Will Richardson (51toCarbonZero.com)

The 2026 World Cup carbon story everyone's talking about only tells 3% of the truth. We dug into the real environmental impact of the 2026 World Cup and found six stories FIFA isn't joining up: water stress in North American stadiums, 800 native trees at risk in Mexico City, biodiversity corridors under threat, and a travel footprint that makes up 87.8% of total emissions while stadium operations...

If you’re building a sustainability business or you’re a CFO who just got a net zero quote that made your eyes water I need nine minutes of your time. Because I’m about to show you exactly why genuine climate work costs what it costs, and what happens to a business that refuses to charge for it. I know, because that business was mine. I built a sustainability consultancy to over a million pounds i...

This week the most severe heat wave ever recorded in Europe made the business case for climate resilience impossible to ignore, so I have pulled together the ten stories that matter most for business leaders and sustainability professionals. We cover the confirmed link between climate change and Europe's record heat, the UK's new mandatory deforestation due diligence rules and what they mean for f...

The world just changed — again. This week in sustainability, I am covering 10 stories that directly affect your operations, supply chains, and reporting obligations. From the US-Iran ceasefire and the Strait of Hormuz reopening, to the SBTi's new Net-Zero Standard 2.0, to CBAM expanding into downstream products. I've ranked these by frequency across the sustainability press, so the number one stor...

If you run a business, build climate strategy, or sit on a board that has ever published a sustainability target, this is the most important case study of 2026, and almost nobody is talking about it honestly. The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in June. FIFA say the tournament will produce 3.7 million tonnes of CO2. Independent researchers put the real figure closer to 9 million tonnes. Some estimat...

he net zero rulebook just got rewritten. The Science Based Targets initiative has released Corporate Net-Zero Standard 2.0, and in the same week a super El Niño officially emerged in the Pacific. In this week's sustainability news countdown I cover the ten stories that matter most for business leaders and sustainability professionals: the new SBTi net zero standard and its five-year milestones, El...

The insurance companies have stopped covering certain risks. Supply chains are breaking. New legislation is rewriting business models. Yet most organisations are still treating climate and operational risk as a future problem. In this episode, Will Richardson explores why corporate risk management has lagged behind market reality — and what needs to shift in how boards measure, weight, and act on...

This week in sustainability, four major climate regulation retreats happened in a single week. The SEC proposed scrapping US climate disclosure rules. Brazil went voluntary. New York pushed back its climate goals. And California handed oil refiners $4 billion in free carbon allowances. But here is the bigger story: oil crossed $114 a barrel, Russia suspended jet fuel exports, and Bloomberg Green i...

SBTi has quietly halved the minimum emissions reductions companies need to hit by 2030 — no announcement, no press release, just an appendix edit. That's story #2 this week. Story #1? Oil hit $114 a barrel and the IEA has declared the fossil fuel industry "broken forever." This week's top 10 sustainability stories ranked by what the world is talking about — including the EU's 70% CSRD simplificati...

I gave my first public talk on the environment at 15. Three things have changed in 25+ years. One has not. What is the climate conversation you wish more business leaders were having?

That's the question I'm asking following our National Emergency Briefing screening. Because here's what's coming: tomorrows temperatures could hit 28°C in the south in May! Within 35 years, 40°C summer heat will likely be typical. The Climate Change Committee is already saying we'll need air conditioning rolled out at scale. Schools may reschedule exam timetables. Hospitals may need complete redes...

The Science Based Targets initiative revised its Corporate Net Zero Standard this week - and in some cases roughly halved the minimum near-term emissions cuts required by 2030. It was not announced with any fanfare. If your business uses SBTi validation as a procurement signal or investor commitment, the floor just moved. This week's sustainability news breakdown covers ten stories that matter for...

This week in sustainability, there are things happening that most businesses aren't paying attention to — yet. Microplastics in the atmosphere are contributing to climate warming. The Iran war is driving renewable energy investment faster than any climate policy ever did. Carbon removal is moving from pilot projects to billion-dollar infrastructure. And the EU's deforestation regulation just had i...

We have recorded 208 episodes of the Sustainability Solved podcast. Over 20,000 followers. Guests from every corner of the climate space. And the thing that changed my thinking most was not a guest. It was a pattern. When we started the podcast, I expected to learn about new technologies, new regulations, new frameworks. And we did. But the pattern that kept coming back, episode after episode, was...

This week, the world got a brutal lesson in what energy dependence really costs. Europe is weeks away from running out of jet fuel. Airlines are cancelling tens of thousands of flights. Fertiliser prices have doubled. And in the middle of all this, clean power quietly overtook coal globally for the first time in over a century. We break down the top 10 sustainability stories of the week, ranked by...

This week in sustainability, we are covering the story that almost no mainstream business outlet is connecting properly: the carbon removal market just lost 96% of its demand overnight, a global energy war is reshaping every supply chain assumption we had, and some of the biggest corporate climate commitments are quietly being walked back. I cover ten stories ranked by impact, including: the Micro...

Ten of the UK's leading climate experts walked into Westminster last November and delivered one of the most evidence-based briefings Parliament has seen. Now it is a film, and it changes the conversation for anyone running a business. This is not abstract environmentalism. The National Emergency Briefing connects climate science directly to the things business leaders care about: health systems, f...

The Iran war is reshaping energy policy worldwide, and this week's sustainability news is packed with signals that every business leader needs to pay attention to. In this week's top 10 countdown, I cover how the conflict is simultaneously threatening climate legislation and accelerating the global shift to renewables. We look at the CDP data showing that companies hitting emission targets are out...

I'm filming this from Morocco, halfway through a two-week family trip with Intrepid Travel. And what I'm hearing from farmers, guides, and rural communities out here is stopping me cold. Morocco is responsible for 0.18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Less than two-tenths of one percent of the problem. It ranks 6th in the global Climate Change Performance Index, ahead of most of Europe. And ye...

This week's sustainability news is packed with stories that will affect how businesses operate for the next decade. We cover the UK's world-leading wind generation record, why the clean tech market is heading for $3 trillion, and what AI agents going rogue means for your business. I break down the top 10 sustainability stories of the week, from the UK's new Future Homes Standard to climate risk hi...

Everyone says echo chambers are bad. But they helped us build something remarkable. When we started helping organisations reduce their environmental impact at Green Element, most of the world thought what we were doing was a bit odd. The answer wasn't to seek out sceptics. It was to find our people: the B Corp network, sustainability-minded founders, people like James Gibb and Darren Chadwick who...

This week in sustainability, one story dominated everything else — and it is not the one you would expect. The Iran War is turbocharging the clean energy transition at a speed no policy ever managed. BYD showrooms in Manila sold a month's worth of EVs in two weeks. VinFast in Hanoi quadrupled customer visits. In San Francisco, petrol hit $6.81 a gallon and used EV dealers are overwhelmed with appo...

We had a record April. The quarter before that was brilliant. And I still sat the whole team down and told them the business was going to have a serious cash flow problem by September. That decision changed everything. In this video I talk about what happened when we chose complete transparency with our team during one of the hardest periods we had ever faced as a business. We didn't have to do it...

This week the IEA used language it has never used before. The Iran War has created the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global market. Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have dropped from 20 million barrels per day to a trickle. And the UK's Climate Change Committee just confirmed that delivering net zero costs less than a single fossil fuel price shock. In this video I brea...

Energy prices have been falling for renewables for years, so why are your bills still through the roof? The answer comes down to something called fossil pegging, and once you understand it, the whole energy market starts to make more sense. In this video I break down why the price of electricity, whether it comes from wind, solar or gas, is still largely set by the cost of gas. It's a structural q...