Transforming Tomorrow

How can businesses have a positive impact on nature? We hear a lot about the negative effects organisations have on the planet, but they can also be a force for good. By helping to restore nature, firms big or small, local or global, can help themselves and their operations – and maybe all of us. But what are they actually doing, and why can it be so hard for them to tell us? Dr Tim Lamont, a mari...

What do big companies do to positively contribute to sustainability efforts, and to wider society? What does your employer do? Is it enough, and could they do more? Brands and brand values send messages and have their own sustainability identities, so it’s time to look at how this affects their actions. Kaeisha Gibson, Head of Corporate Responsibility at Pentland Brands, discusses how brands inclu...

The battle between good and evil comes to Transforming Tomorrow. What is good? What does ‘good’ mean in the context of how you do business? We look at how companies can balance profit with doing right in the world, why it doesn’t necessarily take as long as you think to move to a new way of thinking and working, and whether the world needs to be in crisis to force corporations to act. Professor St...

Put on your activism boots and join us on a journey from the Antarctic to Sweden and the Arctic, China, Lancaster and many places in between. We find out the differences between being an activist and an academic, how you go from being one to the other, and how experience as an activist gives you unique and invaluable insights for research. Frida Bengtsson describes her journey from growing up in a...

We’re blasting off into space! Find out all you need to know to mine an asteroid – though be warned, it’s not that simple.  Discover which laws you have to follow beyond Earth’s atmosphere, how we get to asteroids in the first place, and what this might mean for life here and millions of miles away.  Dr Craig Jones joins Jan and Paul for an astronomical start to the new series. He specialises in a...

What are externalities? How does the EU have environmental effects beyond its borders? What is justice? We bring Season One of Transforming Tomorrow to a close with Jan answering some of the questions that have come up during previous episodes. Jan explains externalities, and how (not when) they can be internalised; why it is important to know about the EU’s impacts; and the many elements to justi...

What is ‘future normal’? How will the world look years from now? How will businesses operate? How could they make your children proud? And how does sustainability fit into all this? Professor Nick Barter, from Griffith University, takes Jan and Paul through the origins of the phrase from his time working with industry while completing his PhD with Jan at the University of St Andrews. Covering topi...

Like evaluations? Does anyone? It’s time to change your mind and learn about creative evaluation. Jan and Paul welcome Dr Elisavet Christou and Violet Owen to enlighten them. Co-authors of the Little Book of Creative Evaluation, they explain what Creative Evaluation is, and how it can be used across many disciplines. Elisavet and Violet discuss their EViD tool, which helps people with their evalua...

How can executives change their operations and attitudes – from nature restoration to modern slavery – to be more sustainable and responsible? How hard is it to get people to accept the difficulty of the task. Linden Edgell – Inquisitor, Collaborator and Explorer extraordinaire – joins Jan and Paul from Perth, Australia, among her 150 mango trees to answer these and other questions. Linden is ERM’...

Increase your knowledge of salmon tenfold as we look at the environmental impacts of a major industry. Farmed salmon is the UK’s biggest food export – and Dr Josi Fernandes is obsessed! Josi joins Jan and Paul to talk about her work looking at salmon farming practices and sustainability in the UK and how her research in the area all started over a conversation in the pub. We discover what Josi has...

Do investors really care about sustainability, or is it all about the money? If they do care, what powers do they have to make companies change their ways? Jan and Paul welcome Professor Mark Shackleton to discuss the world of finance and how it intersects with sustainability. They discover why the King can’t enter the City of London without permission; how data can be used to influence ‘green’ in...

Would you spend more for green products? Really? Really really? Even if you would, is it possible consumers can change how businesses operate through such decisions? Jan and Paul welcome back Professor Dakshina De Silva, and Drs Anita Schiller and Aurelie Slechten to discuss the factors that influence consumer spending on green goods; different cultural attitudes towards green spending; how income...

Communities with lower-income residents can be impacted more by pollution. But why? And can anything be done? With pollution impacting health and employment opportunities, can regulations help these communities? Will they make industries pack up and leave? Or is that just a handy excuse? A crash of economists invades the studio to talk to Jan and Paul about how industrial pollution ties in with ec...

Does planting new hedgerows help farmers, and how? Is having a connection with nature important to a farm’s success? And, where’s Jan? Paul is left to fly solo after a car breakdown means Jan cannot make it to Orton, and the farm of Jim Beary. Luckily, Lake District Farmers Head of Purpose and Sustainability Phil Scott can help out as the trio discuss life at Gaythorn Hall, a farm in the far east...

Paul and Jan have finally made it to the farm! But where is the sustainability? Are farmers really invested in biodiversity? We are on Cartmel Fell, in South Cumbria, to meet Fiona Daley, who along with husband Dave owns and runs Hodge Hill Farm, where a new-born calf is among the audience. Fiona and Dave have a small herd of Belted Galloway cows and are members of the LDF network. LDF Head of Pur...

Or is it a pipedream? The Pentland Centre are working with Lake District farmers to move towards net zero meat production. Discover the unique challenges facing farmers in the Lake District; find out how farmers are cooperating with Lancaster research; and learn the differences between Net Zero, Carbon Neutral and Carbon Positive. Dr Laura Giles, the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate workin...

We’ve learned all about farming – and soil! – now we discover how farming and sustainability go together. Do farmers care and how do they show it? Jan and Paul talk sustainability with Lake District Farmers’ Phil Scott about the organisation’s sustainability ambitions. As seagulls and buzzards circle, they look at how LDF think about sustainability in their own operations and those of the farmers...

There is more carbon in soil than in the Earth’s atmosphere! But how has human activity has changed soils over the centuries? Professors Jess Davies and John Quinton, from Lancaster Environment Centre, bring their expertise to focus on the work being done with the Lake District Farmers. They tell Jan and Paul about the effects farmers have on their land – and how they have affected it over the pas...

Join us as we start our journey looking at meat farming in the UK’s Lake District. As we explore how sustainable farming can be, we meet the Lake District Farmers (LDF). Jan and Paul travel to Ulverston – or Oolverston as Jan would have it – to meet LDF’s Phil Scott and find all about the organisation and its work with farmers across Cumbria. LDF work with a network of around 50 farmers to process...

Professor Henrik Österblom, Director of the Anthropocene Laboratory at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, comes to the podcast with possibly the best job title so far. Henrik is one of Jan’s favourite super-scientists, and he joins Jan and Paul from Stockholm. But just what does Anthropocene mean, and how does it tie in with sustainability? How is the world changing due to human activity? How...

We’ve discussed modern slavery on a global scale before, but now Dr Divya Jyoti joins Jan and Paul to bring the issue closer to home. Divya’s research has taken her to the factory floor, and to the city of Leicester – where there were once claims of 10,000 people living in modern slavery – and has led her to shine a light on left-behind people, those often-forgotten people in our societies. What h...

In 2023, around 6.8 million people in the UK were in severely insecure work – little over a firth of the working population. Work Foundation Director Ben Harrison dials in from London to discuss the issue. Ben tells Jan and Paul about how the Work Foundation works as it tries to influence policy across the UK. He covers issues of flexible working, how economic changes in recent years have affected...

Dr Joanne Larty joins Jan and Paul to enlighten them on her work with businesses in Cumbria on sharing best sustainability practice.  Through Project INSPIRE, Joanne and her team are speaking to pioneering companies across Cumbria to discover how they are tackling sustainability challenges, how it ties into the history and landscape of the county, and how their practices can be spread.  What issue...

Matt Healey talks Jan and Paul through his journey from an outdoor education professional to becoming a PhD researcher looking at our connections with nature. The UK has the lowest connection with nature in Europe, and Matt’s work encompasses how we each appreciate nature in our everyday lives, the importance of considering nature from a non-human-centric perspective, the value of nature, and the...

Professor Alona Armstrong returns to give Jan and Paul a whirlwind tour of the work that takes place across the Lancaster Environment Centre and the Energy Lancaster research centre. Discover the work of Energy Lancaster here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/energy-lancaster/ And find out about the research taking place in Lancaster Environment Centre here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/research/