The Net Zero Business Podcast

This week I muse on the magic that demand brings to the economy: plummeting prices, rising quality and security of supply. Therefore it follows that to accelerate the creation of a sustainable economy, we must be focussing on ways of stimulating demand for renewable energy, electric vehicles and secondary materials to name but three. I talk about how individuals, organisations and policy makers ca...

This week on the Net Zero Business Podcast, I'm joined by the two editors/lead authors on a new book ' Leading the Sustainable Business Transformation ', Prof Julia Binder and Prof Knut Haanaes from IMD. We discuss the importance of 'head, heart and hands', dig into the importance and power of "future-back thinking" (aka backcasting) and explore the two Profs' favourite case studies. We also cover...

This week on the Net Zero Business Podcast, I'm joined by leading US Sustainability thinker, author and fractional CSO John Friedman. We cover a huge range of issues including the impending Trump administration, why we are getting a backlash and John's Batman analogy. We also cover why your employees should be your primary audience, what a fractional CSO is, and talk about John's book, Managing Su...

Climate adaptation is the Cinderella of climate action, but increasing extreme weather events make it all too clear that we not only have to mitigate climate change (through carbon reductions) but prepare for the impacts already baked into the system. Rupert Read, author of Transformative Adaptation and former Extinction Rebellion Spokesperson, joins me to talk about the need to go beyond "shallow...

Happy New Year! It is traditional at this time of year to dust off the old crystal ball and look forward to the next 12 months, so here's my take on global emissions, the increasing need for adaptation, UK politics, US politics and COP30. Join us on 15 Jan 2025 for our 12½ Kick Ass Sustainability Ideas for 2025 webinar and get your year off to a flying start. You'll not only get the best of Sustai...

Hope you had a good Christmas. I was going to take a break from the pod, but a number of thoughts kept bouncing around my head, so I thought I would share. What happened to 'blade flicker', what Donald Trump can teach us about engagement, why the cost of not zero is critical, business choice between Blockbuster and Netflix, and young people telling each other 'go touch grass'. This will be the ver...

There is huge interest in nature-based solutions for climate change, and the success of these mainly comes down to carbon retention in soil. In this episode of the Net Zero Business Podcast, I talk to award-winning Professor of Environmental Engineering Karen Johnson (who also happens to be my partner of 30+ years and, yes, this is the kind of thing we discuss over breakfast) about how soil holds...

We won't get to Net Zero without Net Zero buildings. So it's not before time that a Net Zero Carbon Building Standard has been drafted by a cross-section of all the major construction sector groups in the UK. In this episode, I'm talked through the new standard by Will Arnold of the Institution of Structural Engineers who served on the standard's Technical Steering Group. The pilot Net Zero Carbon...

As we come to the end of a tumultuous 2024, I'm joined by a crack team of pundits – 'OG' Sustainability Superstar Lucy Siegle and the ever-wise Executive Editor of BusinessGreen.com, James Murray – to pick over the key events including elections and COPs, nominate our climate heroes and villains, and we make some predictions for 2025. And, of course, we talk about what we think of Jaguar's big pin...

Blimey. It has been a year since I first launched the Net Zero Business Podcast. In this special birthday episode, I explain exactly why I started the podcast, before drawing out five big things I have learnt over the last year and 50+ episodes. It is a subjective list, regular listeners may have other learning points or respond to some of mine with a 'duh'. If you have feedback or an issue you wo...

This week's episode features a fascinating exploration of regenerative buildings with David Cheshire, UK Sustainability Director of infrastructure consultants AECOM and author of Regenerative by Design: Creating living buildings and cities published by RIBA. We dig into what a 'net positive' building would look and feel like, how they work in practice and how the market is responding to new possib...

Thoroughly enjoyed this chat with Solitaire Townsend, Founder and Chief Solutionist of Futerra, and author of the fab new(ish) book, The Solutionists. We discuss what a Solutionist is, positivity vs doom, greenwash, creativity and engaging leaders in Sustainability. Don't miss this one! More the Net Zero Business Academy 2025 early bird offer here. Podcast branding courtesy of our friends at Avery...

Ever since the 1992 Earth Summit, we have been urged to "Think Global, Act Local". All too often this slogan has manifested itself in small scale projects, but what about creating sustainable cities? In this episode I talk place-based Sustainability with Florian Wupperfeld, world-leading placemaking/social sustainability expert and CEO of LCD Ventures , a UK-based data-driven urban innovation comp...

Management Peter Drucker said "culture eats strategy for breakfast" and nowhere is this more true than in Sustainability. You can have the best strategy in the world, but if people aren't bought into Sustainability then nothing will change. Here I explain why so many people fail to engage with Sustainability and why standard engagement techniques often fail. I call my approach Green Jujitsu and I...

In this episode, I'm joined by two hugely experienced doctors and Sustainability champions Matt Sawyer and Mike Tomson who have edited a new book, Environmentally Sustainable Primary Care . Our discussion takes in the huge and complex overlap between healthcare and planetary care, how to engage busy people and the challenges/opportunities for small businesses to embrace Sustainability. The Net Zer...

With booming numbers of reporting regimes – CSRD, EU Taxonomy, Double Materiality, SFDR etc – Sustainability teams increasingly find themselves slogging in the data mines rather than delivering the Net Zero wins they actually want to report on. Given the sudden blossoming of AI, can this new technology alleviate the reporting burden and, if so, at what cost? In this episode of the Net Zero Bu...

Frankly, I'm struggling to sum this episode up! Brendan May of Robertsbridge has been one of the leading voices on Sustainability for decades and in this conversation we cover the current UK political context, the difficulties with transition, the threat of culture war populism, the unintended consequences of not doing things (eg offsetting, nuclear, palm oil), the success and failure of NGO campa...

In this episode, I lay out what I call the Litmus Test of Sustainability. No spoilers, you will have to listen to hear what it is! If you want help to pass the test, please check out my Executive Coaching programme . Branding courtesy of Avery & Brown . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Keir Starmer's Labour Party won a crushing victory in July's UK General Election on the back of a 'green growth' economic strategy, but how is this measuring up in practice? Fresh from the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Fiona Harvey, the Guardian's multi-award-winning Environment Editor, joins me to run the rule over the new Government's policies both national and international, which leads...

With agriculture being responsible for 11% of the UK's carbon emissions, declining biodiversity and polluted water course, is there a Sustainable alternative to modern industrial agriculture? Doug Wanstall of Beyond Zero joins me to explain how regenerative agriculture works, how he is funding projects via voluntary carbon credits and what the forthcoming UK carbon code is intended to do. This epi...

Is the future uninsurable? In this episode, Claudine Blamey, Chief Sustainability Officer of insurance giant Aviva, explains that the warning signs are there to be seen with some insurers starting to pull out of areas hit by extreme weather. We also delve into Aviva's breakthrough temperate rainforest restoration project as a form of offsetting, the importance of leadership, the power of volunteer...

And after our August compilation episodes of the Net Zero Business Podcast, we are back with a bang in the form of Jasper Steinhausen, author of Making Sustainability Profitable, aimed at Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in the manufacturing sector. I felt a real meeting of minds as we compare and contrast Jasper's sustainability sweetspot with mine and delve into mindsets, unleashing creativity...

Delivering Sustainability is far from easy and takes its mental toll on practitioners. In the final Words of Wisdom compilation episode of this summer, we look at the mental aspects of delivering Sustainability with these fantastic contributions: Eco-anxiety and me – Anna-Lisa Mills, Smart Carbon How declaring a climate emergency saved me from jail – James Dixon, Newcastle Hospitals Trust Pessimis...

During August, we are publishing a series of compilation episodes featuring the best bits of our interviews on a particular theme. This time we are looking at that most controversial of topics, offsetting aka voluntary carbon credits. Does it work? Is it a distraction? Is it greenwash? Before you make up your mind, check out these contributions: The state of play in offsetting – Nic Alexander of T...

During August, we are publishing a series of compilation episodes featuring the best bits of our interviews on a particular theme. This time I've collated four clips about the different aspects of the supply chain which I think are very insightful: The state of play in Supply Chain Sustainability – Shaun McCarthy OBE, Supply Chain Sustainability School ( full interview here ) Collaborating with co...