Sustainable(ish)

This is Part 2, or a 'double header' episode with the brilliant Sara Grimes from Bath and West Community Energy.
Part 1 is all about community energy, and takes a bit of a dive into solar and heat pumps, as well as things like the governments's Warm Homes Plan (it's honestly more fun than it sounds if you haven't already listened to it!)
And this is Part 2, where we talking about all things home retrofit, and looking at some of the less technical , perhaps more affordable options for making our homes more efficient, more comfortable, and cheaper to run.<...

This week's episode is the first ever two parter!
This was supposed to be an episode on home retrofit, and I'm chatting to SaraG Grimes from Bath and West Community Energy about some of the brilliant work that they're doing, and what people can do in their own homes.

This first part is looking bigger picture and is quite a wide ranging chat! We cover community energy generally, as well as hearing about some of the specific projects that BWCE are working on; solar; heat pumps; the UK government's Warm Homes Plan; and support for renters...

If you were to google 'how to be more sustainable' you would get a slew of posts sharing 'ten top things to do to cut your carbon footprint' or similar.Very few (if any) mention the huge potential influence that we can all have, by sharing the things that we're doing, talking to other people, voting etc etc.

Which is why when I first came across a paper called 'Choices for climate action: a review of the multiple roles individuals play', and it included these very things, I was super excited, and promptly used it as a...

If you were to google 'how to be more sustainable' you would get a slew of posts sharing 'ten top things to do to cut your carbon footprint' or similar.Very few (if any) mention the huge potential influence that we can all have, by sharing the things that we're doing, talking to other people, voting etc etc.

Which is why when I first came across a paper called 'Choices for climate action: a review of the multiple roles individuals play', and it included these very things, I was super excited, and promptly used it as a...

Football and sport don't perhaps at first glance seem like a natural 'in' for climate action. But did you know..?
- Over 100,000 grassroots football matches are cancelled every year due to bad weather such as flooding
- Over 80% of football fans want are concerned about climate change
- 65% of football fans want their clubs to take more climate action

It was such a joy to get the opportunity to chat to Katie Cross all about Pledgeball - an award winning sports sustainability charity who do an amazing job of empowering sports fans to take...

To change the world, you've got to throw a better party than those destroying it".
This is a quote from Louisa Ziane at Toast ale, and is one of my faves, and something I try and keep front of mind.
'Sustainability' has an image problem and is very often seem as something that is dull and dry and bleak, and for the keen greenies over there wearing lots of hemp, or for the lone Sustainability Manager at a company.
It's not really something we'd bring up in conversation down the pub. Or is it..?

...

I can't wait for you to dive into this week's episode with Samantha Drury Shore who is the Chair of Sustainable Devizes, not too far from me in Wiltshire, and who has spear-headed their brilliant swap events that now run on a regular basis. Sam shares with us how they got started with their first event and shares her experiences of what works for these kind of events, and the nitty gritty of the logistics and organising.
It's another wonderful example of, in the words of listener Tamasin, "perfectly normal people discovering they can change things". I found...

Is AI bad for the planet?
Should I feel guilty if I use ChatGPT?
What is the carbon and water footprint of an AI search?

These were some of the questions I was looking for answers for when I posted on Linked In a while back. I got a lot of great replies, and it turns out there's a LOT of information out there. But oh my goodness it's confusing!

In this episode I'm chatting to Tam Hussey, who has a background in digital strategy and now runs her own strategic consultancy, Halo...

I think we're all pretty familiar with the term carbon footprint, but there's a new kid on the block when it comes to talking about the full impact of the actions that we take when you come together.

Isabelle Sparrow is Head of Comms, and the podcast host, at Carbon Copy - a platform that champions collective action, and the power it has to help turn our individual concern about the climate into a collective impact.
In this episode we chat about what collective action is, how you can join in if you're not someone who...

Today we are diving into all things plastic, and specifically counting plastic with Daniel Webb, founder of Everyday Plastic and the drive behind The Big Plastic Count.
Longer term listeners might have noticed that I am mildy obsessed with people's back stories and one of my first questions is always 'how did you get here'. I'm genuinely fascinated to hear the journey that people go on to get to the point they're at, and Dan has the most amazing back story..! And it's not just Dan's back story that is super interesting, there's loads of stats and facts...

Could you really explain climate change to your kids, or to your nana if you needed to?
By and large, I think the vast majority of people are aware of climate change, understand that it means the planet is warming and that it's bad, but if pushed for detail beyond that, we might struggle.
Climate Fresk is an interactive card based workshop that invites participants to uncover the science of climate change and it's impacts, by working together, and then holds a space to unpack some of the emotions that might come with this new understanding, and...

Money makes the world go around, or so the saying goes. But did you know that YOUR money, might be making fossil fuel companies go round (aka fund them!), without you knowing?
Do you want a few bonkers stats?
- The “Big 5” UK high-street banks – Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds andNatWest – have financed the fossil fuel industry with more than $556 billion between 2016 and 2023 (1)
- In 2023 alone, they provided $55 billion to fossil fuel companies (1).
- For every £10 you put into your pension, £2 is invested in deforestation (2).

In today’s episode I’m chatting to Lisa Stanley-Mann...

In this episode, I'm chatting to Charlotte Mason-Curl, who is the founder of No Crap Parties and the Kids Party Pact campaign. Charlotte has a background in marketing and comms, and not only does this help to explain how she's done such a bloody great job with getting her message out there, also means she's written herself a really good bio. I had to write myself a bio when The Sustainable(ish) Living Guide was published, and I found it really cringe-inducingly difficult, but Charlotte's done a fab job, so I'm just going to copy and paste her words...

In this episode, I'm chatting to Nick Oldridge, founder of Climate Science Breakthrough, and co-founder of the National Emergency Briefing. What Nick has done with both of those projects, as you will here, is incredible, but I'm also really fascinated in his back story and his journey to where he is now (side note, really think I need to do an episode on insurance as a lever for climate action!).

I ummed and ahhed about whether to publish this episode so early in the re-launch, as (spoiler alert) some of it is pretty bleak, almost right out...

Well this is exciting isn’t it? As it turns out I was wise to say never say never when I said back in April 24 that that was probably the last ever Sustsainable(ish) podcast episode, because I’m back! And in this first episode back after a looong old break, I’m answering a pretty fundamental question… is it all just bollocks?
Does individual action really matter, or is it, in the words of Green party leader Zack Polanski in a 2025 interview just bollocks.

Tune in to hear my thoughts, as well as my explanation for wher...

Hello and welcome to episode 184, and as it turns out, the last episode of the Sustainable(ish) podcast! I wanted to try and get to 200, and I’m annoyed not even to be ending on a nice round number like 185, but often in life things aren’t tied up in a nice neat bow. Long term listeners will know that at times the podcast has been very stop start, and the time has come for an intentional stop. For now at at least. I’m not going to say that it will never be back in some form, as I genu...

In the spirit of London buses, ie nothing for ages and then two come along in close succession, this week’s episode is another foodie one, hot on the heels of Episode 180 - Food and climate change without the hot air with Professor Sarah Bridle. I’m chatting to Frank Holleman who is the co-founder of Fork Ranger, a platform and app that aims to help us to explore how to eat for the climate.
I was super aware of the recent food episode, and wanted to avoid simply repeating the same messages from that, so alongside diving into...

One of the things that frustrates many people, is a lack of action from governments around the world to protect nature and mitigate the worst impacts of the a warming and rapidly changing climate.
The UK government was one of the first to come up with a Net Zero target back in 2019, and declared a ‘climate emergency’ that same year. However the problem with both of these commitments is that they often don’t translate into the urgent and radical action that is needed. Apparently half of the world's population is heading the polls for elections in 2024, including the UK...

This week’s episode feels a little bit liking coming full circle on an episode from nearly 5 years ago!
If you’re a long-time listener, and have an excellent memory, you might remember, way back in 2019, I interviewed the wonderful Tillie Mabbutt who runs Frome Eco Party Kit, renting out a party kit of reusable plates, cups and bowls to avoid the waste associated with disposable partyware. At the time, Tillie was one of the first people in the UK to be running a reusable party kit and we dived into the idea, how it works, and how she...

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Sarah Bridle, who is possibly our first Professor on the podcast! Professor Sarah Bridle is Chair in Food, Climate and Society at the University of York, researching environmental impacts of the food system and potential impacts of the environment on food availability. She is also the author of Food and Climate Change - Without the Hot Air, an accessible guide to how different foods contribute to climate change, a brilliant book which I would highly recommend!

Food is a big part of all of our lives. And it's a big...

In this week's episode I'm chatting to comedian Stuart Goldsmith. I'm a bit of a comedy fan, so I listen to Stuart's podcast, the Comedian's Comedian where he interviews other comedians about their work and he seems to pretty much be BFFs with everyone on the comedy circuit. It might seem a bit random to be interviewing a comedian on the podcast, but as you will hear, in the last few years Stuart has been 'bitten by the sustainability bug' and has started to explore how he can use his skillset as a comedian and a speaker to help...

In this week's episode I'm chatting to Misha Dhanak, CEO of Spacehive, the home of community fundraising. We're probably all familiar with the concept of crowdfunding and may have even funded products and projects on platforms like Kickstarter. Well Spacehive is a similar concept, it's a crowdfunding platform, but it's for community projects - so on there you will find things like a cricket club raising funds for new kit, or a town looking to create a rural arts hub. And as we will hear from Misha, there are a huge number of nature and climate projects too. Many o...

In this week's episode I'm chatting to William Eccles from The Commitment.
The Commitment is a campaign asking us to commit to voting for a healthy planet. You do this by heading to their website, hitting the "make the commitment" button, and ticking the box that says “ I commit to vote only for politicians who work for urgent action on the climate and nature.”.
We discuss in the episode just why that is so important, and the really clever ways that they’re using your commitment to engage with MPs and give them a mandate to be braver...

Advertising.
It's all around us. Persuading us to buy stuff we didn't know we wanted, telling us how much happier/more popular/better our lives will be with the latest/newest whatever it is.
Most of think that we're immune to it, but studies show just how insidious and manipulative it is, and how it influences our brains at a deep level. Which perhaps wouldn't really matter if we weren't in the grips of climate and ecological emergencies driven by our consumption of the very stuff being advertised to us.
Leo Murray is the co-founder and...

Climate and play might not be two things that we naturally put together. And even less so, climate and 'playfulness'. Climate change is a huge, overwhelming, complext issue and i couldn't be more important. So we need to take this seriously and absolutely need to be bringing our best game, there's no room for messing around, right?
Maybe not!
I loved this chat with the brilliant Lucy Hawthorne, founder of Climate Play who is "making it safe, light and fun to face climate change". Lucy runs a range of workshops and programmes that help people work through...

This week we're talking schools and climate action!
I'm chatting to Jo Pettifer who part of a growing team of Climate Action Advisors from climate charity Let's Go Zero, which is working to help schools in the UK to take climate action, with the ambitious goal of becoming carbon zero by 2030.

Jo shares in our chat that apparently around 45% of UK household's have a school aged person within them, meaning that there's huge scope for schools to not only educate our young people about how the world around them is changing around them and why, along...

This week we’re diving into all things digital with Matt and Will from an organisation called Carbon Fingerprint.

For many of us, the planetary impact of our online lives maybe isn’t something that we give much thought to – the cloud is this ethereal thing that none of us quite understand, and I personally can’t even begin to get my head around how the internet works, so have to assume it’s some kind of magic. And surely magic can’t be bad for the planet right?
Wrong. Sadly. Again.
‘The internet’ – all of our devices and...

"If you own a tent you can be a member of Tentshare. If you don't own a tent, you can be a member of Tentshare."
Love this quote from Rebecca Heaps, founder of Tentshare -'the Air BnB for tents'!

On the surface, camping feels like a pretty eco-friendly option for a cheaper holiday. And it is. However it does involved quite a lot of 'stuff' - the tent, the sleeping mats, the sleeping bags, the camping stove, and on the list goes. All of this stuff might only be used once a year and the rest...

Podcast episode wise it was only 7 episodes ago, but time wise, almost a year has passed since I chatted to Annie Pickering from Climate Emergency UK about their Council Climate Scorecards.
In that chat we talked about why climate action from Local Authorities are important,. The operational carbon footprint of most local authroties might not be huge, but their sphere of influence over their local area is pretty big, and in fact of up to around a third of the UK’s emissions are under the influence of local authorities.

For most of us, we probably on...

Tash Acres is the founder of Earth Runs, an organistaion that rewards activity by planting trees!
As you will hear, Tash’s approach to running and physical activity is so similar to my approach to sustainability – anything is better than nothing, it all counts, celebrating the successes no matter how small, and so much more!
Now if you're sat there thinking "I’m not into running, this episode isn’t for me", don’t switch off! This episode is for everyone! Tash shared a couple of really startling stats during the episode – apparently inactivity is the 4th biggest kill...

In this episode we’re talking money, and how we can make our money a bit greener.
I’m chatting to Dan Sherrard-Smith, who is the founder and CEO of MotherTree – a platform that helps us all to get better informed about the impact of our money when it’s in our current accounts, savings, and pensions, and even when it comes to things like mortgages, insurance and broadband too.

We’ve got a few episodes in the archive diving into money, and I’ve linked to them below if you want to go back and have a liste...

This week’s episode starts with a confession!
This episode was recorded a whole year ago, it was edited, intros were put onto it, it was all ready to go, and I somehow failed miserably to hit publish! I genuinely even thought I had published it until I had an e-mail from Heather earlier on this year asking when I thought it might be published. And I'm so glad she did, otherwise this brilliant interview would never have seen the light of day!

I'm chatting to Gavin Fernie-Jones and Heather Davies, founders of Re-Action, a social en...

Following on from last week's episode looking into some of the basics of climate science with Dr Adam Levy, this week I'm chatting to another climate scientist, Dr Ella Gilbert, and this time we're diving into the murky world of climate denial!
Here's some of the misinformation that Ella addresses for us, using actual science:

It's only taken 165 episodes, but I decided that it was about time we did a climate change back to basics type episode, going over the basic science of climate change.
Talking about climate change is one of the most important things we can do (check out the brilliant Katharine Hayhoe for a great TED talk around this!) but many of us hold back due to a lack of confidence in our climate knowledge.
So I plucked up the courage to ask one of my very favourite climate communicators, Dr Adam Levy, aka Climate Adam (check out his...

After a *slightly* longer (9 months..!) than intended break, the podcast is back!
No guest today - just a short solo episode to say hello, apologise for my absence and let you know to stand by your beds ready for some new episodes with some fabulous guests!

GOOD NEWS!
There's also a new Good News section, sharing some of the good climate news happening (because there is some, I promise!). Here's this weeks pick:

Most of us limit our interactions with our local authority to whingeing about our bin collections and paying our council tax BUT did you know that they have a whole lot of carbon emissions within their influence and therefore a whole lot of potential for a positive planetary impact?
But how do we know what our council are doing? And if their plans are any good? And how they compare to the county next door, or at the other end of the country?

This is where today’s guest comes in!
I’m chatting to Anni...

In this episode we take a deep dive into the carbon footprint of Christmas.
Which feels a bit weird right?
Christmas is a time to let go a little, and not be so hung up on the consequences of our actions (hence the number of mince pies I may have already eaten..). I feel a bit guilty for flagging up the fact that our Christmas excesses still have an impact.
But unfortunately we can't bury our heads in the sand. And fortunately, there are LOTS of things we can do to tweak our Christmas' to make...

COP 27...
What happened?
What didn't happen?
And why?

For those of us in the UK, COP26 in Glasgow last year felt like a BIG deal - it was everywhere in the media while it was running, and schools, businesses and organisations were all keen to get involved.
This year's COP (COP27) has felt very different. And I found myself struggling to follow what was going on, and getting a handle on any outcomes.

I'm so delighted that the brilliant Laura Young was able to make some time to come back on...

You might not want to hear this but...Christmas is coming!
We’re about to enter silly season for consumption with Black Friday and then the Christmas shopping, so what better time to take a pause and think about the impact of what we’re buying, and how we might be able to make our money do good stuff at the same time as buying good pressies.

I’m chatting to Sian Conway-Wood who is the founder of ethical business platform Ethical Hour and managing partner at 181st Street – a communications company. Earlier this moth, Sian launched...

Wouldn’t it be great if everything we bought had a label on it telling us what it’s carbon footprint it? Then we would be able to make informed choices about the things we were buying and the impact they had.

Today I’m chatting to Charlie Cotton from ecollective about exactly that – what is a carbon footprint, how is it worked out, how feasible my grand carbon footprint labelling dreams are, and if some companies are already doing it.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this one – is this something that you would find...