Doing Good, Badly

Young people have moved from the streets to the courtroom, and the adults who keep acting surprised are running out of excuses. For the past month, high school students across France have been blockading their own schools. What they’re asking for is enough teachers to run those schools, and buildings that can survive a summer like the one France just had, which was the hottest since records began....

Every job, from the farm to the finance department, needs people who think about sustainability and get creative about how to act on it. In this episode we dive deep into what skills it takes for anyone trying to get into impact work and the realities for the organizations still hiring to resource the sustainability department as if it all belongs to one person. It also comes with plenty of career...

We're not climate doomers, we're climate realists, and the climate solutions we need to meet the moment may already be here. Every few days another post goes around telling us the world is hard right now but good things are still happening. We get why people share it, but it mostly tells everyone that someone else has this under control and that everyone can get back to business as usual. It's the...

Every billionaire with a rocket sells the same story: they are saving us. Earth is fragile, the future is dangerous, and they are the ones who will get humanity through it. It is a rescue, and they are the only rescue on offer. None of which is true. They are not doing this to save you and me, and our neighbours. They are doing it for ego, for power, and for growth, because a man who already owns...

An episode about consultants, which is a little awkward given that we are two consultants ourselves. The reality of most of what a big firm sells is the average opinion in a nicer suit, and it costs the most at exactly the moment a safe answer is not what you or the world needs. We spend a while dissecting why the consultants reputation is earned, from the metrics obsession that vanishes anything...

Last episode was about not buying things. This one is the opposite move: spending on purpose. The buycott. Here is the part nobody puts on the tote bag. The wallet is a lousy ballot. One dollar, one vote is not one person, one vote. The rich vote early and often, the seller sets the options, and the whole thing tallies attention rather than virtue. And yet, a few times, it drew blood. We get into...

The most powerful boycott in American history lasted 381 days and started with a murder. Seventy years later, the biggest boycott story of the year is about oat milk and a chatbot. Welcome to consumer power, where the stakes swing from life and death to a very bad website. Everyone says vote with your dollars. This episode is about the part nobody mentions: the money is the least interesting weapo...

In January 2026, Mark Carney stood at Davos and said what most people in power have spent years carefully not saying: the old model isn’t coming back, and nostalgia isn’t a plan. We had so many thoughts, and we still have more. The speech didn’t come out of nowhere. It landed at the end of a long arc, from the 1930s debate over who corporations actually owe anything to, through the moment Milton F...

Every company has values. They’re on the wall, in the handbook, probably in a custom font. Most of them ‘are bland, toothless, or just plain dishonest.’ In Episode 03, Jo and Kristy get into taxonomy of corporate values and why most companies get them wrong. We break down the Lencioni taxonomy, which has been sitting in the Harvard Business Review since 2002 telling companies exactly what they’re...

The brand that trademarked radical transparency just got sold to the least transparent fashion company most people can name. In this episode we break down the Everlane acquisition by Shein -- what actually happened, why it hit so hard, and what it reveals about the gap between values as a brand identity and values as a legal structure. We get into the founding story and the early cracks. The econo...

Doing good is complicated. Doing it badly is apparently very easy. We investigated. We’ve spent years inside sustainability, impact, and strategy work. In boardrooms. In workshops. In decks that promised transformation and delivered incremental change. We’ve seen what moves the needle. We’ve seen what stalls out. And we’ve seen how often the language of change runs ahead of the systems meant to de...

The most powerful boycott in American history lasted 381 days and started with a murder. Seventy years later, the biggest boycott story of the year is about oat milk and a chatbot. Welcome to consumer power, where the stakes swing from life and death t...

Every company has values. They're on the wall, in the handbook, probably in a custom font. Most of them 'are bland, toothless, or just plain dishonest.' In Episode 03, Jo and Kristy get into taxonomy of corporate values and why most companies get them ...

The brand that trademarked radical transparency just got sold to the least transparent fashion company most people can name. In this episode we break down the Everlane acquisition by Shein -- what actually happened, why it hit so hard, and what it reve...

In January 2026, Mark Carney stood at Davos and said what most people in power have spent years carefully not saying: the old model isn't coming back, and nostalgia isn't a plan. We had so many thoughts, and we still have more. The speech didn't come o...

Doing good is complicated. Doing it badly is apparently very easy. We investigated. We've spent years inside sustainability, impact, and strategy work. In boardrooms. In workshops. In decks that promised transformation and delivered incremental change. ...