The Experts

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Mark Angelo

Mark Angelo is an internationally-celebrated river conservationist, writer, speaker, teacher and paddler from Burnaby, British Columbia. He is the founder and chair of both BC Rivers Day and World Rivers Day, an event now embraced by millions of people in more than 60 countries. In 2009, Mark was appointed as the inaugural chair of the Rivers Institute at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Mark has received the Order of British Columbia and the Order of Canada (his country’s highest honour) in recognition of his river conservation efforts over the past four decades.

Ma Jun

Ma Jun is a Chinese environmentalist, non-fiction writer, environmental consultant, and journalist. He is a director with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE). He directs the IPE, which developed the China Water Pollution, the first public database of water pollution information in China. He also serves as environmental consultant for the Sinosphere Corporation.

Stuart Bunn

Stuart Bunn is the Director of the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University. He is an international expert in riverine and wetland ecology, and regular advisor to government and non-government agencies, both at home and abroad. As well as being an Australian National Water Commissioner and Technical Director of the International Water Centre, Stuart also serves on a number of significant expert panels and committees.

Tianjie Ma

Tianjie Ma is Managing Editor of China Dialogue’s Beijing office. Before joining China Dialogue, he was Greenpeace’s Program Director for Mainland China. While at Greenpeace, he oversaw the five campaign areas that Greenpeace works on in mainland China, including Climate & Energy, Toxics, Food & Agriculture, Forest and Oceans Protection. He was a regular commentator on China’s environmental challenges contributing to a range of media organizations. He holds a master’s degree in environmental policy from American University, Washington D.C.

Pinaki Roy

Pinaki Roy is the deputy chief reporter for Bangladeshi newspaper, The Daily Star, in Dhaka. He is the senior Reporter for the Daily Star with special responsibility covering social, environmental, and political news in Dhaka city. In 2013, Pinaki received the DRU-Grameenphone Reporting Award for his reports in print media. Pinaki has been investigating the tannery operations in Dhaka city and the effluent from these tanneries that affects the Buriganga River.

Orsola De Castro

Orsola de Castro is an internationally recognised opinion leader in sustainable fashion. Her career started as a designer with the pioneering upcycling label From Somewhere, which she launched in 1997 until 2014. In 2013, with Carry Somers, she founded Fashion Revolution, a global campaign with participation in over 100 countries around the world. Orsola is a regular key note speaker and mentor, Associate Lecturer at UAL, as well as Central Saint Martins Visiting Fellow.

Sunita Narain

Sunita is an environmentalist, political activist and a major proponent of the Green concept of sustainable development in India. Sunita has been with the India-based Centre for Science and Environment since 1982. She is currently the director of the Centre for Science and Environment and is the director of the Society for Environmental Communications. In 2016 she was named in Time Magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential People.

Avikal Somvanshi

Avikal is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Science and Environment. As an architect and urban data scientist, he strives to create urban policies that reduce resource consumption during construction and public awareness of policy development for effective implementation. As an advocate, his interests lie at the interface of buildings, cities, and data in the domain of social and environmental justice and governance.

Rakesh Jaiswal

Rakesh Jaiswal is a well established environmental activist and the founder and executive secretary of Eco Friends, a Kanpur based non-governmental organisation, devoted to the critical issues of environmental degradation. A key issue for Eco Friends is protecting the river Ganga from various sources of pollution. A tireless campaigner for the Ganga, Rakesh has lectured both nationally and internationally to focus attention on the urgent need to act for Ganga. As a freelance journalist, he has written extensively on the issue of river pollution. Rakesh is also the recipient of the Unsung Heroes of Compassion award by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, through Wisdom in Action, a California based Foundation.

Kumi Naidoo

Kumi is a South African human rights activist and was the International Executive Director of Greenpeace. He has served as the secretary-general of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. He was Secretary General of Civicus, an international alliance for citizen participation, from 1998 to 2008. Recently, he has led the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

Von Hernandez

Von Hernandez is the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, leading the environmental group’s programs and campaigns regarding climate change, forests, sustainable agriculture and toxics pollution. As an environmental activist for more than 20 years, Von initiated and led a number of campaigns including the approval of landmark laws such as the Ecological Waste Management Act and the Clean Air Act in the Phillipines. In 2003, Von was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work which led to the first national ban on waste incineration. The Goldman Prize is considered to be the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for grassroots environmental activists.

Nicole Bridger

Nicole Bridger is a socially conscious fashion designer, with her brand, Nicole Bridger. The brand manufactures in Vancouver, BC, sourcing responsible fabrics and practicing ethical manufacturing. Nicole interned with Vivienne Westwood and worked with Lululemon founder, Chip Wilson, before opening her own store in 2011. Nicole is the first Canadian to win the international Eco-Designer of the Year award in 2010 from Fashion Takes Action, Canada’s premier non-profit organization that focuses on sustainability in the fashion industry. Nicole always wants her company to stand out for its eco-principles.

Eric Dickstein

Eric Dickstein is the founder and owner of Dutil Denim, one of the most celebrated destinations for premium jeans. Dutil Denim is a company that hasn’t outsourced its production overseas. The denim still comes from America—where environmental protection laws are strict—and is sewn in either LA or Vancouver. Eric acknowledges it’s an expensive way to do business, but his company is trying to do right by humanity and the earth.

Peter Golding

Peter Golding created what can be considered the first ‘designer jean’ in 1970. In 1973 this success was followed by Peter’s bleached denim jeanswear which was distributed by Jean Machine and Mayfair Fashions in the UK. In that same year Golding also exported these jeans and jackets to the United States thus introducing the first bleached denim jeanswear to America. He was the first fashion designer to be invited to join what is now known as the “Chartered Society of Designers”. He has been described by Fashion Weekly as “the Eric Clapton of denim”.

Francois Girbaud

Francois Girbaud, Jean Designer and Fashion Entrepreneur. As one of the first jean designers Francois is often coined as the ‘godfather’ of Jeans, having designed for over 40 years many of the fashions that are still popular today. Currently, he is passionate about making a positive change in this industry and has become an advocate of water conservation in jean manufacturing.

Enrique Silla

Enrique Silla is the CEO of Jeanologia, continuing his family’s tradition in the apparel industry. Today Jeanologia leads the transformation of the textile industry with disruptive technologies: laser, ozone and eflow technologies which are capable to enhance productivity, reduce water and energy consumption and eliminate damaging emissions and waste, guaranteeing ZERO contamination. Jeanologia has contributed to a saving of around 8 million cubic meters of water in 2017 alone. This saving has been possible thanks to the laser, ozone and eflow technology in use in the 60 countries Jeanologia is present in. Not only water, but these technologies also allow the reduction in energy and chemical use, at the same time as increasing industrial productivity.

Alex Penadés

Alex Penadés is the current Marketing Director for Jeanologia. He has over 20 years experience designing business models and serving as an adviser for sustainable change in several organizations. He has worked as a consultant in fashion, technology and entertainment, and is a professor at some of the most prestigious schools in Spain as well as being a frequent lecturer at national events on youth and entrepreneurship.

Lukus Eichmann

Lukus Eichmann is the co-founder of California-based sustainable denim laundry facility, ECO-PRK, and co-founder of the ‘perfectly washed’ Tortoise Jeans. Tortoise Jeans just might have the best washes and finishes of all its peers, using the company’s proprietary Wiser Wash methodology to reduce the industry’s environmental footprint. Prior to designing with Tortoise at ECO-PRK, Lukus designed and developed denim for companies such as Opening Ceremony, Haute Hippie and Rogan Jeans.

Luigi Caccia

Luigi is the President & CEO of Italdenim, a jeans manufacturing company based near Milan, Italy. Italdenim focuses on environmental, eco-friendly and sustainable practices. They produce their own energy at their plant, through a state-of-the-art steam co-generator which has made their CO2 emissions 6,500,000 kg lower – the equivalent of saving 342,000 trees. In addition, they use a natural agent called ‘kitosan’, derived from crushed shellfish, as a fixing agent to reduce the amount of chemicals used in the dyeing of their jeans. Through these processes and their water conservation efforts they have significantly reduced any pollution and Italdenim is the first denim manufacturer in the world to undertake the detox-Greenpeace commitment. We found their factory to be one of the cleanest, and most sustainable factories we visited during the filming of RiverBlue.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan

Syeda Rizwana Hasan is an enrolled lawyer with the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. She is working for the cause of the environment as the Chief Executive of a reputed national Non Governmental Organization named Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA). Her main focus is to promote the notion of environmental justice in Bangladesh. Syeda has a Masters in Law with Distinction law from the University of Dhaka. She started her career with BELA in 1993. As the Chief Executive of BELA, Rizwana is responsible for the overall co-ordination of the activities of environmental justice that include research, awareness raising, public interest litigation and advocacy.