Shaken Not Burned

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 a just transition? In this week’s episode, Giulia interviews Somia Sadiq, a peacebuilder, environmental planner, and all-around communications expert. She is the founder and CEO of Narratives and Kahanee, and very recently published her first novel, Gajarah.Somia explains how to create spaces for difficult discussions around climate change, how to champion cultural nuances in business settings, and what approach to take when interacting with people who have different opinions. At a time when most of us are stuck in echo chambers, we cannot afford to shy away from establishing a dialogue: we must harness the power of words to find equitable solutions.Hate misinformation? Us too. If you can spare some time, help us in our next endeavour and take our Climate Misinformation Survey!If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 spreads through ad-tech systems and algorithmic incentives that reward outrage over truth. She reveals why brands, often without knowing it, end up funding the very content that delays the energy transition and weakens democratic resilience. In conversation with Felicia, Harriet unpacks how climate misinformation is engineered rather than accidental and who profits from confusion, why fewer than 5% of companies list misinformation on their risk registers, and the hidden links between advertising, data, and the erosion of public trust.The episode also provides practical steps businesses can take from pre-bunking and inoculation to demanding supply-chain transparency in digital media, explaining why the human side of persuasion and how emotion, trust, and relatable stories work better than facts alone.We also invite you to take part in our Climate Misinformation Survey, a new initiative exploring where and how people experience false or distorted information, so organisations can build stronger defences against it.By treating misinformation as a core resilience issue, businesses can lead the shift toward transparency, rebuild public trust, and strengthen the foundations of a sustainable economy.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 dismiss it entirely as a failed fad. But as Thanos explains, ESG was never meant to be the system. It is a measurement tool. Sustainable finance requires something deeper: transparency, regulation, and a willingness to grapple with real trade-offs.The discussion covers the tension between financial returns and social trade-offs, how a narrow financial definition of fiduciary duty is shifting to include climate and social concerns, why alliances often stall, and how ESG is interpreted differently globally.As Thanos puts it: “Sustainable finance will only mature when we are honest about trade-offs, transparent in pricing externalities, and inclusive of those not yet at the table.”ESG hype was bound to face correction: by reframing this moment as a sustainability correction, finance has a chance to rebuild on stronger, more resilient foundations.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 that contain powerful chemicals that may not necessarily be good for people or the environment. But is there another way? In this week’s episode, Giulia speaks to Ira Guha, founder at Asan, to challenge the consumer products status quo through the lens of the menstrual cup.They explore the history of menstrual products, including their environmental and health impacts, and the issue of period poverty. Ira shares insights on the need for education and behaviour change to promote reusable options, which are not often displayed in shops and pharmacies, remaining a bit of a “secret”.Breaking the taboo surrounding menstruation ignites the discussion on the vast array of reusable products. By opening up to other people who menstruate, we can discover that they are more environmentally friendly, and arguably more comfortable, than what the status quo has us believe.This blueprint can be applied to all those products that we use on a daily basis. Can you make the switch to a reusable option today?If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 frameworks capture what responsibility means. Meanwhile, as Steve explains, the underlying pressures – climate change, inequality, resource stress – are not going away. Business as usual is untenable. The companies that survive will be those that embed principles, acknowledge trade-offs, and act with long-term value in mind.In the first episode of Season 5, we explore why debates over ESG branding miss the real sustainability pressures, how the UNGC helps businesses align with global needs, and what needs to change to scale true sustainable practices.This is a reality check – and a call to courage – for leaders navigating backlash, complexity, and the quiet temptation to wait it out.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 telling us where we should be. We need the how. How do we move from brilliant ideas and elegant frameworks to action that actually changes things?We are placing power at the core of our project. Not power as something distant or elite, but power as agency. Knowing where you stand, what you can influence, and how your actions ripple through the system. That shift – from paralysis to agency – is the foundation for resilience and change. This season we’ll be exploring how people are already doing it. Different approaches, different products, different ways of thinking – but all rooted in action, not theory.Whether you’re running a business, allocating capital, or simply trying to build a better future, Season 5 is about finding your leverage points and learning how change actually happens.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

In this discussion, Nick Wirth, an aerodynamicist and former Formula One team owner, now cleantech entrepreneur, shares his insights on fast-tracking climate solutions. He reveals how treating sustainability as an engineering challenge leads to impactful innovations like EcoBlade and AirDoor, cutting energy costs by up to 70%. Wirth emphasizes the importance of aligning sustainability with strong financial returns and critiques the slow adoption of heat pumps. His journey shows that the keys to a more energy-efficient future already exist, but we must implement them at scale.

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 blind.In this week’s episode, Felicia speaks with Dr. Katherine Richardson, Earth system scientist, professor of biological oceanography at the University of Copenhagen, and one of the architects of the Planetary Boundaries framework. We explore why six of the nine planetary boundaries have already been breached and what that really means for our future. Katherine explains how Earth system science reframes sustainability, moving us beyond the idea of simply doing less harm toward a far more urgent goal: staying within the planet’s safe operating space. We may be overdue for a social tipping point, and business leaders can help accelerate that shift. We ask what executives actually need to understand about science (hint: it’s not the chemistry), and examine how outdated metrics, short-term thinking, and misaligned incentives keep many companies stuck, while others are quietly forging a different path.This episode is a wake-up call, but also a message of hope. Change is happening, albeit not fast enough. But as we’ve learned from smoking bans to seat belts, social tipping points often come quickly if enough of us help push.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 Agronomics, a company backing cellular agriculture and precision fermentation to create meat, dairy, eggs, and oils, without animal cruelty, deforestation, or ultra-processed additives.Agronomics is invested in companies such as Meatly, BlueNalu, Liberation Labs, and Clean Food Group, aiming to industrially replace high-impact ingredients such as palm oil, dairy proteins, and even bluefin tuna with bio-identical, lower-impact alternatives.In this episode, we unpack what clean agriculture really means, and why it’s fundamentally different from plant-based food and from GM. We explore its potential to cut emissions, reduce antibiotic use, ease pressure on land, and stabilise food prices in an era of growing volatility. Jim Mellon why new fermentation infrastructure is critical, what investors often misunderstand about this emerging sector, and how dogs might just be the unlikely bridge to a cleaner, more sustainable future for meat.Whether you care about emissions, animal welfare, farmer livelihoods, or just the price of chocolate, this episode makes the case for why clean agriculture might just be the food system moonshot we need.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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 for reporting and regulation and calling for more than $200 billion from public and private capital. One potential solution is raising financing through biodiversity markets. But establishing biodiversity credits isn’t as simple as carbon credits: a tonne of CO2 emitted has the same impact globally, while nature and biodiversity impacts are very specific and local.The history of the development of the carbon markets has had its own challenges, as they were fraught with significant controversies, raising concerns about the same issues developing in the biodiversity markets. In this week’s episode, Giulia explores this new space with Simas Gradeckas, founder at Bloom Labs.The conversation touches upon the role of corporate responsibility in addressing biodiversity loss, ethical considerations surrounding projects in the Global South and putting a price on nature, the differences between compliance and voluntary markets, and the future prospects for scaling biodiversity finance.If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?