eco travel

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 textiles from the Indian Institute Of Crafts And Design. Her studies involved understanding design intervention in traditional Indian crafts, with a goal to bring contemporary context to them and develop products and services with these traditional practices in the modern fashion industry.

In this episode, Bhaavya and I dive into the importance of industry connections as a student and as a young entrepreneur, and how she leveraged B2B opportunities to grow her brand. We also explore her process of weaving recycled textiles, and the beautiful sense of community and support among circular brands compared to mainstream fashion brands.

“Every opportunity to design is an opportunity to communicate.”

Bhaavya also dives into the story behind her upcoming summer collection that aims to reclaim the color saffron from its connection to extreme nationalism to its original meaning: courage.

Saffron in India is directly associated with highly-religious Hindus and the need to make India a Hindu country. This controversial topic is often a terrifying thought for the many religious and cultural groups that have been residing in India for thousands of years.

Get in touch with this epic young leader at iroirozerowaste.com or on Instagram @iroirozerowaste.

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 seems to spend most of her time near mountains, mainly the Himalayas. 

In this episode, we dive into the advantages of slow travel, the diversity (and extremes) of India as a whole, and the positive and negative impacts of the tourism industry on the country’s development from an economic, cultural, social, and environmental lens. 

This is quite an intense episode, especially if you are thinking of working in the start-up or nonprofit world in India. To help you navigate your journey, we also cover the challenges around westerners and long-term “stayers” investing in local communities, a lack of women in the tourism industry and in public spaces, cross-cultural relationships and marriage, and how government bodies and leaders can take a stand on social justice in India.

“It’s very hard to know and understand what a culture is like until you’ve been in it for 5 to 10 years.”

Connect with Eileen at nomadicnumerist.com or on Instagram @nomadicnumerist.

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Buy Good Feel Good Expo - From fashion and beauty to lifestyle and travel, Buy Good. Feel Good. Expo celebrates the power of the conscious consumer. An uplifting weekend full of energizing entrepreneurs and brands with purpose, the Expo inspires the change maker within us all..

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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 sustainability led to the launch of Kurio Designs. Her mission is to design and create products that make people aware of our fragile environment while offering them beautiful fashion that makes an impact.

Kurio Designs is an award nominated brand here in India, and Megha has been recognized for her work by many platforms such as The Better India and LBB. She has also been selected for countless impact accelerators and of course, I'm one of her biggest fans.

In this episode, Megha and I dive into how to identify valuable collaboration opportunities for your start-up, channelling all 5 senses in the customer journey, and the challenges around telling your story as a conscious brand.

Connect with Megha at kurio.in and on Instagram @_kurio.

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 despite initial difficulties and opposition from friends and family.

His efforts quickly become acknowledged across the country (and beyond!) and soon became a true youth icon. Currently, EcoWise is collecting, segregating, aggregating, treating and disposing of around 120 tonnes of waste on a daily basis through composting and recycling methods. Last year, his company managed to divert 35,000 tonnes of waste from ending up in landfills.

In this episode, Manik dives into the history and current status of political corruption and mafia in waste management in India, the responsibilities of consumers, the detailed difference between upcycling and downcycling, and how caste and infrastructure gets in the way of sustainable waste management.

Connect with Manik on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. For more information on Ecowise, visit ecowise.net.in and Instagram.

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 a young age, she always believed that the best journeys are those closest to nature, those that inspire, energize and fascinate. After learning about the impact of fashion in 2016, she began a journey of her own into mindful purchasing and conscious living.

Sui is a conscious fashion brand that bridges the gap between nature and fashion. Their designs are super "I'm on holiday" but also very flattering and flowy, and appropriate for multiple occasions. I just recently styled two pieces from their latest collection Flow as Sui gave me the opportunity to share my story in sustainable living through their platform.

In this episode, we dive into the accessibility of conscious fashion, the abundance of buzzwords and greenwashing in the industry, and how Mahima is connecting with consumers in India and Singapore where she currently resides.

Connect with Mahima and Sui at wearesui.com and on Instagram.

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Buy Good Feel Good Expo - From fashion and beauty to lifestyle and travel, Buy Good. Feel Good. Expo celebrates the power of the conscious consumer. An uplifting weekend full of energizing entrepreneurs and brands with purpose, the Expo inspires the change maker within us all.

Have Fun Do Good -  Group travel experiences that incorporate volunteering. Our mission is to provide a unique opportunity for people to travel and give back. Our experiences are more than volunteering, they’re about people connecting and coming together through a common goal.

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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 name is Jazzmine and I’m your host! I am deeply passionate about empowering youth, zero waste living, conscious fashion, and responsible travel. I am currently the Director of Hara World, one of 4 co-founders of the Sustainable Travel Network, and the host of this epic podcast Impact India.

My purpose is to use my professional skills and background in youth program development, nonprofit management, and social impact to lead young people to become confident and knowledgeable leaders for sustainable development.

You can connect with me at sunshineandraine.com, haraworld.com, or on Instagram @jazzmineraine.

“We are so challenged by an ever evolving world, and a need to make an impact individually as well as through our profession, that we often can get lost in the vision and feel helpless in the execution.”

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Buy Good Feel Good Expo - From fashion and beauty to lifestyle and travel, Buy Good. Feel Good. Expo celebrates the power of the conscious consumer. An uplifting weekend full of energizing entrepreneurs and brands with purpose, the Expo inspires the change maker within us all.

Have Fun Do Good -  Group travel experiences that incorporate volunteering. Our mission is to provide a unique opportunity for people to travel and give back. Our experiences are more than volunteering, they’re about people connecting and coming together through a common goal.

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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 initiative enables undiscovered talent to reach new markets while supporting sustainable community development.

Ramona comes from a background of building social enterprises and working with refugee groups in Melbourne, which inspired her to start her own business with a focus on community development and sustainable practices. 

Tune in to learn:

• How continually innovate your processes to build success as a social brand
• How to engage locals and build brand visibility 
• The impact tourism has on social brands and community development

Connect with Ramona and her team at fortyredbangles.com or on Instagram.

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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-Entrepreneur. She’s the perfect example of a millennial eco-warrior - she’s the master of everything! 

In this episode, Richa dives into how one turtle’s story inspired the launch of her start-up, the epidemic of greenwashing on consumers, and what’s needed from consumers and the government to move forward with proper and sustainable waste management.

Richa is an Engineer and XLRI MBA, that later went into sales and marketing, then became a Diving Instructor and Eco-Entrepreneur. She’s the perfect example of a millennial eco-warrior - she’s the master of everything! 

Tune in to learn:

• How your organization can reduce its plastic consumption
• What the “burn test” means for identifying plastic vs. biodegradable products
• How waste management is collected and sorted in Delhi (and what our responsibility is as consumers!)

Begin your journey to reducing plastic consumption with FREE personalized tips with The Happy Turtle’s Plastic Footprint Calculator.

Connect with Richa and The Happy Turtle on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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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 practical solutions to the world's big problems. Focused on developing alternative methods of sustainable production within the fashion and textile industry, she has been working amongst rural communities in South Asia since graduating from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design with a degree in Textile Design. 

In this episode, Josie dives into the history of the tea industry in Sri Lanka, the insane vision women are sold to move to the Middle East for work (leaving their children vulnerable at home in Sri Lanka), and how Amma is working with hospitality organizations in Colombo and across Sri Lanka to produce their zero waste & sustainable dyes.

Tune in to learn:

• How Amma trains and employs their team of young women and mothers
• The challenges and stigma around working mothers in Sri Lanka that is also evident across the world
• How Amma is bringing traditional weaving practices back to the fashion industry
• How plant based fashion works.

Connect with Josie and the Amma team at ammasrilanka.com, and on Facebook & Instagram. To learn more about Tea Leaf Trust visit tealeaftrust.com.

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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 June 2015 after graduating from Brown University with a double major in Development Studies and Economics. 

In this episode, Leila dives into the production process and her love of ECONYL®, finding the right words to respectfully talk about diverse body types in fashion, and our thoughts on the stigma around body image in South Asia, Mauritius, and the western world.

Tune in to learn:

• What is ECONYL® and how it is made
• Why you need to continually innovate your process as a brand and a consumer
• The challenges of diverse representation in fashion in India

Connect with Leila and PA.NI Swimwear at pa-ni.in and on Instagram.

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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 company licensed to work with medical cannabis in India.

Sanvar heads finance and corporate strategy for BOHECO, as well as co-leads BOHECO Innovation Lab. He is a PhD research scholar in Business Economics and has been awarded the Forbes Asia 30 under 30, INK, RajeevCircle, and Ashoka fellowships on behalf of BOHECO (NO BIG DEAL, RIGHT?!). 

In this episode, Sanvar dives into the start-up journey of BOHECO, the history of cannabis consumption in India, how BOHECO has been breaking the stigma around cannabis consumption, and innovating B2B and B2C products.

Tune in to learn:

• The many uses of the cannabis plant
• How people have perceived the growth of hemp production in India
• And why Sanvar actually loves the government of India (he has a very valid reason!)

PLUS, Sanvar reveals what’s next for BOHECO this September (and we’re the first to know about it!).

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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 looking back and replicating it. In this episode, Darshana dives into how a documentary inspired her to start her venture, how she went from living on Primark while studying in London to owning only a few key swapped clothing items, and her work with Lakme Fashion Week through Fashion Revolution.

Tune in to learn:

• Why Darshana thinks India has become “a slave to the west” 
• Resources available through Fairtrunk as an emerging fashion brand wanting to incorporate sustainable practices
• How to start living a more conscious and minimalist lifestyle (and why you should!)

Connect with Darshana at fairtrunk.com, on Instagram or on their Youtube channel sharing sustainable fashion education and interviews with leaders for sustainable living.

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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 beneficiaries of social impact organizations across Maharashtra and beyond.

Tune in to learn:

• How you can make an impact using your unique skills without leaving your home
• The ethical approach to volunteering abroad
• How Mandeep is transforming Tribes for GOOD into a tech platform

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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 with the caste system
• Himanshu’s journey in advocating for cycling lanes in a city overcome by traffic and pollution 

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In Episode 2 of the Impact India podcast, I sit down with Fahim Vora, co-founder of Be the Local tours, outside Mahim Junction railway station in Mumbai on a couple of parked scooties.

Be the Local Tours is a Mumbai-based tour company that trains and employs marginalized students from Dharavi, the infamous slum area of India. Fahim dives into his journey of becoming an entrepreneur as a marginalized man in Mumbai having been born and raised in Dharavi.

Tune in to hear:

• Fahim’s story growing up in Dharavi
• The importance of providing opportunity to marginalized youth
• How tourism can address poverty

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In Episode 1 of the Impact India podcast, I meet with Kriti Tula, founder of India’s first zero waste fashion brand Doodlage, at Cafe Inside Stories in New Delhi.

Doodlage creates pieces from textile waste and materials found, therefore hunting for material first, and entering the design process second. This is how Doodlage pieces come to life. The team inspires everyone to get creative too, including their tailors and labour workers to instill a love and responsibility for ethical design and production. Now in over 40 stores across India, it’s super exciting to see such an innovative brand spreading so quickly in a country where global production is priority, and western culture and influence has taken over.

Tune in to hear: 

• How travel has inspired her vision for a circular industry in India
• How mass consumerism has impacted India’s fashion industry
• Kriti’s insight into how the fashion industry has become so unsustainable, linking back to cultural norms of traditional India

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Host Jazzmine Raine of Causeartist connects with the innovative founders and leaders of travel organizations and startups in India. As founder of Hara House, North India's first zero waste guesthouse and tourism organization, Jazzmine meets with incredible and innovative young people from around the world traveling and discovering modern India. Impact India takes a look at the world of sustainable travel, the startup scene, and what the future of India will look like with the rise of social entrepreneurship.

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Hawaii can be an absolute haven for vegans. In today's episode we'll discuss budgets, where to stay and the best vegan tips and tricks.

I have released an episode breaking down the best places to eat on all the islands so if you want more specific information on an island make sure to check that out.

Hawaii Travel Videos;

Adventure

Maui and Lanai

Molokai

The Big Island of Hawai'i

Kauai

Previously The How To Travel Vegan Podcast (Now The Plant Paradigm Podcast)

Connect with me:

Instagram | @plant.paradigm
Instagram | @tomsimak
YouTube | The Plant Paradigm
Twitter | @plantparadigm
Website | www.theplantparadigm.com
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Stay happy,
Eat plants,
Peace

Exploring these 2 islands was an absolute joy! In Maui we'll look at a few different regions, such as Lahaina and Kaanapali, naming a few popular restaurants. And in Lanai, we'll look at how you can prepare yourself if you're staying there, or just heading over as a day trip.

Travel Video; Click Here

Previously The How To Travel Vegan Podcast (Now The Plant Paradigm Podcast)

Connect with me:

Instagram | @plant.paradigm
Instagram | @tomsimak
YouTube | The Plant Paradigm
Twitter | @plantparadigm
Website | www.theplantparadigm.com
Support the show | Buy me a coffee

Subscribe to the podcast:

Apple | Spotify | Stitcher |

Stay happy,
Eat plants,
Peace