How the Rolex Laureate is helping to end fast fashion
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Rolex is renowned for many things. Expertly made watches, notorious preowned prices, and, most recently, putting emojis on a watch historically worn by presidents. It is not quite so well-known for is its efforts to protect the planet through its Awards for Enterprise scheme and its Perpetual Planet initiative.
Rolex has been giving bursaries under the Awards umbrella since 1976, when then-CEO André J Heiniger set them up to mark the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Oyster, the world’s first water-resistant watch. According to Heiniger: “We initiated the Rolex Awards for Enterprise out of a conviction that we had a responsibility as a company to take an active interest in improving life on our planet and in the desire to foster values we cherish – quality, ingenuity, determination and, above all, a spirit of enterprise.”
Originally intended as a one off and to champion exploration for the sake of discovery, the Awards have now changed to support and promote long-term individuals and organisations who use science to understand and devise solutions to today’s environmental challenges. This change was further reinforced by Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative, set up in 2019 as an expanding portfolio of eco-centric partnerships, such as the Under the Pole expeditions that push the boundaries of underwater exploration. There’s also the One Ocean Foundation and Menkab, both working to protect biodiversity in the Mediterranean, and the Xunaan-Ha expedition that focuses on the water quality in Yucatán, Mexico. In a world where watch brands are quietly abandoning talk of sustainability and seemingly ditching green targets, this feels refreshingly proactive.
Since 1976, 155 men and women have been selected as laureates. The Awards do not recognise past achievements – rather they are for new and ongoing projects. The only barrier to entry is age, with candidates required to be 18 or over. The judges comprise 10 experts in their respective fields, such as Dr Helen Czerski, British oceanographer, physicist and expert in the physics of oceanic bubbles or Tsitsi Masiyiwa, a philanthropist and social entrepreneur devoted to empowering young people in Africa with education opportunities and access to technology.
Previous laureates are equally impressive – 2012’s Professor Mark Kendall is an Australian biomedical engineer who revolutionised vaccination with his low-cost Nanopatch, which removes the need for needles. Vreni Haüsserman – 2016’s laureate – is a German-born Chilean marine biologist who has led expeditions to document the unique life and ecology of Southern Chilean Patagonia leading to the discovery of previously unknown sea life and ecosystems that thrive in the Patagonian fjords. Among 2023’s winners is former development economist Denica Riadini-Flesch, who set up farm-to-closet clothing brand SukkhaCitta in her native Indonesia to give a living wage to the women garment makers who work there.
I travelled through the countryside witnessing these beautiful fabrics being made by women who were working 10-hour days, then going to bed at night worrying about how they could afford school fees
Denica Riadini-Flesch
Before she returned to Indonesia, Riadini-Flesch was working for a world bank in the Netherlands. She already felt guilty about leaving her home country, “knowing it’s not an opportunity most women in Indonesia have.” Riadin-Flesch returned home with a mission. She knew that Indonesia is one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the world but fewer than two percent of its textile and garment makers, most of whom are women, are paid the living wage.
“I travelled through the countryside witnessing these beautiful fabrics being made by women who were working 10-hour days, then going to bed at night worrying about how they could afford school fees,” she says. “Behind what we wear are these women we will never meet and I wanted to change that.” To do that Riadini-Flesch cut out the middleman: SukkhaCitta’s clothes are sold direct or through a handful of shops, allowing her to pay a living wage.
She also championed education. “In developing countries artisans, such as these women, earn less than $2 a day because the economic model is broken and we don’t value these people,” she says. “To break the cycle, you need education.” Since SukkhaCitta was set up in 2016, the women who work for the brand have seen a 60 per cent increase in their wages, the network of artisans is now spread over 13 villages and Riadini-Flesch has set up four craft schools in Indonesia, with a fifth on the way. Called Rumah SukkhaCitta (House of Happiness), they are Indonesia’s first textile craft schools, where women are trained in how to earn a living wage from their craft and how to set up and run their own businesses.
However, it wasn’t just the issue of money Riadini-Flesch wanted to address but the environment impact of the garment business as well. Cotton is one of the dirtiest fabrics in the world due to the number of herbicide used on the crops. Riadini-Flesch’s solution to this problem came in the form of Ibu Kasmini, a 65-year farmer who used to grow cotton the traditional way, but turned to corn because it was more lucrative. Riadini-Flesch asked Kasmini to turn her land over to cotton again, using the traditional methods that eschew a monoculture approach in favour of using other plants to act as deterrents or nutrients for the cotton. The clothes are also dyed using natural dyes, preventing three million litres of toxic dyes from entering Indonesia’s waters.
“Mass production is systemically disconnecting us from how our clothes are made,” she says. “It’s not that we want to exploit people, it’s that we simply don’t know.” It’s not just the money from the Rolex Award that will make a difference, either: it also amplifies her story. “It’s so special because these women have been invisible for far too long and now their story is being heard, she says. “It’s being celebrated all around the world and that’s why the Rolex Award is such a special thing for me.”