Episodes

What if the trillions of dollars governments spend every year are actually accelerating the depletion of our most critical natural resources? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we are joined by Lucy Coast, Global Communications Director at Business for Nature. We explore the staggering reality of environmentally harmful subsidies and how reforming these financial incentives can make the resilient choice the commercially rational one. Lucy shares her insights on bridging the gap betwee...

What does it take for finance to support real system change rather than simply fund greener activity at the margins? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, Wrishi and Carmine speak with James Vaccaro, CEO of RePattern and former Group Director of Strategy at Triodos Bank. James has spent more than 25 years at the intersection of finance, sustainability and systems change, and brings a distinctive perspective on why sustainable finance needs to think beyond products, metrics and isolated interventions. The conversation explores the difference between ESG, impact investing and systemic investing; why relationships, trust and proximity to the real economy matter; what “regenerative” means in practice; and where voluntary initiatives such as the Principles for Responsible Banking have helped — and where they have fallen short. This is a thoughtful discussion for business leaders, investors and sustainability professionals trying to understand how finance can play a more meaningful …

What if the key to unlocking the next phase of the energy transition isn't about building more wind and solar, but about completely rethinking how we use industrial heat? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we are joined by James Macnaghten, the founder and CEO of Caldera. James shares his journey from leading early grid-scale energy storage at Isentropic to tackling one of the most invisible yet critical sectors of global emissions: industrial steam. We explore why low-temperature ind...

Today, wind power is a mainstream part of the global energy system. But in the early 1970s, it was widely dismissed as outdated, impractical and incapable of producing electricity at scale. One man saw a very different future. William Heronemus was a decorated U.S. Navy engineer who helped design and build nuclear submarines before becoming one of the earliest champions of modern wind power. In 1972, he was already imagining vast offshore wind farms, floating platforms, multirotor turbines...

Are we simply moving from the easy phase of corporate sustainability into a harder, more realistic era where companies have to prove they were serious in the first place? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we sit down with Mike Barry, one of the pioneers of business sustainability in the UK. Best known for his time at Marks & Spencer, where he helped develop and lead the groundbreaking 'Plan A', Mike shares his insights on the current state of the sustainability movement, the realitie...

Europe has just lived through another extreme heatwave — and this one felt different. In this episode of Sustainability Forward, Wrishi and Carmine unpack “Canicule” - Europe’s Heatwave Wake-Up Call: what happened, why temperatures became so extreme, and what this tells us about the climate reality Europe is now facing. We look at the human impact of the heatwave, from health risks and school closures to pressure on hospitals, farms, rivers and infrastructure. We also explain the science behin...

The 2026 World Cup has kicked off - bigger than ever, more global than ever, and possibly more carbon-intensive than ever. With 48 teams, 104 matches and host cities spread across the US, Canada and Mexico, this tournament is a celebration of football’s global reach. But it also raises an uncomfortable sustainability question: can the world’s biggest sporting event keep expanding in a warming world? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, Wrishi and Carmine look beyond the pitch to explore ...

In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we introduce a new type of content: a story-led sustainability deep dive. Instead of our usual conversation format, we step back into one defining moment in environmental history: the Great Smog of London. For five days in December 1952, London was trapped under a thick, toxic blanket of coal smoke and fog. Streets disappeared. Transport stopped. Hospitals filled. Thousands of people died. And eventually, the disaster helped force a political and ...

Electricity is becoming the backbone of the modern economy — powering transport, heating, industry, cooling, digital infrastructure and increasingly, AI. But as demand grows, can we really build a power system that is 100% decarbonised? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, Wrishi and Carmine explore what “100% clean electricity” actually means, and why the final stretch of decarbonisation is often the hardest. They discuss the role of wind and solar, storage, grid expansion, demand flex...

In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we speak with Jennifer Motles, Chief Sustainability Officer at Philip Morris International, about what sustainability leadership looks like inside a complex global business undergoing transformation. Jennifer shares her journey into sustainability leadership and explains how she sees the role of a CSO: not as a side function, but as a driver of long-term value creation, resilience, and business transformation. The conversation explores why sustainabi...

In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we turn our attention to one of the most practical — and often underestimated — parts of the climate challenge: buildings. After previously exploring the carbon footprint of individuals, we saw that while transport dominates, the home is not far behind. And unlike transport, buildings are one area where change can happen now. To help us unpack the challenge, we are joined by Ascanio Vitale, a sustainability science expert with more than 30 years o...

In this episode of Sustainability Forward, Wrishi and Carmine explore the new logic of clean resilience. Against the backdrop of the current Middle East crisis, they examine why the implications go far beyond oil prices. The conversation looks at three connected themes: how renewables are coming into sharper focus as an energy security lever, why water resilience and desalination can no longer be separated from power-system design, and how disruptions to critical commodities such as fertiliser ...

AI is everywhere in sustainability right now — but what’s genuinely changing on the ground, and what’s still hype? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, hosts Wrishi Sutradhar and Carmine Fiume sit down with Carlos Silva Willson, a global technology and partnerships leader at Microsoft Middle East with prior experience across GE/Baker Hughes and AWS. Carlos brings a practical, “been-in-the-room” perspective on what AI and cloud can realistically deliver for sustainability — and what l...

What if the modern version of a UK allotment isn’t a patch of land—but a classroom? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we speak with Alex Tyink, co-founder and CEO of Fork Farms, whose unlikely journey from opera singer to urban farmer began on a rooftop in Brooklyn—and turned into a mission focused on food access with dignity. We explore why food is one of the most practical entry points into sustainability: it’s daily, personal, and deeply connected to health, community, and resi...

As energy systems become more complex and data intensive, organisations face a critical challenge: how to scale reliability, throughput, and decision quality without proportionally scaling headcount. In this episode of Sustainability Forward, hosts Wrishi and Carmine explore how agentic AI represents a shift from AI as a productivity tool to AI as a trusted teammate embedded directly into operational workflows. Joined by Subodh Kumar, they discuss: Why cognitive load is the real constr...

What happens when the world doesn’t just face water scarcity — but water bankruptcy? In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we unpack a stark new warning from the United Nations: many of the world’s freshwater systems are now so over-used and degraded that they may never recover to their historical levels. We explore what “global water bankruptcy” actually means, why this framing is different from how we’ve talked about water crises before, and what the implications are for food systems, e...

We often think individual climate action is about small, visible choices — what we eat, what we recycle, or whether we switch off the lights. But do those actions really matter most? In the first episode of the new year, Wrishi Sutradhar and Carmine Fiume take a data-driven look at where personal emissions actually come from. Using concrete examples, we walk through the biggest drivers of individual climate impact: cars and mobility, flying, home energy and heating, food choices, and consumpti...