GREEN BUSINESS

GREEN SHOES
RISKA CREATION

Rizka Mirzalina succeeds in positioning her eco-fashion shoes in domestic and foreign market. Linda Chandra and Marc Jacobs become her inspiration. Index carbon of her production stands at 0.4 tons up to 1 tons.

Beginning from the drawing books given to her, Riska as a child likes drawing. At secondary school in 1999, Riska was just for fun designing cell phone and sport shoes in which there is halogen. In 2004, she remembered, Siemens issued a cell phone, the model of which was similar to her previous design.

One of the merits of Riska business is her platform: green business. Green is translated by Riska into not just from recycled material aspect but also into the entire process. “For instance, in every activity I count its trace of carbon every 6 months. My latest carbon index stands at 0.4 tons up to 1 tons.” This is a part of the realization of mission of go green business,” said Riska.

Riska began concerned about environment when she was inspired by her host father, Bryan, in a exchange student program. She was taught to be more concerned not only about environment, but also social and manpower. With a recycled material I can save production cost up to 30%, which then is allocated for manpower. This does happen if they make braded shoes,” she said.

According to Rizka there are two designers that inspire her. They are March Jacobs, Creative Director for Louis Vuitton, fashion house, whose design is much liked by many young generations. The other is Linda Chandra. Linda’s shoes are overly cute in design. Her level is high,” said Riska.

For overseas promotion she was helped when she participated in shoes promotion in Leverkusen, Germany, in November last year. At that time, Bayer chose her as one of four projects in Indonesia in Bayer Young Environmental Envoy 2009. “We learn about environment program and sustainable company,” she said.

In Leverkusen she displayed her green innovation products. The media coverage from Turk, Finland, and Columbia was overly helpful, so shoes order from overseas flew in, such as the Philippines, America, Peru, Switzerland, and Norway.

In next July, Riska will attend World Bank program in Sweden. She is elected as a final of environment competition which will discuss environment issue. Afterwards, she wants to submit her business proposal for final lecture assignment.

From here, she intended to apply for loan for opening a workshop. She wants to known as a shoe designer. Like Channel, not only as a product design, but also as a designer, i.e. Coco Channel,” said Riska.