Shaken Not Burned

2025 hasn’t been the easiest year. Amid ongoing genocides, Trump becoming US president again, and the EU backtracking on some of its most innovative policies, it feels like progress on sustainability matters has been slow, even non-existent. Meanwhile, billionaires are becoming richer, artificial intelligence is taking people’s jobs and attention spans, and the climate breakdown continues at a pac...

Water scarcity is already one of the world’s biggest risks — so why do we treat long showers as inconsequential? In this episode of Shaken Not Burned , Felicia talks to Carly Hunt, head of strategic partnerships at Showerkap, about how everyday behaviour shapes water resilience. They explore why most water solutions overlook human habits, how behavioural nudges can cut water use without forcing ch...

We are a podcast, but we have to admit: images can speak more than words. A powerful visual can tell a story, evoke sensations, and even inspire action. And isn’t that an essential tool in communicating about climate and sustainability? Yet, for one reason or another, we resort to cliches: a polar bear on melting ice, a blue marble image, hands joining together over some greenery. Sure, they are c...

PFAS, or forever chemicals, are one of the most urgent but misunderstood issues in environmental health.  This group of nearly 15,000 man-made substances are used to make many products more durable or waterproof, but they don’t break down. Instead, they accumulate in our water, our soil and even our bodies.  While we don’t yet have a full picture of their impacts, we know that they have been linke...

Carbon markets are intended to be the backbone of climate finance – but they’re often criticised for being opaque, inefficient, and riddled with credibility issues .  This week, Giulia talked to Alex Taylor , co-founder at KlimaDAO and Carbonmark , about the messy reality of the voluntary carbon markets, from opaque pricing, questionable credit quality, middlemen capturing most of the value, as we...

Europe talks a big game on marine protection but, beneath the surface, the picture is far more fragile.  This week on Shaken Not Burned , Felicia speaks with Professor Callum Roberts , one of the world’s leading marine biologists and lead scientist on the Convex Seascape Survey . His research reveals a climate risk we almost never count: what happens to the carbon stored in our seabed when it’s to...

Let’s dive into a part of climate action that too often sits behind the scenes: the hard work of making impact measurable and decision-ready. Sustainability teams may spend years drowning in data, frameworks and reporting demands, yet businesses still struggle to answer the simplest question of all: what’s the best choice to make? This week, Felicia speaks to Nick Catania , co-founder of ClimatePo...

What does it really mean to be net zero ? In a world overflowing with climate claims , standards are becoming the new currency of trust, as they set technical definitions and create common ground. This week, we’re exploring something that could reshape how the world defines and delivers climate ambition: the new ISO net zero guidelines . Our guest is Noelia Garcia Nebra , head of sustainability at...

The Conference of the Parties, or COP30 this year in Brazil, can seem remote – bureaucratic, elite, hard to connect with. But it’s also one of the few spaces where solidarity can still take shape .  The same is true of philanthropy: when it’s built on listening and trust , not hierarchy or control, it becomes a bridge between people and resources rather than another layer of power. This week'...

Working in sustainability means getting the story right.  We may have crunched the numbers and estimated the risks of biodiversity loss in a certain area, or the opportunities arising from decarbonising a certain sector. But if we don’t communicate effectively with our stakeholders, there is a real risk that all of this effort will go to waste.  This is particularly true when interacting with stak...

Every day we read new headlines about climate extremes, yet behind the noise lies a quieter, more corrosive threat: misinformation . In this week's episode of Shaken Not Burned, we explore why climate misinformation isn’t a communications issue or a social-media nuisance, but a systemic business risk that can destabilise economies, erode public trust, and undermine effective climate action. O...

This week, we are talking about the turbulence surrounding ESG and sustainable finance. The question we’re exploring: is the backlash against ESG a crisis, or a necessary correction ? Joining us is Professor Thanos Verousis , an economist and researcher on sustainable finance at Vlerick Business School . Together, we unpack why ESG is under fire, what went wrong, and how finance can evolve to meet...

Think about the products you use every day at home. The hand soap. The cleaning spray. The sponge for the dishes. The face cream. The toothpaste.  Why do you buy certain brands, with certain packaging and certain ingredients?  Whether it's because they were the products of our childhood, or the advertising has convinced us, or the price is just too convenient, we may not spend much time quest...

Is ESG really “dead,” or are we asking the wrong question? Perhaps, we should examine what it takes to run a truly responsible business in today’s high-risk environment. This week, Giulia is joined by Steve Kenzie , executive director of the UN Global Compact Network UK , to explore how the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative is pushing companies beyond paper commitments and into r...

At the heart of Shaken Not Burned is sustainability literacy . But not in the sense of teaching acronyms or repeating headlines. What we mean is something bigger: the skills to understand how systems really work – and how to change them. The same skills that help you spot greenwash or untangle climate policy are the ones we all need to face today’s challenges: misinformation, polarisation, geopoli...

What does it take to scale real-world climate solutions fast? In this episode, we explore what happens when you treat climate action like an engineering challenge, not just a moral imperative.  Joining us is Nick Wirth , aerodynamicist, engineer, and former Formula One team owner turned cleantech entrepreneur. Today, he’s applying high-performance engineering to supermarkets, trucks, and buildings...

Let’s step out of the ESG echo chamber and into a much bigger conversation: what are the real limits of our planet and how close are we to crossing them? Life on Earth has remained stable for the last 12,000 years, but that stability is starting to unravel. It’s tempting to treat climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, and land use as separate “issues,” each with their own strategy, timeline...

From climate volatility to food insecurity and antibiotic resistance, the global food system is at a breaking point. Industrial agriculture contributes up to 25% of global emissions, drives biodiversity loss, and strains farmers with volatile prices and precarity.  It’s clear we need to change how food is made, not just how it's consumed: one bold solution is clean agriculture. In this week’s...

The world needs to plug a biodiversity finance gap worth $700 billion per year to effectively protect and restore nature, according to the United Nations. This issue is garnering more attention as sustainability efforts have evolved from reducing carbon emissions to protecting nature – moving from ‘do no harm’ to taking positive action . A turning point was the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity...

There’s no denying that continuing to treat the natural world as we do will lead to ecological breakdown. We don’t seem to take into account how our consumption of natural resources affects the planet – which, ultimately, may stop providing those resources in the first place.  UK economist Kate Raworth has developed a model, called doughnut economics, which provides an alternative system where hum...

From heating and cooling to construction materials and power demand, buildings are responsible for up to a third of global emissions—but rarely get the political or media attention they deserve. This week Felicia talks to Lord Adair Turner , chair of the Energy Transitions Commissions , to explore why that needs to change now. We dig into why electrification is the only real path to decarbonising...

In this week’s episode Felicia Jackson talks to Phil Korbel , co-founder and director of advocacy at The Carbon Literacy Project , about what it truly means to move beyond awareness into action. Too often, climate conversations are filled with well-meaning phrases and distant threats. We hear about melting ice caps, rising seas, and catastrophic futures—but what do these really mean for our daily...

With extreme weather disrupting harvests, food prices spiking, and soil health declining globally, regenerative agriculture is emerging as a compelling solution – not just for farmers, but for everyone who eats.  This week, Felicia talks to Andrew Voysey , chief impact officer at Soil Capital , about why regenerative agriculture matters to farmers, industry and individuals. Regenerative agricultur...

There are many ways to take climate action: one of these involves going to court. An increasing number of groups worldwide are driving change through legal means, in a process commonly known as climate litigation.  Climate litigation matters because it brings climate responsibility into the legal arena, where science, rights, and accountability can meet enforceable action. It's not just about...

Not long ago, climate ambition was peaking: companies were racing to make net zero pledges and get approvals by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). But now, the mood has shifted. While most businesses haven’t completely walked away from climate action, many of them are rethinking their plans, moving deadlines forward or cutting their targets. Unfortunately, some are abandoning their initi...