Good Future

Throughout almost 100 episodes of the Good Future podcast we’ve traced the evolution of the sustainable investment sector. But now we’re entering a new era of sustainable finance, where climate risk reporting, impact measurement and climate-tech innovation have become core parts of investment management. Sustainable investing has matured, and that’s in large part due to a global push to define pre...

This week on the podcast I’m excited to be joined by Hampus Jakobsson, his career to discover climate-tech has been a wild ride so far and he has a great knack for story-telling, so I’m sure you’re going to enjoy this one. Hampus is based in Sweden, and he started out as an entrepreneur, bouncing from Sony-Ericsson to Blackberry, building software in the early days of mobile phones, and as he grew...

We’ve long heard the arguments for how and why Australia should be a leader in renewable energy and decarbonisation, and finally, in the 2024 budget, we saw the Treasurer take decisive action, and chart a course for Australia to become a clean energy superpower. Of course we’re not there yet, but on the show today I’m joined by Tim Buckley, an esteemed climate commentator who says the latest batch...

Today’s guest is Clara Barby. She’s been a central player in the impact investment sector for decades. Early on she worked at Acumen, she then moved on to Bridges Fund Management, and she’s currently Senior Partner at Just Climate which was spun-out of Generation Investment Management, the sustainable investment firm launched by none other than Al Gore. Along the way she’s also helped develop stan...

On the podcast today I have Anjali Nelson, she’s General Manager of Operations at GreenCollar, an environmental markets developer that’s leading not only Australia, but the world, in developing nature-based solutions to combat both climate change and biodiversity loss. This is the fourth episode in our series of conversations exploring opportunities to ‘invest in natural capital.’ And it was a gre...

Today we’re approaching the topic of investing in biodiversity, by speaking to Nigel Sharp, he’s a farmer, but he’s also a businessman and a fund manager. And over the past two decades he’s been a pioneer in the ‘Business of Biodiversity’. Nigel is a pioneer in this space, the Tiverton investment vehicle has developed a whole range of agricultural projects on land holdings all over Australia, and...

The past decade has seen huge progress in the way companies analyse their exposure to carbon emissions, but far less effort has been put into understanding the complex interactions companies have with nature, and the risks this poses for investors and the health of our environment. If we’re to have a hope of reaching net-zero, we need to reverse the trends of biodiversity loss and incentivise comp...

On the show today we have Rachel Lowry, she’s Chief Conservation Officer at WWF. In this episode she explains why investors need to care about the growing biodiversity crisis, and the challenges of measuring and conserving natural capital. It says a lot about the sustainable investment movement that finally, conservationists and financial services are working together. To identify hotspots of risk...

We’re moving from theory to practice with Ben Krasnostein and Dr Jodi York from Kilara Capital. They’re an impact investing powerhouse and today, we’re digging into the models and frameworks they employ, but more importantly, how their impact approach can help to both drive-down greenhouse gas emissions, while also boosting financial returns. Ben is founder and managing director of the investment...

In today’s episode we’ve got Sarah Gelfand on the show, she’s Managing Director of BlueMark, an impact verification business that was spun-out of consulting firm Tideline. She works with the world’s leading impact investors, to verify their impact results across both their management practices and their impact performance. And most recently she authored a report called ‘Raising the Bar’, which att...

We talk a lot about impact investing on this show, and while we tend to focus on the deals and the companies, we often gloss over the more challenging process of impact measurement and management. Right now is an important time to explore these issues, because the structures of impact investing are at an inflection point. The market has realised the importance of using consistent systems, and the...

If there’s one person you want to speak to, to get the lowdown on everything impact investing in Australia as well as round the world, it’s Rosemary Addis. She’s been a guest on the show before, and it’s great to have her back to talk about everything from Australia’s new government, the growing pains facing ESG investing, how impact will integrate with the global disclosure rules, as well as her...

This episode is a little different, because Cory Ames interviews me. Cory hails from San Antonio in Texas, he hosts the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation podcast, and when he invited me back onto his show, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to share it with you all. To offer a different perspective on my work, my ideas, and how the Good Future podcast has evolved. You’ll hear a lot more...

This week, I’m speaking to Reece Proudfoot, he’s Head of Innovation & Impact Investment at WWF Australia. That’s right, the charity with the Panda as it’s logo, that’s worked hard for decades on conservation and saving animal habitats. They’re going beyond their projects in the field and they’re also investing in systems change by supporting high-impact enterprises. And that’s what we’re all about...

Rachel Halpern is the newly installed Head of Sustainable at asset consulting firm Jana. Now asset consultants like Jana have an important role for big investors like super funds and insurance companies. They analyse and recommend which investment managers would be a good fit for their portfolios. And now, with the addition of a head of sustainability, it becomes very clear that ESG and Impact are...

Liza McDonald is head of Responsible Investment at Aware Super, one of Australia’s largest super funds, which means she and her team are not only responsible for the retirement savings of millions of Australians, but they also have shareholdings in companies all over the world, which gives them an opportunity to engage, and maybe even influence these companies to make positive change. Aware Super...

Sally Mccutchan has been a vital leader and catalyst for the growth of impact investing in recent years. After a career in investment banking and consulting, she took on the role of CEO of Impact Investing Australia, an organisation dedicated to catalysing growth in the sector. We go deep in this one, we discuss Sally and the team’s hard work to try and get an impact wholesaler off the ground in A...

This week is the final episode in this series of conversations that explores impact investing in listed equities. Impact investing has a long history in private markets, but when it comes to investing in public companies that are listed on a stock exchange, it’s a lot harder, to measure your impact, and to influence the companies you’re investing in. Seb Beloe was an early guest of the show, and h...

We’re continuing our series that explores how an investor can have impact in listed equity markets. Impact investing has a long history in private markets, but when it comes to investing in public companies that are listed on a stock exchange, it’s a lot harder, to measure your impact, and to influence the companies you’re investing in. Tim King is here to talk about his approach to impact at Meli...

Impact investing has a long history in private markets, but when it comes to investing in public companies that are listed on a stock exchange, it’s a lot harder, to measure your impact, and to influence the companies you’re investing in. Today, I’m speaking with Tim Crockford, all about the Regnan Global Equities Impact Solutions Fund. Tim is head of Equity Impact Solutions, he’s based in the UK,...

This month, I’m exploring how we can have impact by investing in public markets. Impact investing has a long history in private markets, but when it comes to investing in public companies that are listed on a stock exchange, it’s a lot harder, to measure your impact, and to influence the companies you’re investing in. My guests are all pioneering investment managers that all have their own strateg...

Danny Almagor has been a central pivot point of the Australian impact investment scene for more than a decade, and he’s someone I’ve wanted to sit down with for a chat, for a long time. He’s the founder of Small Giants, and Impact Investment Group. He’s the husband of Berry Lieberman and he’s just an all-round top bloke. Danny is an engineer by trade, but he’s a spiritual explorer in practice. He’...

My guest today is Fabienne Michaux, she’s Director at SDG Impact, it’s an offshoot of the UNDP and it’s focussed on harnessing impact investing to fund solutions to the SDGs. SDG Impact uses the intelligence and insights it has on the ground in less developed countries all around the world, to identify challenges and problems that are in need private capital investments. They’re a bridge between p...

On the podcast today I’m speaking with Vicky Lay. Vicky is a partner and Head of Impact at Artesian Alternative Investments. She’s been a central architect of the firm’s embracing, of their impact potential, and she’s engaged with the startups they invest in. You see, Vicky was a founder herself, she knows the heartache of the valley-of-death, and the thrill of securing funding. And it’s that skil...

On the show today I have Christina Leijonhufvud, she’s the CEO of BlueMark, a company founded by the impact investment consultancy Tideline. Now BlueMark has a very specific focus, and that’s to provide third-party verification of the impact investment practices and performance of the world’s leading impact practitioners. There’s a dizzying array of impact frameworks available today, and more seem...