Sustainable Business Podcast by Innovation Forum

The key environmental issues related to climate change are clear. But what about the human side? How well does business understand the human implications, and what are the challenges and opportunities they can act upon?

In this webinar session, a panel of expert speakers from business, NGOs, academia, and public health explore the relevant issues for business. They discuss what companies are doing today and where the agenda will head post COP26. The session highlights how business needs to now respond positively, and more substantively, to the climate crisis health agenda.

• Dr Richard Smith, chair, UK Health Alliance on Climate Change
• Dr Aaron Bernstein, interim director, the centre for climate, health and the global environment at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health
• Suzy Parker, commercial leader, global sustainability, GSK Consumer Health
• Marc Donovan, chief pharmacist, Boots UK

Moderator: Toby Webb, Innovation Forum

Scott Steedman, director general, standards, at BSI, explains to Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh why engaging on the climate crisis should be a focus of business standards and how the recent London declaration commitment to embed climate science in all standards is an important development. They talk about how the ambitions of the declaration will play out on a practical level as all business sectors decarbonise.   

The latest daily podcast on the events at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh. On finance day, UK chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak announced that London will become the first financial centre that’s “net zero aligned” and that big UK companies will be mandated to set out their own plans for net zero emissions. Janet Yellen, US treasury secretary, quadrupled commitments for climate finance to $11bn a year. And, news that the world is now on a pathway to keep warming to under 2C. Today’s guest is Sarah Rogerson, corporate performance manager at Global Canopy, who helps analyse the implications of the big deforestation commitments and how the momentum can be captured and maintained.

In the latest daily podcast covering the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, Ian Welsh speaks to Mighty Earth founder and CEO Glenn Hurowitz. They react to the leaders’ declaration on forests and land use committing 110 countries to eliminate deforestation by 2030, the first big announcement of the conference – and Hurowitz gives some detail on a new pledge from UK and European supermarket chains not to source meat or dairy linked to deforestation.

In the news round up, detail of the 80-nation pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% this decade. Plus, Colombia’s 30% for nature in 2022 commitment, international collaboration on clean tech standards and policies, and China called out for lack of presence at the meetings, once again.     

The first daily podcast covering the COP26 meetings in Glasgow, with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh. All the news from the opening day as delegates struggled with train delays and venue queues, and including reflection on the opening comments from David Attenborough, Boris Johnston, Joe Biden and Narendra Modi’s 2070 net zero pledge for India. Plus insight from climate journalist Mike Scott on what to look out for over the coming days.

This week: Local managers and community leaders explain how a REDD+ project in Kenya is preserving 200,000 hectares of forest and benefitting 120,000 local people. Plus, insight from Apparel Insider’s Brett Mathews about how the new EU product environmental footprint label will impact the apparel sector, and why some brands need to take care about their marketing using sustainability messaging. And, Innovation Forum’s Narni Brooke-Adil gives an update on the upcoming sustainable landscapes and commodities conference at the end of November.

In the news digest: in the run up to COP26, explanation how we get to $100bn+ climate finance for the developing world; Australia and Saudi Arabia lay out their net zero plans; and, the climate impacts of plastic production.  

Host: Ian Welsh

For the complete audio of the REDD+ project webinar, click here.

Stephen Donofrio, director of Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace project, and co-author of the State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2021 report, explains to Ian Welsh why the carbon markets are set to exceed $1bn in 2021. He says why he thinks they will continue to grow as companies voluntarily take action to decarbonise their operations and broader impacts as far as they can, using credible offsets to account for what’s left.

Cassandra Austen, senior economist at Vivid Economics, Joe Robertson, senior advisor for sustainable finance at EAT, and member of the secretariat of the Good Food Finance Network, and Nicolas Ambanya, chief production officer, Twiga Foods, talk with Innovation Forum’s Ian Welsh about a new report – Regenerative Agriculture: An opportunity for businesses and society to restore degraded land in Africa.

They talk about the crucial role of regenerative agriculture in land restoration, developing food supply chain resilience and increasing food security. Regen agri practices increase crop productivity, enhance soil fertility, improve water retention, and create other ecosystem services, generating extensive economic, mitigation, adaptation and social benefits. Pilot projects show that eventual 68% to 300% crop yield increases are possible. The report finds that regenerative practices in Africa could be adding more than $15bn in gross value added per year by 2030, increasing up to $70bn by 2040 (one fifth of the current agricultural GDP of sub-Saharan Africa).

Download the new report here.

This week: Peter Williams, president of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction talks about the work of the institute in the rural communities of southeast Asia and Africa, some of the factors that are necessary points of focus for effective development projects, and the IIRR’s climate smart village model.

Plus: Una Kent, vice-president CSR international, at WallgreenBootsAlliance on her thoughts about the key points from a half-day conference on climate change and human health co-hosted by WBA and Innovation Forum.  

And, COP26 momentum builds despite Russia and China apparent no-shows; UN biodiversity COP pledges net-positive impacts; Credit Suisse fined for Mozambique tuna sector corruption; and La Isla Network’s work on potential climate change impacts on agriculture commodity supply chains worker health gaining traction, in the news roundup.

Host: Ian Welsh

Musim Mas director of sustainable supply chain Oliver Tichit tells Ian Welsh that he wants to see progress towards more collaboration, better financing, climate resilience in agriculture and better use of renewable energy in a rural setting as outcomes from COP26. Also on his wish list for palm oil smallholders is financial inclusion so that the banking sector adapts its approach making it relevant for grower communities and helping them develop more resilience, not least to tackle climate change.  

Musim Mas was a sponsor of Innovation Forum’s future of food conference series.