Business Daily

Floriade is one of the world's biggest gardening and horticulture expos - and it has cost taxpayers in the Dutch city of Almere nine times as much as originally budgeted. So why did organisers go ahead with the project, and was it still worth it – despite hugely disappointing visitor numbers? Matthew Kenyon talks to advocates and critics of an event which may be the last of its kind in the Netherl...

International footballer Mathieu Flamini started a biotech company when he was still a professional player. Speaking to Sam Fenwick, Flamini reveals what he learnt from top football managers and how that knowledge has helped him perform in the boardroom. The former Arsenal, AC Milan and Olympique de Marseille player tells us he grew up by the sea and constantly seeing plastic washed up on the shor...

On the eve of the 2022 World Cup Final Sam Fenwick speaks to former professional footballer, Patrice Evra. He made more than 80 appearances for the French national side including captaining his team in the 2010 World Cup which took place in South Africa. Evra became a multimillionaire playing for teams like Monaco, Manchester United, Juventus and Marseille. He grew up in a poor part of Paris and t...

Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz decided to start a recycling project in New Orleans after realising the city sent all its glass to landfill. Now their social enterprise Glass Half Full diverts hundreds of tonnes from landfill and is using the material to help shore up Louisiana’s eroding coastline. Franziska tells us how they are expanding the project and we hear from one of their first busines...

In this episode of Business Daily we get on board The Ocean Viking, a migrant rescue boat operated by the non-governmental organisations SOS Méditerranée and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The boat has recently been at the centre of a diplomatic row having been denied permission to dock by the Italian authorities and instead having to travel to France so those onbo...

Confederation of African Football, CAF, with the backing of FIFA, has launched a new Super League aimed at injecting much-needed funds to clubs on the continent. CAF President Dr Patrice Motsepe promised that the tournament, due to start in 2023, would financially transform African football with $100 million on offer in prize money alone. But, as Ivana Davidovic finds out, there are more questions...

Theo Leggett meets Nico Rosberg, who found fame and fortune in the fossil-fuelled world of F1, but is now reinventing himself as a champion of green technology. As a driver he reached the pinnacle of world motorsport, taking the F1 title in the final race of 2016, and then retired just days afterwards. Nico tells Theo just what it takes to become a world champion in the white heat of motorsport an...

How do you clean the world's oceans of plastic? 10 years ago, when he was just 18, Dutchman Boyan Slat thought he knew how to do it, and set out his vision at TED talk. The journey from theory to reality has proved difficult, but he is now extracting plastic from the Pacific and a number of rivers around the world. We speak to Boyan about the scale of the task at hand. Is it even an achievable goa...

Many communities in Pakistan were completely destroyed when vast areas of the country were hit by catastrophic flooding this summer. 33 million people were affected and in this episode of Business Daily we hear from three of them. Bilawal, Sassi and Abdul Majeed all lost everything in the floods and are now trying to rebuild their lives. We also hear from the charities and business leaders attempt...

From search engines to chatbots to driverless taxis – artificial intelligence is increasingly a part of our daily lives. But is it always ethical? In this episode, Katie Barnfield explores some of the moral questions raised by new developments in smart technology. Leading researcher Dr Kate Crawford tells us about the powerful AI art software that reinforces gender stereotypes. We’ll hear from Blo...

Middlemen are intermediaries who facilitate business interactions for a commission, but in Africa their role is more complex. Africa's middlemen divide opinion on whether they are predatory rent-seekers or invisible but ever present cultural brokers who are actually crucial to the economy. We hear from local businessman Bola Omololu - based in Abeokuta, southwest Nigeria, and Tony Alabi an archite...

About 1.5 million fans, a little more than half the population of Qatar, are expected to arrive in the tiny Gulf state for the 2022 World Cup. Two weeks before the start of tournament, Sam Fenwick speaks to fans about how much they are willing to spend to support their team and hopefully watch them lift the iconic trophy. There are concerns that fans have been priced out of attending this year’s t...

How easy is it for a woman to start and run a business in Qatar? In the past few years, there have been changes to the constitution and laws which have made it easier for women to work and run businesses. We ask whether that’s filtered down to 'street level' or whether cultural constraints still restrict women. We visit a project in Doha where Qatari women have set up a business in a cultural cent...

Will a boost in visitors for the Qatar World Cup lead to more visitors in the long run? Qatar has spent over $220bn on preparations for the football World Cup, and there are hopes the tournament will draw visitors for years to come. We take a tour of Doha, looking at the dow boats and some of the common tourist sites that fans will experience, and hear from Berthold Trenkel, COO of Visit Qatar. We...

Workers from countries such as Nepal have done the bulk of the work to build the stadiums and infrastructure for the Qatar World Cup. But there are difficult questions still to be answered about the treatment of these people, and how compensation for those workers who have been badly treated, or even died in Qatar, is being paid. In this episode, Ed Butler speaks to a man from Nepal who worked on...

Samira Hussain visits the New York studio of one of the most in demand photographers in the world, Jason Bell. Jason has photographed some of the world’s most famous people - including Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio and the British Royal Family. His work has been featured in Vanity Fair and Vogue and he’s shot campaigns for The Crown, Billy Elliot and The Revenant. Jason takes us behind the len...

In April 2022, Sri Lanka was gripped by a major economic crisis. Prices were rising sharply, protests started in the capital, Colombo,and spread across the country. Daily power cuts and shortages of basics such as fuel, food and medicines were commonplace. Inflation was running at more than 50%. In July, after months of unrest, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country. Three months on, Rahul...

In a wide ranging interview, David Malpass, president of the World Bank, speaks to presenter Sam Fenwick about the global economic situation. He talks about the consequences of rising global debt and high inflation, and how poorer countries are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. Mr Malpass says the debt caused by the coronavirus pandemic will take decades to pay off, and says many of the su...

In mid-2021 hot tub companies were king. Unprecedented demand through covid pushed up sales as people stayed at home. Some of Europe's well known suppliers boasted up to a 400% increase in sales compared to 2019. Companies simply could not get a hold on enough stock. In China on/off lockdowns caused a part shortage. Waiting lists across Europe went as far as six months. Some of the world's biggest...

When you’re conducting a scientific experiment, you must prepare for it to fail. Lab researchers work by this motto. But for Dr Natalie Kenny, founder of international lab testing and medical training firm BioGrad, it’s proved true in every aspect of life. It’s been a whirlwind ride: from growing up in a working-class family in Liverpool, England, to battling tropical diseases in the Amazonian rai...

We hear from some of the many small-scale farmers in Kenya who are using apps like What’sApp, Facebook and Instagram to share information about the best way to grow fruit and veg and sell direct to consumers. From the vibrant markets of Nairobi to the lush green slopes of Mount Kenya Sam Fenwick investigates how farming entrepreneurs are using smartphones to grow profits as well as peas. But runni...

University sport in the US has become huge business. For decades, students' share of those earnings only came in the form of scholarships. As television contracts got bigger, so did the calls for change - and last year students were granted the right to earn off their name, image and likeness. A year on, Will Bain explores how it’s shaken up college sports, providing opportunities and unforeseen c...

As many as 7 million Americans who could work, aren’t. These are people who have dropped out of the workforce - they have given up on finding a job or are simply not looking. And similar trends can be seen in other wealthy countries. So what is going on? Ed Butler speaks to Nicholas Eberstadt, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s recently updated a book which examines the extrao...

Greensill Capital was a UK based finance firm and a darling of investors which made its money by lending to businesses. It went into administration in March 2021, leaving investors facing billions in losses. What went wrong with Greensill? Why did leading politicians like former British Prime Minister David Cameron get involved? And what does it teach us about the way modern entrepreneurs, like Au...

New York’s Penn Station is the busiest transport hub in the United States - as many as 650,000 people pass through it in a day. But this intercity hub is widely agreed to be outdated and unloved. Now there are plans to pour billions of dollars into a station facelift - in the hope it will attract Americans back to trains. In this episode, Laura Heighton-Ginns hears from key stakeholders Amtrak and...