Happy Earth Day: 11 Data packed Sustainability podcasts, documentaries, blogs and books

We have heard the fear inducing facts time and time again, from the environmental scientists at UN conferences over the last few decades consistently painting the picture of our bleak outlook as a result of inaction to the range of highly influential technologists, activists, nature lovers, policy makers doing their best to influence change. This Earth Day, I would like to share 11 (I prefer odd numbers) brilliant resources which go into the depths of some of our damaging behaviours and offer optimistic solutions, ideas and creative innovations which are inspiring and thought-provoking.

Podcasts

1). Sustainability speaks

The Sustainability Speaks podcast has a range of really interesting podcasts. One of the latest episodes talks with co-founders of SettleUp a company specialising in enabling companies offset the carbon emissions through planting trees. The episode covers a range of interesting questions such as:

·       Is carbon offsetting another form of greenwashing whereby organisations can chuck money at problems instead of truly reducing their carbon emissions by changing business processes?

·       How does carbon offsetting compare with carbon sequestering?

·       How do you ensure the right types of trees are planted?

·       Why did SettleUp choose to carbon offset by planting trees, when there are many other ways?

·       How do you ensure funds for carbon offsetting are actually going towards carbon offsetting? (Permanence , Additionality, Verifiability)

·       How does SettleUp themselves ensure their emissions are kept low? For example calculating how many tons a company needs to offset will require compute power.

·       How was SettleUp founded?

2). Refintiv Sustainability Perspectives Podcast

The Refinitiv Sustainability Perspectives podcast covers a range a highly intriguing topics such as:

·       Sustainable Investing: The pivot to Renewable Energy

·       Measuring Physical and Financial Water Risk: World Water Day Special

·       What Does Energy Investment Policy Mean For Sustainable Investors?

·       The Future of Events: Sustainability and Data will Drive the Recovery

·       How to Measure Green Bond Premiums: Latest Use Cases and Low-Volatility Strategies

·       Why We Need to Talk About ESG Ratings: Breaking Through the Noise

In the latest, Earth Day special, episode covers a conversation with Bindiya Vakil, co-founder and CEO of Resilinc, which focuses on providing supply chain resiliency to the enterprise. The episode cover the shortages of semiconductors, as a result of increased demand across the board from increased use of IoT devices to accelerated production pipelines for fully electric vehicles. Not only are there obvious shortages for semi-condonuctors but also plastics and resin. The episode goes on to cover how the awareness of business continuity post Covid-19 pandemic is on most people’s agendas and supply chains really need to understand the climate change pressures of having global supply chains. With operations in every hemisphere supply chains are effected by increasing severity hurricanes, droughts, etc causing damaging effects such as factory fires. Bindiya covers what types of questions investors should be asking with regards to the supply chain and how far beyond tier 1 suppliers should leaders be considering, such as ‘how many raw materials do you have?’, ‘where do those raw materials come from?’, ‘where are the products made and shipped?’ Resilinc CEO, uncovers astonishing stats such as 80% of the time tier 1 suppliers have a disruption it can be attributed to their own supplier, so a lot of detail gain be gained from understanding the sub tier supply chain. In the business of assurance, continuity means revenue which in turn means profit. Company’s live or die as a result of supply chain disruption and should be concerned with proper evaluation and devise proper mapping systems beyond tier 1 suppliers and really understand what are the areas that are critical to their success. Even mapping suppliers does not eliminate risk but allows organisations to protect ahead of time critical revenue products.

3). Switched On

The Switched On podcast hosted by Mark Taylor and Dana Perkins covers a range sustainability topics with BNEF analysts such as:

·       The Energy Transition Fuels competition in European Utilities

·       VW and GM Revv Up to Challenge Tesla in Electric Vehicles

·       Texas Winter Storm – Lessons for Power, Gas and Oil

·       How New EU Sustainability Disclosure Rules will Affect Companies

·       Amazon, Walmart and Microsoft Compete to Have the Least Impact

·       Airbus on Ambition for Zero Emission Flight

·       Robots, Drones and Sensors Help You Mine More By Digging Less

·       Asia Outlook: The biggest of Everything

In one of the latest episodes Dana speaks with BO Qin (BNEF carbon analyst) and Michael Kenefick (decentralised energy analyst) about all areas of the value chain within utilities (upstream(power generation: fossil fuels, thermal, renewables), midstream(transmission, distribution, grid and networks), downstream(retail, management, finance)) and changes that are occurring based on companies and geography.

In general coal producers have not been doing well, not just due to covid, but because of the price increases in carbon ( > 40euros per metric ton, from 5 euros in 2017) adding price pressure to suppliers.  We will continue to see coal been squeezed out by renewables and cheap gas. In terms of country effects, it seems Germany has been hit the most and Eastern European countries. The coal phase out is likely to occur faster than forecasted.

In terms of companies that have performed better, based on 3 year return of capital invested it appears that companies such as Uniper and RWE are not performing as well as those more exposed to renewables such as NL and Iberdrola. Regulators (Ofgem) are also limiting the returns that network transmission operators can achieve and similar trends are being seen across Spain, Germany and Scandinavia. As a result some expansion can be seen, for example, utilities companies have been acquiring more in Latin America and expanding their grids. Other companies such as Centrica and NG are reducing some of their operations in specific countries. Other big trends include the adoption of digital technologies, e.g. smart meters and integrating with other data feeds to better predict maintenance and keep their costs down. In terms of companies that were outliers and took a different approach, NG went down the energy services route and acquired 10 companies in this area. Last year they changed this strategy and focus more on developing there renewables part of the business similar to NL and Iberdrola.

How competitive is the market? Is it an overcrowded market? Who is not doing so well? Utilities have a lot of experience on developing assets but oil and gas have started heavily investing in renewables targeting upstream and electric charging on the downstream side.

4). Big closets small planets

In the Big Closets Small Planet podcast, Michael Schragger explores what it will take to transform the fashion industry so that it contributes positively to the lives of people and the health of the planet. Some of the topics include:

·       Fashion is endangering our forests: A new report from Canopy

·       Proposed Chemical taxes on textiles in Sweden

·       Fashion Facts or Fiction?

·       What can a new psychology of climate action teach us about being better change agents?

·       Will molecular bonding fibres mean the end of polyester?

·       A crash course in sustainable fashion

Documentaries

5). Seasirpiracy

It has got to be up there hasn’t it. The thought of salmon being eaten alive in ‘sustainable fishing farms’ and being injected with pink dye really does make my stomach churn. This Netflix sensation is jam-packed with eye-opening data backed facts and forecasts around what it really going on in the fishing industry. From understanding the sheer vast impact of our uncontrolled fishing habits such as wiping out 3.9 billion acres of the seafloor are deforested through trawling (Enough to clear Spain, etc),  to no fish left in our seas by 2048, to some of the corruption behinde paying off government monitoring officials and slavery in some parts of the world, to dolphins being killed as ‘pest control’, to the fact that 46% of the great pacific garbage patch consisting of fishing nets, to the fact the marine steward council (MSC) actually makes most of their money through handing out those blue ticks in licencing and really does have some intriguing conflicts of interest. Ali Tabrizi and the seaspiracy team have delivered a truly awakening experience and astonishing facts about the fishing industry.

6) David Attenborough: A life on our Planet

The oracle of all things nature delivers his witness statement at 93 years old. The trailer alone is enough to send chills down your spine. With passion delivered through facts, David Attenborough, demonstrates how humans have over run the world. A marked change in atmospheric carbon has always been incompatible with Earth’s stability, and has been a feature of all 5 mass extinctions. In previous events it has taken volcanic activity up to one million years to increase atmospheric carbon to cause a catastrophe, but an extremely fast and energy-thirsty growth has led to similar events occurring in less than 200 years. It is clear the sixth mass extinction is well underway as the number of vertebrate species to have gone extinct in the last century would have naturally taken between 800 and 10,000 years, hence a hundred times faster. Whilst humans have made some grave mistakes, David Attenborough shows us how we can work with nature instead of against it.

Blogs

7). ESG on a Sunday

Well known ESG guru, Sasja Beslik, pours over 20 years of sustainability experience and active research into terrific weekly blogs covering topics such as:

·       Stuck in a fossil past, present and future

·       The climate emergency is personal

·       The net-zero circus

·       ESG in China/Africa/Latin America

·       How sustainable is Tesla

·       Top ESG stories in 2020

·       Are green bonds making a real difference?

·       CEO’s are not qualified to lead us into a sustainable future

·       The growing threat of methane

·       Is H&M a sustainable company?

8). Eco Warrior Princess

Initially founded in 2010 by writer, activist and organic farm owner, Jenifer Nini, the Eco Warrior Princess team focus on bringing us media that matters, with blog posts on a range of thought-provoking sustainability topics such as:

·       Earth Day 2021: 10 Environmental Documentaries to Binge-watch

·       Seaspiracy concludes ‘Fishing is Bad, Go Vegan’, but just how feasible is this?

·       The good, the bad and the ugly: the Nations leading and failing on climate action

·       Why climate change is a serious public health threat

·       Infrastructure can lay the foundations for Australia’s Net Zero Emissions Future

·       Quarantine and pandemic lockdowns lead to reduced pollution around the world

·       Key takeaways from climate week 2020

·       Net-zero emissions: the countries and corporations working towards carbon neutrality by 2050

·       7 questions to ask yourself before buying anything.

Books

9). How to avoid a climate disaster by Bill Gates

Since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates has dedicated his time to solving some of the world’s most challenging global health and education issues. From working on technologies and prototypes to deliver clean water and prevent diseases that are no longer issues for the majority of modern society to now the issue of climate change (check out the Netflix Documentary series ‘Inside Bill’s brain: Decoding Bill Gates’ for more information).

In his latest book, Bill Gates takes his learnings and research of climate change over the last decade and holistic experiences with physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers, political scientists and financial experts to deliver us with a plan of action of how to avoid a climate disaster. The self-proclaimed technophile highlights the interesting minimal effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on reducing GHG emissions by as little as 5% (48/49 billion tons instead of 51), hence reductions in driving and flying to get from place to place will simply not be enough. Through researching how to resolve energy poverty issues, Gates ended up embarking on developing technology that not only provides energy cheaply but technology that supplies green energy efficiently and in a cost effective manner. After effortlessly explaining how the methodical steps GHG emissions instigate to affect our oceans and weather, which subsequently effect our infrastructures, agriculture and economies, Gates cuts through noisy data to relay the harsh difficulties we will need to overcome. Before delving into the plan of how we could overcome a climate disaster, the book covers: fiver questions to ask in every climate conversation (How much of the 51 billion tons are we talking about? What’s you plan for cement (ie. We need to account for more than cars and electricity? How much space do you need? How much is this going to cost? ), how we plug in, how we grow things, how we get around, howe we keep cool and stay warm, adapting to a warmer world and why government policies matter. This is really is for the pessimists/realists (like me) that need an optimistic outlook delivered by considering all the data.

10). There is no Planet B: A handbook for the make or break years

A guide on how to live sustainably a mindfully and guide us through the dark times, Mike Berners Lee delivers a series of critical questions allowing readers to dip in and out easily and gain some clear insight and control over such a mammoth issue. The books considers physical, technical and scientific challenges through to food, energy, travel and transport, growth money, metrics, people and work, business, values, truth and trust, protest, what we should demand of our politicians and what we can do. The facts and data used to guide through each question posed in each section really do provide a refreshed perspective on sustainability and climate change.

11). This changes everything: Capitalism vs the Climate by Naomi Klein

This changes everything: Capitalism vs the Climate is brave and delivers some of the raw truths behinde the finance industry. The book is split into three parts: part one, bad timing, through to part two, magical thinking and the final part, starting anyway. It covers some interesting psychological patterns which Klein has explored over 15 years researching societies extreme shocks caused by economic meltdowns, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars. However, whilst Klein is keen to blame capitalism for our climate problems, little is done to suggest an alternative economic model. Being so intrigued in sustainable finance as a way to mobilise funds needed to action meeting the Paris Agreement targets, myself, this book offers an interesting outlook.

Happy Exploring and Happy Earth Day!