Shaken Not Burned

For decades we've largely thought about buildings as fixed assets : we build them, maintain them, and expect them to provide the spaces where everyday life happens. But what if that's only part of the story ?  The built environment accounts for around 40% of global emissions; much of it was designed for a different climate , and replacing it simply isn't an option. As cities become...

Modern cities appear to function effortlessly. We switch on the lights, turn on the tap, catch a train, connect to the internet or walk into a hospital without giving much thought to the systems that make it all possible. Beneath that apparent simplicity sits a network of interconnected infrastructure that keeps everyday life moving. In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia speaks to Rodrigo...

Welcome to the final episode in our arc on the fashion industry, where we ask an uncomfortable question: are we trying to make fashion more sustainable, or are we mostly trying to manage the side effects of a system that produces more clothing than the world actually needs? Over the past few weeks we've explored the industry from several different angles. We interviewed Kristina Elinder Lilja...

Fashion is often described as one of the world's most polluting industries. The scale can be difficult to grasp as it feels so personal, but every year, billions of garments are produced, sold, worn briefly and discarded, with consequences that reach far beyond our wardrobes. The industry is worth around $2.4 trillion and is estimated to account for up to 8% of global carbon emissions. It con...

The clothes you're wearing have travelled a remarkable distance before reaching your wardrobe. A typical garment may spend months moving through a global network of farms, mills, factories, suppliers, logistics providers and retailers. Raw materials are sourced in one country, processed in another, assembled somewhere else and shipped across continents before arriving in stores. What begins a...

For years, sustainability in fashion has often been discussed almost as a parallel conversation to the business itself. Some brands publish reports, set targets and talk about responsibility, while others turn their sustainability credentials into a marketing tool.  Yet, at the corporate level, many of the real decisions are still being driven by the old metrics of margins, supply chains and growt...

AI is no longer just a technology issue, it’s starting to reshape how whole systems operate.  Yet we’re not paying enough attention to that yet: most of the focus on AI is on what it can do, with individuals and organisations alike rushing to implement this new technology. But AI capability is advancing extremely quickly, while the systems around it —  governance and regulation, infrastructure, or...

As AI systems become more autonomous, the conversation is shifting from capability toward something much bigger: trust, legitimacy, identity and participation in digital systems. In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia speaks to Erika Maslauskaite , co-founder and CEO of alongID , about the rapidly evolving world of digital identity, interoperability and cross-border trust infrastructure —...

Generative AI promised to transform how we work, while Agentic AI is beginning to transform how businesses themselves are built.   In this week’s episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia Jackson talks to Ethan Ouyang , who is AI ATOMS Spokesperson and responsible for North America Market & Partnerships. ATOMS is the venture building platform developed by DeepWisdom ,  one of China’s leading arti...

AI is becoming one of those topics where the scale of the claims can make it surprisingly difficult to work out what is actually happening. We are told it will transform business, unlock extraordinary productivity gains, reshape jobs, and even help solve major global challenges like climate change. At the same time, there are growing concerns about energy demand, governance failures, bias, job los...

This is the final episode in our mining arc. Rather than revisiting what we’ve already covered, we step back to ask a different question: what does mining actually teach us about how change happens in complex systems? Across the series, one tension kept coming up. The transition to a cleaner economy depends on scaling one of the most environmentally intensive industries on earth. We need more mine...

Welcome to the latest episode in our mining arc! In the previous two episodes, we covered the geopolitics of critical minerals and whether deep sea mining is the innovation we need to meet growing demand for critical clean tech raw materials. This week, we turn to one of the most important lessons emerging from the mining sector: modern projects succeed when trust is built before the digging begin...

Welcome to the second instalment of our mining arc. After covering the geopolitics of critical minerals (check out the episode here ), this week we ask a harder question: is deep sea mining a necessary innovation, or a risk we don’t yet understand well enough to take? Deep sea mining means extracting minerals from the bottom of the ocean, at depths of 200 metres and beyond, no easy feat. It’s ofte...

Once a somewhat niche industry, critical minerals are now dominating headlines, influencing geopolitical trends and driving international trade.  These materials are core components of technologies crucial to the energy transition and defence systems, and heightened interest in these areas is fuelling demand. For example, lithium demand jumped by 30% in 2024, while nickel, cobalt, graphite and rar...

The world is starting to feel unpredictable in ways that are difficult to pin down. Not just because of individual events, but because of how many different pressures are building at the same time. Climate impacts are becoming more visible, geopolitics is fragmenting, technology is moving quickly and economic conditions are being shaped by multiple shocks at once rather than a single, identifiable...

Two years on, we have reached season 6! We have explored a wide range of topics, from the just transition to the planetary boundaries, through the circular economy and climate risk. Now, it's time to delve even deeper into our quest to help you build sustainability literacy. The current multicrisis is affecting industries in different ways: companies are facing challenges that are unique to t...

The food system underpins our entire society. Its stability is crucial: when it starts to wobble, prices rise, availability becomes uncertain, and stress travels quickly from farms to household.  Yet, much of modern agriculture still operates under deep uncertainty. Farmers spend tens of billions of dollars every year on crop protection chemicals, largely without being able to see how much of what...

Buildings shape much of our daily lives, but their environmental impact often goes unnoticed. Yet the built environment accounts for nearly 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions, from the energy used to heat and power buildings to the materials used to construct them. In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia talks to Drew Shula , founder and CEO of Verdical Group , about the role the...

There are talks of endless economic crises, yet the rich are getting richer. Even though many countries promise a welfare system, healthy job markets, and in general decent quality of life for the masses, the numbers suggest that inequality is only getting worse.  According to Oxfam, in 2025 billionaire wealth jumped by over 16% to $18.3 trillion compared to 2024 levels. This massive amount of mon...

Climate action is facing political backlash, from watered-down EU regulation to the overturning of the EPA’s endangerment finding in the United States. Yet beneath the headlines, systemic climate risk is becoming harder for central banks, insurers and investors to ignore. In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia speaks with Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep, about the Climate Cont...

In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia Jackson speaks with Rob Cobbold , founder of Native Squared , about what credible nature finance looks like when you start from land, communities, and long-term stewardship — rather than carbon metrics and abstract credits. They unpack why many current funding models for nature protection struggle to deliver durable outcomes, how carbon-first and upli...

What happens when the world is on fire – and someone tells you the solution is a financial instrument? In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia Jackson speaks with Sean Kidney , co-founder and CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative , about how green, climate, and resilience bonds went from a niche idea to a multi-trillion-dollar global market, and why that matters now. This isn’t a technical de...

At last week's 2026 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, the language of cooperation and resilience may have been everywhere, but the world seems to feel more fragmented, more uncertain and more politically charged than ever. In this episode , Felicia Jackson is joined by Sherry Madera , chief executive of CDP , to unpack what Davos revealed about the shifting risk landscape,  and what busi...

In this episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia talks with Francisco Martin-Rayo , chief executive of Helios AI about the uncomfortable truth behind today’s food prices: climate volatility is no longer a future risk — it’s already reshaping what we can grow, where we can grow it, and whether certain foods show up on our shelves at all. This isn’t just about floods and fires. It’s about quieter, more...

In a world obsessed with financial capital, what if the assets that matter most for resilience don’t show up on a balance sheet at all? In this episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia talks to Sallyann Della Casa , founder of the mentorship and learning platform GLEAC , to explore the idea of quiet capital, the invisible forms of value that increasingly determine who adapts and thrives in an AI-driv...