Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

At IF's Future of Climate Action Conference, Rob Cameron, global head of public affairs and ESG engagement at Nestlé, spoke to Ian Welsh about why companies need to continue to focus on carbon, take immediate action at scale, and the potential benefits from regenerative agriculture. He argued that there will be no transition to a low carbon economy unless it is a “just transition”, and put the cas...

Josh Tosteson, president of Everland, outlines a new plan to tackle deforestation at scale through rapidly developing new REDD+ forest projects in threatened landscapes around the world, and accessing the unprecedented levels of climate finance via the voluntary carbon markets. He also addresses the main criticisms of REDD+ projects; how to prevent deforestation from simply leaking outside the pro...

This week: Sam Szoke-Burke, senior legal researcher at the Columbia Centre on Sustainable Investment in New York, and Ikal Ang’elei, co-founder and director of Friends of Lake Turkana in Kenya talk about the impact of the renewable energy sector on the human rights of local peoples during the deployment phase of wind and solar projects. Land rights abuses are among the key risks for companies and...

Nick O’Flaherty, director of UNSTUCK, and Sarah Maurer, head of new product development at Chobani, talk with Innovation Forum’s Emily Heslop about UNSTUCK’s market-driven model that partners with consumer brands to enable suppliers to support refugees with employment, and to help them rebuild often shattered lives. They discuss the importance of identifying suppliers that are already working with...

At Innovation Forum’s recent sustainable apparel and textiles conference, Toby Webb was joined by Anke Ehlers, managing director for global corporate responsibility at Aldi Süd, and Remco Kouwenhoven, social innovation lead at Fairphone, for a session where the discussion focused on what the apparel sector can learn from living income programmes in other industry sectors.

This week: James Ede, Group Sustainability Lead for Starches, Sweetners and Texturisers at Cargill, and Andrew Voysey, Head of Impact and Carbon at Soil Capital, speak to Ian Welsh about why both businesses and farmers are increasingly interested in the shift towards regenerative agriculture. They discussed how actors are working together within supply sheds to enable farmers to evidence regenerat...

Ian Welsh talks to business and climate strategy expert Iain Watt about some of the challenges for companies in getting to net-zero emissions. He argues the need to recognise that science mandates that timeframes are very tight for 1.5C and 2C pathways – and that leading companies may have to do more than their fair share, to stay within our carbon budget. 

This week: Dr Suwanna Gauntlett, founder and CEO of anti-deforestation NGO Wildlife Alliance, talks about how better law enforcement to prevent illegal forest clearance, combined with developing better economic prospects for local communities, can really impact deforestation. She talks about the importance of bringing benefits to these local people, through REDD+ project development, for example,...

As companies strive to meet their net-zero targets, they must rapidly reduce their supply chain emissions. Leading companies are beginning to go one step further to develop ‘insetting’ programmes that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. In the complex world of carbon accounting, it is still unclear who can count a carbon removal and when.  This webinar assessed the frameworks that are need...

This week: Rob Cameron, global head of public affairs and ESG engagement at Nestlé, talks about why companies need to continue to focus on carbon, take immediate action at scale, and the potential benefits from regenerative agriculture. He also argues that there will be no transition to a low carbon economy unless it is a “just transition”, and puts the case for always following the science in cor...

Innovation Connections from Tesco and WWF is a new accelerator programme that has paired pioneering start-ups with Tesco suppliers to fast-track innovation in the supply chain. In May, a group of finalists pitched head-to-head in front of a panel of experts from Tesco and WWF, with five exciting projects each awarded funding of up to £150,000. Innovation Connections is part of a long-term partners...

This week: Josh Tosteson, president of Everland, outlines a new plan to tackle deforestation at scale through rapidly developing new REDD+ forest projects in threatened landscapes around the world, and accessing the unprecedented levels of climate finance via the voluntary carbon markets. Plus analysis of some of the outcomes from Innovation Forum’s Future of Climate Action conference from the Sco...

Anant Ahuja, head of organisational development at Indian apparel manufacturer Shahi Exports, talks with Ian Welsh about the importance of long-term relationships between brands and manufacturers to allow for the investment necessary to get the sector to net zero. Ahuja points out despite the long return on investment for renewable energy projects, many factory owners are keen to make the transiti...

This week: Birgitte Holter, head of green and low carbon fertilisers at Yara and Claes Johansson, head of sustainable development at Lantmännen talk about the role of green fertilisers in developing food supply chains that do not rely on fossil fuels. They also discuss how to identify the right partners when developing business models that can really deliver innovation and change. Plus: Global Fas...

Caroline Ledl, head of product management, textiles, at the Lenzing Group talks with Ian Welsh about how bio-based waste materials can be used to create fibres that compete with traditional materials and create high-quality apparel and textiles. A barrier to growth is lack of collecting and recycling capacity – and there is significant innovation required to move to a blend with 50% and more recyc...

It’s clear that animal feed supply chains in their current form are unsustainable for industrial animal production systems. To keep up with increasing global demand for meat, alternatives to the traditional feedstocks should be considered. So, what role can insect protein play? In this webinar, an expert panel discussed how insects are developing as an alternative protein, the opportunities for sc...

This webinar discussion, the latest in Innovation Forum’s “From the front-line battle to stop deforestation by 2030” series, features an expert panel discussing how private-sector investments are helping to end deforestation, protect threatened wildlife and fund significant economic development activities for local communities. The webinar was held in Stockholm as part of the United Nations Enviro...

This week: Business and climate strategy expert Iain Watt talks about some of the challenges for companies getting to net-zero emissions. He argues the need to recognise that science mandates that timeframes are very tight for 1.5C and 2C pathways – but that embracing science-based targets has switched ambitions from what looks achievable to what’s necessary. Plus: up to 1,000 microplastic particl...

Bank + Vogue and Beyond Retro co-founder Steven Bethell talks with Ian Welsh about the growth of apparel resale and remanufacturing at scale, and how to “industrialise the used as an input for the new”. Bethell highlights the importance of both physical and chemical recycling for the development of truly circular models in the garment sector.

In the eight years since companies and governments came together under the New York Declaration on Forests committing to end deforestation by 2020, we have instead seen a continued rise in deforestation rates. To meet net-zero goals and ensure a climate resilient future, companies need to quickly accelerate systems and processes to manage their impacts on forests. In this webinar, our expert panel...

This week: Anant Ahuja, head of organisational development at Indian apparel manufacturer Shahi Exports, talks about how all of the apparel sector’s value chains can work together to decarbonise and transition towards net zero. Ahuja outlines some of the barriers to the shift in business models that are necessary, not least developing long-term supplier-brand relationships. Plus: further food supp...

David Pettet, global human rights and sustainable supply chain director at Reckitt, talks with Ian Welsh about why taking a holistic approach to human rights risks in supply chains is essential. Pettet argues how internalising auditing processes can lead to closer relationships with suppliers and manufacturers, and why a focus on grievance mechanisms, eliminating recruitment fees and real transpar...

This week: Caroline Ledl, head of product management, textiles, at the Lenzing Group, talks about the challenges in using recycled content to create high quality fibres that can compete with virgin materials in the apparel sector. She outlines how collaboration on material use and design can help scale up processes and get around the recycling problems stemming from mixed-fibre garments. Plus, in...

The potential impacts of due diligence legislation in various jurisdictions are discussed by Freshfield Bruckhaus Deringer’s Elizabeth Forster and Innovation Forum’s Bea Stevenson. They talk about the changing transparency and reporting obligations for companies and how to identify where the risks are, and the need for cultural shift in approach for many businesses.

Ethical Tea Partnership chief executive Jenny Costelloe talks with Ian Welsh about how environmental and, particularly, labour and trafficking challenges are coming to the top of corporate agenda in the tea sector. They talk about ETP’s 2030 strategy and the systemic change that is necessary, particularly to address power imbalances that impact women and children at plantations, and how “radical t...