episode 25 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Kush Sharma of Rural Odyssey. This incredible social enterprise promotes sustainable tourism as an additional livelihood opportunity for rural communities, by building community-owned and community-lead tourism models. Kush is a naturalist at heart with a passion for promoting and preserving the Indigenous cultures of India using sustainable tourism as his platform. Kush is a firm believer of learning from native wisdom and nature, and works...
Jul 08, 2020•34 min•Ep. 25
In episode 24 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Jitna Bhagani, founder of Shakti.ism and she will survive. Shakti.ism is a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers and employs disadvantaged women in India. She will survive is a global gender-equality advocacy project that provides resources to women around the world facing gender-based violence. Jitna is a survivor of sexual violence. Her lived experiences and knowledge of eradicating gender-based violence has led her down a unique journ...
Jul 01, 2020•52 min•Ep. 24
In episode 23 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Arushi Aggarwal of The Initiative, a social enterprise providing sustainable livelihoods to low-income craftspeople through a nationwide platform selling their handcrafted products. Arushi Aggarwal is a designer for social good, connecting the stories of handmade products and their makers with consumers. Combining handicraft processes and design, with a focus on the consumer experience, Arushi is creating social impact and consumer value thr...
Jun 23, 2020•39 min•Ep. 23
In episode 22 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Anya Gupta, a sustainable and conscious lifestyle advocate who shifted her city life to live on her family farm to study and create micro ecosystems. Anya’s homegrown venture Aura Life is a quest to bring concepts of low waste and sustainable living to her home city of Chandigarh. In her spare time, she uses her voice on social media to share tips on conscious consumption, with a focus on fashion and lifestyle. In this episode, Anya and I di...
Jun 16, 2020•42 min•Ep. 22
And I’m back with Season 3, and much earlier than I thought. When I ended season 2, I was feeling super uncertain and nervous about moving through COVID-19. That hasn’t changed. I also thought I would use the season to dive into the shifts social businesses in India were going through post-pandemic, but that has yet to come. Now here we are—three months later and the change we are seeing is constant . However, it’s also become a beautiful time to go inwards, absorb, reflect, and re-strategize on...
Jun 09, 2020•18 min•Ep. 21
In the final episode of season 2 of Impact India, I sit solo in my front yard (the furthest outside I can get right now) to chat about moving forward with personal and professional goals in a time when the future is so uncertain. In a country with the strictest lockdown policies, India has entered stage 3 of COVID-19 (meaning community transitions—new cases have no identified infection source or travel history) and panic is starting to really set in. However, it is so important that we sprinkle ...
Mar 31, 2020•25 min•Ep. 20
In episode 19 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with fellow Sustainable Travel Network co-founder, Kelsey White. Originating from the foothills of Alberta, Kelsey was raised on the values of local living with awareness of global impact. As the head of Tour Operations at Hara World, she develops and leads multi-day tours across north India focused on sustainability and community development. Kelsey’s background in educational leadership includes working with all ages as an experiential learning...
Mar 17, 2020•58 min•Ep. 19
In episode 18, I chat with Gayatri Jolly, Founder and Creative Director of MasterG on breaking the cycle of poverty and stigma through fashion. Gayatri is a Fashion Designer from Parsons, New York and a Business Graduate from Babson College, Boston. She worked for 2 years in the fashion industry in New York with companies such as Armani, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Dennis Basso. She has also designed costumes for clients of international acclaim such as Dana Fuchs, Jay...
Mar 03, 2020•34 min•Ep. 18
In episode 17 of the Impact India podcast, I chat with Raj Jain of School Chale, a creative not-for-profit and educational content platform that creates design driven stories to teach and empower young people at school, online, and on TV. Raj is currently the Partnership and Program Lead based in Mumbai. He leads their Map of Me digital content youth channel, their coding program for girls in Bihar partnered with Microsoft (which will teach 10,000 girls to code!), as well as supervises the scrip...
Feb 25, 2020•34 min•Ep. 17
In episode 17, I chat with Bhaavya Goenka, founder of IRO IRO. This zero-waste lifestyle and fashion brand works with handweavers in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The brand weaves recycled textiles to create beautiful, modern, and handmade clothing, helping close the loop on textile waste in the fashion industry. They have been featured in many publications and nominated for awards such as Lakmé Fashion Week's Lexus Design Award. Bhaavya Goenka is a graduate in craft design with a specialization in textile...
Feb 11, 2020•42 min•Ep. 16
In episode 15, I finally deliver on an episode that takes a spin–I’m diving into the perspective and opinion of travellers in India with travel blogger and dear friend Eileen McDougall. After a decade working in London, Eileen swapped flashy buildings for a notepad and camera and set off to Asia. She fell in love with India, and it was here she started writing about her travels and the culture she was becoming immersed in. She is at her happiest on a bus alone heading off to somewhere new, but s...
Feb 04, 2020•52 min•Ep. 15
How did Megha’s love-hate relationship with her mother's resourcefulness inspire her journey in conscious living and fashion? Find out as I sit down with Megha to chat about innovation in fashion, and navigating the many challenges of accessibility. Megha Rawat is the founder of Kurio , a sustainable fashion brand that conceptualizes and manufactures upcycled, handmade, and locally crafted footwear. Megha is by choice a sustainability practitioner and by degree a coder. Her passion for sustainab...
Jan 28, 2020•43 min•Ep. 14
In episode 13 of the Impact India podcast, I speak with Manik Thapar, one of the pioneers of waste management in India and is known for his unique business model at Eco-Wise. Manik Thapar is a Canadian Citizen with Indian origin. Having done his MBA from The De Vos School of Management in Michigan, he moved to India in 2005. Inspired by the idea of setting up a waste management company in India, which came from a school project; Manik at the age of 23 decided to enter the challenging industry de...
Jan 21, 2020•47 min•Ep. 13
In episode 12 of the Impact India podcast, I speak with Mahima Gujral, founder of Sui, a conscious brand bridging the gap between nature and fashion. Mahima Gujral is the founder of Sui, a slow fashion brand from Delhi, India. Born into a world of elegant dressing, Mahima grew up recognizing the beauty of custom-made clothing, the value of quality fabrics, the craft of embroidery, and the essence of building close-knit relationships at every part of your value chain. Bitten by the travel bug at ...
Jan 14, 2020•37 min•Ep. 12
Welcome back to season two of the Impact India podcast! I wanted to kick us off by setting intentions and the tone for this season. Here we are in a new decade. It’s time to get vulnerable and share the challenges social entrepreneurs are facing not just in India but around the world. As director of Hara World, experiential education and impact travel organization that empowers and connects young people through environmental justice programs, I’m ready to get us started. New to the podcast? My n...
Jan 07, 2020•13 min•Ep. 11
In episode #10, I connect with Ramona Saboo, founder of Forty Red Bangles, a socially conscious fashion brand that celebrates the marriage of sustainability and design. The brand offers beautifully designed lifestyle products that find their roots in traditional organic sources. All designs are created in-house, each with a unique story to tell, handmade with eco-friendly materials. They also collaborate and outsource elements of production to artisan groups to produce one-of-a-kind designs. The...
Sep 24, 2019•45 min•Ep. 10
In episode #9 of the Impact India podcast, I connect with Richa Malik, founder of The Happy Turtle, a DIPP recognised, boot-strapped start-up working towards reducing plastic consumption. They have created the world’s FIRST Plastic Footprint Calculator For Businesses, equipped to assess any business premise on their annual plastic consumption of disposable and reusable plastics. Richa is an Engineer and XLRI MBA, that later went into sales and marketing, then became a Diving Instructor and Eco-E...
Sep 17, 2019•48 min•Ep. 9
In episode #8 of the Impact India podcast, I connect with Josie Mackenzie, founder of AMMA, a social enterprise that utilizes food waste and plants to produce natural dyes to make handwoven fabrics, fashion accessories, and homewares. Amma, meaning ‘mother’ in Tamil and Sinhala, works in partnership with local NGO Tea Leaf Trust, and UK based charity TRAID . Together they train and employ mothers & young women living around Sri Lanka's tea estates in Eliya. Josie is passionate about finding ...
Sep 10, 2019•51 min•Ep. 8
In episode #7, I connect with Leila Veerasamy, Founder and Creative Director of PA.NI Swimwear , a sustainable brand that seeks to normalize swimwear in India by offering timeless clean designs, universally flattering to South Asian women's diverse body types. Their swimsuits are made with ECONYL®, a regenerated nylon yarn developed from discarded fishing nets and other plastic waste found in the ocean. Leila is true global citizen, raised in Toulouse, France and Mauritius. She came to India in ...
Sep 03, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 7
In episode 6 of the Impact India podcast, I connect with Sanvar Oberoi, Co-founder of BOHECO, Bombay Hemp Company, India’s FIRST hemp and cannabis company. The social enterprise has helped central and state governments in creating policies, giving license's, and developing the R&D building blocks needed to build an industry. They also empower farmers by encouraging them to utilize wild hemp growing in their districts. Recently, in addition to their two hemp licenses, they now are the only co...
Aug 27, 2019•57 min•Ep. 6
In episode 5 of the Impact India podcast, I connect with Darshana Gajare of FairTrunk, a platform promoting conscious brands, driving community awareness & engagement, and consulting for emerging sustainable businesses within fashion and lifestyle. Darshana also leads Communications for Fashion Revolution India, a global movement that demands greater transparency in the fashion supply chain. Darshana believes that sustainability is truly rooted in how our ancestors lived, it's just about loo...
Aug 20, 2019•53 min•Ep. 5
In episode 4 of the Impact India podcast, I sit with Mandeep Jhajj at Bootstart in Fort, Mumbai to talk about how her social enterprise, Tribes for GOOD , is changing the way we see voluntourism. Tribes for GOOD is an impact travel organization that bridges the talent gap faced by social change organizations in India by connecting them to an international talent pool of students, millennials and early retirees. Mandeep dives into how her Social Impact Journeys are impacting founders and benefici...
Aug 13, 2019•40 min•Ep. 4
In Episode 3 of the Impact India podcast, I meet with Himanshu Shekhar, owner of Delhi by Cycle , at The Red Kettle Cafe in New Delhi. Delhi by Cycle is India's first cycling tour company based in New Delhi. Himanshu dives into his passion for cycling and why Delhi is the most beautiful city in India, along with his journey in entrepreneurship coming from a finance background. Tune in to hear: How Delhi By Cycle is smashing the stigma around cycling How modes of transportation are associated wit...
Aug 06, 2019•43 min•Ep. 3
