Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

The latest daily podcast on the events at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh. On finance day, UK chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak announced that London will become the first financial centre that’s “net zero aligned” and that big UK companies will be mandated to set out their own plans for net zero emissions. Janet Yellen, US treasury secretary, quadrupled commit...

In the latest daily podcast covering the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, Ian Welsh speaks to Mighty Earth founder and CEO Glenn Hurowitz. They react to the leaders’ declaration on forests and land use committing 110 countries to eliminate deforestation by 2030, the first big announcement of the conference – and Hurowitz gives some detail on a new pledge from UK and European supermarket chains not to so...

The first daily podcast covering the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh. All the news from the opening day as delegates struggled with train delays and venue queues, and including reflection on the opening comments from David Attenborough, Boris Johnston, Joe Biden and Narendra Modi’s 2070 net zero pledge for India. Plus insight from climate journalist Mike Scott on what...

This week: Local managers and community leaders explain how a REDD+ project in Kenya is preserving 200,000 hectares of forest and benefitting 120,000 local people. Plus, insight from Apparel Insider’s Brett Mathews about how the new EU product environmental footprint label will impact the apparel sector, and why some brands need to take care about their marketing using sustainability messaging. An...

Stephen Donofrio, director of Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace project, and co-author of the State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2021 report, explains to Ian Welsh why the carbon markets are set to exceed $1bn in 2021. He says why he thinks they will continue to grow as companies voluntarily take action to decarbonise their operations and broader impacts as far as they can, using credible of...

Cassandra Austen, senior economist at Vivid Economics, Joe Robertson, senior advisor for sustainable finance at EAT, and member of the secretariat of the Good Food Finance Network, and Nicolas Ambanya, chief production officer, Twiga Foods, talk with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about a new report – Regenerative Agriculture: An opportunity for businesses and society to restore degraded land in Afr...

This week: Peter Williams, president of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction talks about the work of the institute in the rural communities of southeast Asia and Africa, some of the factors that are necessary points of focus for effective development projects, and the IIRR’s climate smart village model. Plus: Una Kent, vice-president CSR international, at WallgreenBootsAlliance on h...

Musim Mas director of sustainable supply chain Oliver Tichit tells Ian Welsh that he wants to see progress towards more collaboration, better financing, climate resilience in agriculture and better use of renewable energy in a rural setting as outcomes from COP26. Also on his wish list for palm oil smallholders is financial inclusion so that the banking sector adapts its approach making it relevan...

Textile Exchange’s La Rhea Pepper, Claire Bergkamp and Megan Stoneburner talk with Toby Webb about the challenges for the apparel sector in growing recycling of polyester – still the most used fibre in the industry.   Mechanical recycling of PET plastic bottles to make polyester fibres is relatively straightforward. More difficult is scaling up the chemical recycling processes that could allow for...

Scott Steedman, director general standards at BSI, outlines the background to the new London declaration commitment to embed climate science in all standards. He explains how standards – designed to be bodies of knowledge on what best business practice looks like – can assess carbon footprints, environmental impacts and all the climate change challenges that must be front and centre as the world e...

Alan Kroeger, head of supply chains and natural climate solutions at Satelligence, and Ian Welsh talk about the open dialogue that can lead to the cooperation required for companies to tackle their emissions at pace and scale. Kroeger argues for better incentives for companies to act quickly – government and multilateral finance can help growers deliver so their buyer clients can themselves meet t...

This week: Stephen Donofrio, co-author of the new State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2021 report, and director of Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace project, talks about why the voluntary carbon markets are set to top $1bn in 2021, and the drivers for this. Primarily these are corporate awareness of emissions and desire to set in place how to achieve a net zero footprint. Donofrio also argues...

With discussion on how companies can build a market-driven solution to finance forest and wildlife conservation, benefit local communities and meet SDGs, this webinar was broadcast live from the Wildlife Works Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project in Kenya. The project protects over 200,000 hectares of dryland forest, an important ecosystem with rich biodiversity. Located between the Tsavo East and Tsavo...

This week: Oliver Hurrey, founder of the scope 3 peer group and the sustainable procurement pledge, and Ian Welsh discuss some of the talking points from Innovation Forum’s climate action conference. While tackling the climate crisis is clearly daunting, there is a sense of urgency and positivity, with business beginning to get to grips with tough scope 3 emissions. And big brands are increasingly...

Xavier Roussel, sustainability and marketing director at Dole Foods, and Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb discuss how augmented reality experiences from QR codes and other technology solutions can help brands use sustainability messages to market products. Roussel explains how the next steps will involve providing consumers information to calculate carbon footprints – many customers are now engaged wi...

Avedis Seferian, CEO of global social compliance non-profit WRAP, talks with Peter Stanbury, co-author of Innovation Forum’s new Sustainable Apparel Barometer 2021 , about the report’s key themes. Among their discussion points: the pros and cons of second versus third party auditing; the explosion in the number of audit standards and the subsequent challenges of compliance for factories; the on-go...

This week: Oliver Tichit, director of sustainable supply chain at Musim Mas, talks about what he wants to see from the COP26 meetings, and the challenges of translating outcomes from government level meetings to on-the-ground challenges. He also discusses how the pandemic has highlighted resilience in the palm oil industry, and some solutions that can help smallholder farmers gain access to mainst...

Paloma López and Sean Ansett, co-founders of Future Fit Foods talk with Toby Webb about their vision for convenience foods that are healthy and efficient to transport. They discuss the benefits of using the latest freeze-drying techniques that preserve flavour and retain nutrients – and mean that the cost and footprints of transporting the water to consumers are eliminated.

Jodie Roussell, senior public affairs manager for packaging and sustainability at Nestlé, talks with Ian Welsh about evolution in use of plastics in packaging, shifting to different materials, and the growth of reuse and refill models. They discuss how these change shopping habits and, crucially, the importance of addressing consumer concerns over packaging performance.   

This week: Alan Kroeger, head of supply chains and natural climate solutions at Satelligence, talks about eliminating emissions from forest commodity supply chains, the role of nature-based solutions in achieving this, and how companies can navigate their way through the challenges using the right data. And, RSPO’s Victor Tamanjong discusses the state of play for sustainable palm oil in Africa. Pl...

The Carbon Trust’s director for implementation and e-mobility Myles McCarthy talks with Ian Welsh about some of the positive solutions emerging that can deliver decarbonisation at the rate necessary. They discuss some of the detail to look for from the outcomes of the COP26 meetings, how companies are becoming more sophisticated in how they are working to cut their emissions across scopes 1, 2 and...

Launching the Sustainable Apparel Barometer 2021, this webinar features discussion of the challenges and opportunities in viscose production, how transparency in the cotton sector is evolving and what needs to be done to drive greater social compliance within apparel supply chains. An expert panel lay out the findings of the new research and share some common themes and conclusions that can be app...

This week: Xavier Roussel, sustainability and marketing director at Dole Foods, talks with Innovation Forum’s Toby Webb about how technology is changing how brands can engage with their consumers. Virtual reality and interactivity are to the fore as consumers become better informed, and increasingly expect to know where products come from and how they’re grown. Plus an update about the upcoming su...

Jason Glaser, co-founder and CEO of La Isla Network talks with Ian Welsh about the real dangers for outdoor workers, including in agricultural supply chains, from increased heat stress while in the field or on construction sites. They discuss the potential impacts of climate change and how these risks are spreading to previously temperate latitudes. Glaser argues why companies must take this serio...

This week: La Rhea Pepper, Claire Bergkamp and Morgan Stoneburner from Textile Exchange talk with Toby Webb about developing more sustainable polyester for the apparel sector, the rise of chemical recycling and other transitions in infrastructure necessary to grow the market for recycled material at scale.     And, news about the launch of Innovation Forum’s Sustainable Apparel Barometer 2021 and...