Nerd Up

  • Two people seated in black chairs, facing each other in a cozy library setting, with shelves of colorful books behind them. A small table with decorative items is between them, and a framed certificate is on the wall.

    Endgame Podcast with Gita Wirjawan

    Denica sits with Gita Wirjawan for an insightful and heartfelt call for businesses to be a force for good.

  • Landscape with a tree silhouette and text 'Grit & Growth' overlaid, alongside a logo with a tree and the word 'Business'.

    Stanford Grit and Growth Podcast

    Denica shares about the growth philosophy and origin story behind SukkhaCitta with Darius Teter from Stanford Seed.

  • "Planet Visionaries" podcast cover featuring Alex Honnold with three women gathering plants in a forest, discussing sustainable global fashion with Indonesian entrepreneur Denica Riadini-Flesch.

    Planet Visionaries with Alex Honnold

    Denica talks with Alex Honnold about how SukkhaCitta is pioneering a regenerative fashion standard.

  • Person holding a sign that says 'I made your fabric' while sitting next to a piece of yellow fabric.

    Conscious Chatter with Kestrel Jenkins

    Denica shares the real hard work behind changing how clothes are grown. To the humbling process of re-learning a way of life that is grounded in giving more than we take.

  • Times UK Sustainable Fashion SukkhaCitta Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative

    Planet Hope Podcast with Times UK

    Environment Editor for The Times, Adam Vaughan is joined by social entrepreneur and Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate Denica Riadini-Flesch, live at the Royal Geographical Society, to hear how she is rekindling our connection to the land and creating societal and environmental change, one stitch at a time.

  • Two women smiling in a green forest, with one holding a large leaf with items inside.

    Healing Mother Earth, Healing Ourselves

    A guest essay on Fashion Revolution on the relationship between what we wear and the climate crisis.

    I wrote about the indigenous agricultural wisdom of Tumpang Sari and how we can create a win-win solution that help rural communities adapt to a warming climate.

  • Four people standing around a table with mugs in an office setting, smiling at the camera.

    From Net Zero to Positive Impact

    Should our goal be net zero - to do less harm - or can we find ways to create positive impact? Some conversations leave a mark, and this is one of them.

    I sit down with my fellow nerds with big dreams for Indonesia: Gita Wirjawan, our former trade minister turned educator and the host of the Endgame Postcast, Tanah Sullivan, the Chief of Sustainability of GoTo Group, and Gita Syahrani, the pollinator driving systemic change in rural areas Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari.

  • A hand weaving fabric on a traditional loom, with threads stretched vertically and a partially woven textile emerging.

    Less is More

    We cannot shop our way out of the climate crisis. In a world that churns out 100bn garments every year, I write about the systematic issues of overproduction and overconsumption that underlie our modern economy.

    And how choosing fewer, better is perhaps the most revolutionary thing there is.

  • A man in glasses and an apron is engaged in embroidery, surrounded by two smiling women. They are seated at a table, with a white cloth held in an embroidery hoop.

    Culture as a Climate Solution with Yo-Yo Ma

    While new technologies and business models are very much needed, one of the key problems of fast fashion is rarely addressed: the invisibility of the hands that make our clothes, the untold story of their suffering. The disconnect is real, with or without us realizing.

    But it doesn't have to be this way. And together with Yo-Yo Ma, we wanted to show that an alternative path is possible. One that requires us to look back, to indigenous cultures and how they have lived in harmony with Nature for generations.

  • Three women smiling and talking inside a room with brick walls, one is wearing a black headscarf and white top, the elderly woman in the middle is wearing a brown blouse, and the third woman is wearing a white embroidered blouse.

    When We Buy Handmade Fashion, We Choose Human Connection

    Handmade is not just about beautiful things. In it, are humanity’s stories and our perrennial search for meaning. Read this Op-ed, first published by Darling Magazine as an invitation to inspire a more mindful fashion habit.

  • Hands dyed blue holding small green leaves.

    Ingenuity in Quarantine: The Story of SweetIndigo™

    We’re excited to feature founder, Denica Flesch, and her organization SukkhaCitta, and how she is holding onto hope in the midst of human disaster.

    While any social enterprise has its own inherent challenges, the coronavirus pandemic has heightened economic risk on the informal handworker economy worldwide. Denica has witnessed those implications firsthand in Indonesia, and shares SukkhaCitta’s experience of COVID-19 with us here.