The Conference of the Parties, or COP30 this year in Brazil, can seem remote – bureaucratic, elite, hard to connect with. But it’s also one of the few spaces where solidarity can still take shape. The same is true of philanthropy: when it’s built on listening and trust, not hierarchy or control, it becomes a bridge between people and resources rather than another layer of power. This week's guest is Raysa França, climate justice educator and philanthropy advisory manager at Impatience E...

Working in sustainability means getting the story right. We may have crunched the numbers and estimated the risks of biodiversity loss in a certain area, or the opportunities arising from decarbonising a certain sector. But if we don’t communicate effectively with our stakeholders, there is a real risk that all of this effort will go to waste. This is particularly true when interacting with stakeholders requires navigating cultural differences. So how can storytelling help enable ...

Every day we read new headlines about climate extremes, yet behind the noise lies a quieter, more corrosive threat: misinformation. In this week's episode of Shaken Not Burned, we explore why climate misinformation isn’t a communications issue or a social-media nuisance, but a systemic business risk that can destabilise economies, erode public trust, and undermine effective climate action. Our guest, Harriet Kingaby, co-chair of the Conscious Advertising Network, explains how misinformation s...

This week, we are talking about the turbulence surrounding ESG and sustainable finance. The question we’re exploring: is the backlash against ESG a crisis, or a necessary correction? Joining us is Professor Thanos Verousis, an economist and researcher on sustainable finance at Vlerick Business School. Together, we unpack why ESG is under fire, what went wrong, and how finance can evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It is tempting to see ESG as the future of finance or to dismis...

Think about the products you use every day at home. The hand soap. The cleaning spray. The sponge for the dishes. The face cream. The toothpaste. Why do you buy certain brands, with certain packaging and certain ingredients? Whether it's because they were the products of our childhood, or the advertising has convinced us, or the price is just too convenient, we may not spend much time questioning our purchase decisions. It feels like consumers are pushed towards disposable items t...

Is ESG really “dead,” or are we asking the wrong question? Perhaps, we should examine what it takes to run a truly responsible business in today’s high-risk environment. This week, Giulia is joined by Steve Kenzie, executive director of the UN Global Compact Network UK, to explore how the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative is pushing companies beyond paper commitments and into real accountability. It is tempting to think that ESG acronyms, ratings, and disclosure framewo...

At the heart of Shaken Not Burned is sustainability literacy. But not in the sense of teaching acronyms or repeating headlines. What we mean is something bigger: the skills to understand how systems really work – and how to change them. The same skills that help you spot greenwash or untangle climate policy are the ones we all need to face today’s challenges: misinformation, polarisation, geopolitical shocks, even the cracks in democratic norms. Here’s the thing: we don’t need more theories t...

What does it take to scale real-world climate solutions fast? In this episode, we explore what happens when you treat climate action like an engineering challenge, not just a moral imperative. Joining us is Nick Wirth, aerodynamicist, engineer, and former Formula One team owner turned cleantech entrepreneur. Today, he’s applying high-performance engineering to supermarkets, trucks, and buildings through Wirth Research, saving clients energy costs and cutting emissions with every install...

Let’s step out of the ESG echo chamber and into a much bigger conversation: what are the real limits of our planet and how close are we to crossing them? Life on Earth has remained stable for the last 12,000 years, but that stability is starting to unravel. It’s tempting to treat climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, and land use as separate “issues,” each with their own strategy, timeline, and department. But that’s not how Earth works, and businesses that think that way are flying b...

From climate volatility to food insecurity and antibiotic resistance, the global food system is at a breaking point. Industrial agriculture contributes up to 25% of global emissions, drives biodiversity loss, and strains farmers with volatile prices and precarity. It’s clear we need to change how food is made, not just how it's consumed: one bold solution is clean agriculture. In this week’s episode, Felicia speaks with Jim Mellon, entrepreneur, investor, and executive chairman of Agron...

The world needs to plug a biodiversity finance gap worth $700 billion per year to effectively protect and restore nature, according to the United Nations. This issue is garnering more attention as sustainability efforts have evolved from reducing carbon emissions to protecting nature – moving from ‘do no harm’ to taking positive action. A turning point was the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, to which most countries agreed in 2022, defining biodiversity commitments, pushing fo...

There’s no denying that continuing to treat the natural world as we do will lead to ecological breakdown. We don’t seem to take into account how our consumption of natural resources affects the planet – which, ultimately, may stop providing those resources in the first place. UK economist Kate Raworth has developed a model, called doughnut economics, which provides an alternative system where humans can thrive without breaching planetary boundaries. In her landmark book, “Doughnut Econo...

From heating and cooling to construction materials and power demand, buildings are responsible for up to a third of global emissions – but rarely get the political or media attention they deserve. This week, Felicia talks to Lord Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, to explore why that needs to change now. We dig into why electrification is the only real path to decarbonising the built environment, and why heat pumps – not hydrogen – are the smarter, more efficient bet fo...

In this week’s episode Felicia Jackson talks to Phil Korbel, co-founder and director of advocacy at The Carbon Literacy Project, about what it truly means to move beyond awareness into action. Too often, climate conversations are filled with well-meaning phrases and distant threats. We hear about melting ice caps, rising seas, and catastrophic futures—but what do these really mean for our daily lives, our work, and our ability to shape the world around us? We dive into what carbon literacy ac...

With extreme weather disrupting harvests, food prices spiking, and soil health declining globally, regenerative agriculture is emerging as a compelling solution – not just for farmers, but for everyone who eats. This week, Felicia talks to Andrew Voysey, chief impact officer at Soil Capital, about why regenerative agriculture matters to farmers, industry and individuals. Regenerative agriculture isn’t just about greener farms: it’s about the resilience of our food system in the face of ...

There are many ways to take climate action: one of these involves going to court. An increasing number of groups worldwide are driving change through legal means, in a process commonly known as climate litigation. Climate litigation matters because it brings climate responsibility into the legal arena, where science, rights, and accountability can meet enforceable action. It's not just about winning court cases—it's about creating leverage for systemic transformation. The strategi...

Not long ago, climate ambition was peaking: companies were racing to make net zero pledges and get approvals by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). But now, the mood has shifted. While most businesses haven’t completely walked away from climate action, many of them are rethinking their plans, moving deadlines forward or cutting their targets. Unfortunately, some are abandoning their initiatives altogether. In this week’s episode, which was our first-ever live recording, co-host...

It's a turbulent time for the global economy, which is leading some companies to row back on their sustainability commitments and focus their efforts on what is deemed essential spending. However, environmental impacts go both ways: a company can create environmental damage, for example by polluting the air or water, but it can also be at the receiving end of this damage, when ecosystem breakdown leads to flooding or wildfires. Last week we introduced the concept of climate risk, ...

Extreme weather is here. Supply chains are vulnerable. Insurance costs are rising. And whether or not governments pull funding for climate science or roll back disclosure rules, businesses, economies, and insurers still have to grapple with the very real impacts. Insurers can’t afford to ignore mounting losses, and companies can’t afford to ignore their exposure. Risk still needs to be priced, especially in a world where the costs are only going up. In the latest episode of Shaken Not Burned,...

Our economic system is based on extracting as much value as possible from natural resources, without taking into consideration the principles and processes that power our ecosystems. Somehow, as humans, we have come to believe that we are not part of the natural world in an “us and them” situation. But, really, we are all the same. How can we survive without the Earth? Keeping our planet liveable means integrating our activities with nature, protecting and serving ecosystems, rather than expl...