Finding Nature

Today's guest is Kate Cotter, the CEO of the Resilient Building Council. The RBC have been on the front foot for over a decade in seeking to support at risk households and home owners adapt their property so that it is more climate adaptive and able to withstand the threats that bushfires pose. This is no small deal - the loss of lives and properties to fire is a trend here in Australia as well as globally. A warming planet means a burning planet, and the past few years have seen record fires not only here in Australia, but Canada, the USA, Portugal, Chile, Russia, Greece and Algeria to name just a few others. We know we have entered a new climate age, and the clearest sign of that is the seemingly ever present-ness of unprecedented fires somewhere around the world.

The RBC work to support homeowners make practical changes using a robust tool that some insurers are now recognising with reduced premium pricing. So far their work has focussed on fires, but will soon be expanded to cover multiple hazard types - flooding, cyclone and heat. Considering the issues many now face in living in places where access to affordable insurance is increasingly difficult, RBC's work is urgent as we all grapple with what to do about the problems of the impacts we have locked in. We know and see the physical impacts of the climate crisis all the time - record flooding in Brazil, a record tornado season in the USA, a record warm April around the world. Climate change is a record breaking machine.

A new challenge is emerging which was brilliantly outlined by Christopher Flavelle in the New York Times last week in his article - The Possible Collapse of the US Home Insurance System. The progressive and visible impacts of a changing climate are one thing, the other is the progressive and invisible impacts of what financial services organisations are doing in response to managing enterprise risks that climate change is driving. What happens when imperilled homes can't access affordable insurance yet live in places where natural disaster events are not a case of if but when? What happens when banks require insurance to meet the contractual obligations of a mortgage but the home owner can't afford the insurance? What happens when investors undertake their own climate scenario analysis work and decide not to invest in climate adaptation measures and instead divest to other regions or sectors with lower climate peril exposures? How would any of us even know that this is happening? Based on the stories here and overseas of insurers leaving markets and the new phenomenon of 'insurance premium shock', we know something is occurring though.

So the maligned and avoided problem that is climate change may be arriving for many as the grand challenge we always knew it was going to be through standard insurance premium letters. What happens next, and what do we do?  Kate has a recipe - not an exciting one but one that makes sense. It's made up of intervening and attempting to reverse the progressive losses and damages that a changing climate is delivering to Australians, its ecosystems and economies through nothing short of an incredible mobilisation of political courage, regulatory and legislative reform, construction innovation, shifts in how financial markets price risk and the way residents think about and value their home as a refuge from the worst the climate could be. This will take nothing short of a cultural, societal and political revolution in how we as a collective think about and act on the climate crisis - this isn't just about building big solar farms and vehicle to grid charging practices, this is an all of society - all of planet really - necessity. 

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Today's guest is a courageous soul doing the hard but necessary work to positively alter the trajectory of our society and the ecosystems we rely upon - Mathew Mytka. Mat is someone I've gotten to know in recent months and it's been a pleasure. He helped as the special guest in a Finding Nature event titled Deceit, apathy and desperation - Addressing the uncertain harms of artificial intelligence, and I came away in awe of how Mat brought serious play to such a dense topic yet also a space I hadn't expected play could be a part of.

That's what Mat does though through his business Tethix - he brings the human into the process of technology creation and deployment. Taking it from a disembodied neck up tool to something much deeper, connecting human values and needs to what is being animated and created in that process and using the elements of fire, air, water and earth to ground the work in what is aligned to safe and healthy planetary boundaries.

Mat isn't who you would expect to run into working in technology. He's anything but the stereotype - a practitioner with over 20 years experience spanning roles technical roles in data trustworthiness and tech ethics, to strategy, product and policy design roles. In 2023 he was nominated as a finalist at Innovation Australia's Disruptor of the Year for his work in co-developing Australia's Data Trust by design framework, which is influencing the work of thousands of practitioners and helps to shape policy, regulations and standards.

If you're not sure about the emergence of powerful new technologies like artificial intelligence, I highly recommend this as Mat does a great job grounding what has and is happening in the world of technology in where we're at as a civilisation and how AI just reflects the existing cultural, political and social dynamics of our time, and how this can be traced to the enlightenment - a story of how we got to this moment. If technology is the world you inhabit on a daily basis Mat brings a new, refreshing perspective on how we need creativity, passion, curiosity and meaning to be embedded in the tools we're already and going to be using.

No matter where you are on the spectrum of technology use and perspectives on AI, Mat points to humanity's innate desire to build and to make and evolve through action. How do we contain a tool of such immense capacity when we don't have a track record of doing so in the past? How do we all lean in to better appreciate and understand the world of artificial intelligence so that we can all play a role in what is being shaped.

I really enjoyed this chat, Mat is an awakened human, and he woke something in me about the role of genuine curiosity and getting into action to understand and test instead of throwing rocks from my glasshouse with no glass left.

Find Mathew and his work at Tethix.co, along with his substack and podcast wherever you're listening now.

Don't forget about the event with Bob Carr in Sydney on May 29 at Customs House - Implications for Climate Action When 40% Of Humanity Goes to Vote in 2024 - A Night With Bob Carr
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Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay.

Today's show is also delivered with Souling. Head to Souling.au and add FindingNature to the checkout code for 10% off. 

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Today's guest is the delightful Jess Miller. Jess has been and remains a totem here in Sydney for many important and successful socially and environmentally impactful campaigns and initiatives - from delivering improved cycling infrastructure in the early 2010s to the Garage Sale Trail to the 202020 Vision or Greener Spaces Better Places program. Add to that a five year side hustle as one of Sydney's youngest ever city councillors, plus mothering and you have the ingredients for someone who is made from audacity and insanity, depending on who you ask and at what stage her visionary process is at.

Jess is here is to chat about her upcoming installation at the Vivid Festival in a couple of weeks - A New Normal. This is a fascinating initiative, that has been breaking ground in Melbourne by seemingly taking a product development approach to urban development and planning. Two worlds that are seemingly distinct with very little overlap. As you'll hear in this conversation it's an attempt to transition Sydney to greater self sufficiency, greater environmental stewardship, improving social value outcomes and delivering economic benefits along the way. This work is definitely not for the feint of heart, but just about everything Jess has pursued - from spending her initial year of university in Brazil, to A New Normal - isn't for the usual operator. In many ways A New Normal is the perfect brand for her - outside the usual paradigm of thinking and doing, going from vision to action and doing it with a flare of creativity and spirit of partying along the way.

Her energy is infectious and even from just a small amount of time with her she reeled me in with the persuasion, power and potential of what she is doing with A New Normal. She is part humble, part curious, part audacious, part insane. She is going for it though, and what a role model she is at a time when radical and urgent action is a panacea to our challenges but also fears and doubts. I hope you enjoy this one.

I'm hosting a very exciting night at Customs House on the 29th of May in Sydney, coincidentally in the middle of the Vivid Festival where the city comes to life in a nightly light show. That night I'm doing my first big house event experience with former NSW Premier and Australian Foreign Minister, plus Friend of The Pod, Bob Carr. On the night we'll be exploring the implications of future climate action when 40% of the world's population is voting in domestic elections in 2024.

It's great to be working with a couple of really great operators as part of producing this show.
The first is Souling - Natasha Ritz's first book. Add the code findingnature (al one word) at checkout for 10% off the book.
The second is Gilay Estate. A phenomenal new off-grid hut on the Liverpool Plains. Add Finding Nature to the description of your booking for a free dinner and breakfast bundle . 

Production, graphic and social media support comes from the wonderful Rob Rogers. I couldn't do this without his expertise and generous support.

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Today's guest is Cameron Tonkinwise, a Professor in Design at the University of Technology here in Sydney on unceded Gadigal Land. Those of you who know me have probably either heard me speak about Cameron, have had me introduce Cameron to you or have brought Cameron in to work on a project you're involved in. He is someone I think very highly of and have a very strong regard for.

I met Cameron a little over six years ago and we speak a little about how I insisted on us catching up when he had recently emigrated back to Australia from a ten year stint at some of the world's greatest design schools in the US and was at UNSW. That initial coffee in Paddington came after I heard Cameron give a keynote presentation on his work in conceiving what he and his co-creators defined as transition design. His thinking immediately appealed to me, and it still does.

I've been really fortunate to work with and spend a lot of time with Cameron since then on all types of problems from domestic violence and financial abuse, to scams and fraud in culturally and linguistically diverse communities, to how to support Australian home dwellers take part in the energy transition, and how to address the growing impacts and risks climate changes poses to those living in harms way. He has been one of the most significant influencers on my career and it's a treat to have him on the show today and introduce him to you.

We talk about a whole range of things in this conversation - from what transition is and is not, how visioning and imagination are practices being undermined by education and media systems and incentives and how that drives short terms and myopic decision making, to our own shared failures as professionals and also how emerging practices at the human scale like the cycling coup on the streets of Paris create glimpses of possible and plausible futures we could inhabit.

The recording on this episode is a little echoey and I apologise for that. We also had a couple of technical challenges we had to fix on the run and hopefully that doesn't affect your listening experience.

I'm really excited to share this conversation with you, share Cameron with you and I hope you glimpse the potential of what could be possible by listening today.

Production, graphic and social media support comes from the wonderful Rob Rogers. I couldn't do this without his expertise and generous support.

Take care out there, be kind and thanks for listening.

Podcast Episode number two guest, Tash Ritz, has released her first book called Souling and as a listener you can get 10% off her book by using the code Finding Nature - all one word - at checkout.

This book is phenomenal and valuable for anyone out there who is curious about better understanding themselves and some of the big questions in life - it's part revealing memoir, part helpful guide and part art project that blends the mystical with the tangible. It's a beautiful book, and I highly recommend getting yourself a copy - understanding myself and developing a healthier relationship with who and how I am has been vital in shifting parts of my life over the last couple of months, and I wish I'd had a copy of this book earlier.

Head to souling.au to get your copy, and don't forget the FindingNature - all one word - code at checkout for 10% off.

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Emma Pocock is the CEO of an amazing organisation called Frontrunners, but is someone I have known about and admired from afar for over ten years.

Emma is a reformed (but not really) social justice warrior who grew up firstly in the Pilbara in Western Australia before finishing her schooling in Perth then going on to university there as well, before she met someone who, 'plays a bit of rugby' - and would forever alter the trajectory of her life. But more on that later. Emma's life changed very shortly after this, taking her conceptual understanding and academic studies on the road to Zimbabwe where her life was transformed coming face to face with the shocking realisation of desperate poverty.

From there Emma became more engaged with and embedded in environmental justice campaigns, combining her own personal experiences and tertiary education to become a leader in campaigns and politicking for habitat conservation, wildlife protection and action on the climate crisis. This converged when she was arrested alongside her 'bit of rugby playing' husband David Pocock - for those that don't know one of Australia's greatest ever rugby union players - for protesting to stop a new Whitehaven Coal mine in northwest NSW.

Fast forward a few years and Emma founded Frontrunners after the Black Summer fire crisis, and in this chat we go into the origins of Frontrunners, what they do, how they do it and who's involved so I'll leave that for later on. We spend a bit of time chatting about a recent report they published with the remarkable Environmental Defenders Office titled Sport, Climate Change and Legal Liability which I highly recommend going and reading no matter which part of the sustainability system you exist in. What really stood out to me in this work is the detail by which the report outlines who is responsible and potentially liable for certain types of adverse human impacts related to a changing climate - this isn't an investor framework or suggested public reporting disclosures that mostly allows for choose your own adventure information sharing. This is nuts and bolts stuff regarding the who, what and why certain actors have certain duties to act and protect the wellbeing of people and safety of a game. I sense this question of direct liability is only going to increase for many sectors in the short and medium term, thankfully, and this Report is a great insight into what is coming down the pipe for many I suspect.

Emma is such an optimist. I was struck meeting and talking with Emma just how grounded and clear she is and the conviction she has not only in Frontrunners, but how it can play an enabling role in catalysing transformative cultural change by leveraging Australia's deep love and affinity for sports and athletics - from the football codes and cricket, to surfing and swimming and athletics, to the role it plays in local communities for children and young people but also right across our lifespans.

We also get into some of Emma's poetry, her personal yearning to seek meaning and purpose in her own life, and how that internal constitution activates her life and magnetises her towards making meaning and bringing others into that.

I was moved by this conversation - I feel like something shifted for me speaking to Emma, and I hope you take something meaningful from it too.

Download the Frontrunners report from their website, follow them on social media and think about how your sporting organisation or club - either that you participate in through your children, your own playing or as a fan, and ponder how the engine of passion and custodianship you and others feel towards and about that place could be channelled to support really local and tangible action on climate change.

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Today's guest is a really special one - award winning author James Bradley is on the show to chat about his new book - Deep Water - The World in the Ocean.

I can't say enough good things about this book. It is a beautiful, immense telling of our ocean and the planet's aquatic systems, and how humans are interacting with and slowly eroding a critical aspect of what enables our stable civilisation to exist and to be maintained. It weaves James' own experience of encountering the ocean, the experts studying it and the incredible array of non human species we share this planet with. It charts a course through the issues humanity are imposing on the ocean and some of the histories behind these - over fishing, acidification, plastic pollution, deep sea mining, human exploitation - but also reveals the most delicate and fragile stories of beauty and wonder that are largely invisible to us as humans. The diel vertical migration, the fish species running a cleaning service for other species, the kinship of krill and the riches their bounty provides to many oceanic food systems, including humanity's. James also offers his own experience humbly and beautifully, sharing his own moments of awe and wonder but also acting as a character in this book himself - his own personal experience in building and sharing this masterly act representative of how each and every one of us have been, are currently and will be affected by the great shifts occurring in and to the oceans.

Deep Water revealed how little I know about the ocean and its ecosystems. I love the beach, being in the ocean is one of the most wondrous experiences I can have. The sense of smallness and awe that comes from being in the waves, or sitting beside it and becoming hypnotised by the constant breaking of waves on the shoreline. So many of my favourite memories are connected to the ocean, yet this book humbled me and has changed me.

Just this week, NOAA, the National Atsmopheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch, has announced a fourth planet wide mass bleaching event. The Great Barrier Reef has just experienced one of if not its most severe bleaching event. Yet, it's passed largely unreported. It's what many suspect will happen to corals, reefs and the diversity of life they support - they are in a terminal state of decline. We're unconsciously aware of this, but James brings vivid detail to the perilous and cruel state of decline humans have imposed on other beings on this earth, and does it over and over by outlining other declining aquatic system declines.

Yet despite the loss and damage we march on, progress, or is that mindless chasing, our avoidance tool to deep and honest reflection - if I only I get this next thing, it'll all fall into place. This book reveals perhaps that it is not about doing more but in fact doing less - less fishing, less polluting, less use, less access. Not only is humanity's relationship to earth broken in a terrestrial context, it is also broken to what is in and under our oceans, what we don't see and don't know.

James is an award winning author and was also presented with an OAM in 2021 for services to literature as a writer. He's authored a tonne of novels, poetry and anthologies, and Deep Water is his first non fiction book. The importance of someone of his craft and mastery bringing that to the climate and environmental crisis space is significant, as we need all the help we can get, especially in relation to helping to share and understand the challenges we face, and what to do next as both citizens and a collective.

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If you're listening to this you know there are difficult and interconnected challenges everywhere, and today's guest is someone who has a unique and broad perspective on these. If you've been working in the sustainability or ESG profession for a little while there is a very good chance you've heard of, listened to or read Pablo Berrutti's work and thinking. He has become an anchor of the responsible investment community through his work at Stewart Investors and also as the founder of Altiorem, to go with over 20 years in financial risk management, ESG and funds management, including time. Pablo has been at the centre of a lot of the change that this sector has undergone over the last 15 years, where he has been the Chair, Deputy Chair and Director at the Responsible Investment Association of Australia, as well as leading roles with the Investor Group on Climate Change and The Australian Sustainable Finance Institute.

This conversation starts with discussing the 2.0 launch of his not for profit Altiorem - an online library for sustainable finance and responsible investment professionals that is playing the important role of helping to address the significant capability gap that now exists in both technical knowledge - things like climate science, drivers and impacts of human trafficking and what that means for investors, reporting disclosure standards - needed to support decision making in the financial services industry, as well as materials that help broaden horizons and understanding of scenarios where trade-offs and judgement are required. We then shift more into the day to day ups and downs of life attempting to drive this work within the existing financial system paradigm, and the philosophies and beliefs that can seem so impervious to the myriad crisis our societies and economies face.

I've known Pablo for a number of years now and like every other time I've spent time with him, I came away from this conversation both more understanding and educated, but also grounded and contemplative about my role and ability to use principles of healthy relationships and the critical necessity of these to organise, coordinate and drive collective action in a meaningful way. I'm reminded that all actions - large and small - do play a role too, but at the heart of all of this is the way by which I treat others and the opportunities that do arise when I am open and have the willingness to be of service.

I found this conversation a delight, and I hope you do too.

Production, graphic and social media support comes from the wonderful Rob Rogers. I could;dn't do this without his expertise and generous support.

Thank you for tuning in today, I don't take your time for granted. If you'd like to support the Finding Nature podcast, the best and easiest thing you can do is subscribe to the show, offer a rating, share it on social media or with friends and colleagues. We have a bunch of events coming up and the best place to find more information on those at the moment is to head to the Finding Nature LinkedIn and Instagram pages. I'm working away at a proper digital home so bear with me as I get that organised and live.

I hope you have a great rest of your day.

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What do you get when a serial coffee entrepreneur moves to Sydney right before the beginning of the Covid pandemic and starts to wonder why the Iron Cove Bay in Sydney is such a dilapidated natural site yet paradoxically is often overrun with walkers, runners and cyclists? Of course Blue Green - an organisation dedicating itself to re-naturalising Sydney harbour to reprise some of its original beauty to help address chronic climate perils in the form of rising sea levels, mitigate the risks of extreme rain events and ever higher king tides, protecting state significant infrastructure, creating opportunities for meaningful community led discussions on managed retreat and the role of the public amenity in our already beautiful city, but also capitalising on emerging natural capital financial markets.

Sounds obvious, yeah?

Well, Colin Finn is that serial coffee entrepreneur who is gaining traction and support from a diverse set of stakeholders on what is a wickedly complex problem that is problematic now and sure to be a crisis in the future. We explore a lot in this conversation talking about his Blue Green venture, from the unwieldy governance structures of the city that hold in place some of that complexity and unmanageability, the role of using time as a potential frame for breakthroughs, the role of both rational value stack business cases but the critical importance of high quality, community participation and ownership of change, and the fundamental requirement for all of us to shift our perspective where humans are apart from nature to a part of nature. There is just so much in what Colin is building at Blue Green and what he hopes to achieve for all of us now and for generations to come is an important contribution in how we begin to finally engage in and adapt not just our civilisation and landscape to the growing threats a changing climate is presenting us, but also the mindsets and paradigms that need to be engaged now and evolved so that action, and effective action in that, is actually possible.

Colin represents the value of a new lens that entrenched perspectives and interests struggle with and may miss - both as a non native Sydney sider as well as his diverse background as a creator and entrepreneur. He also represents the audacity required to engage with and present workable options to allow us to get into action with the challenges we face. How can Sydney and its harbour become more beautiful - that's the type of question a local wouldn't even contemplate suggesting! Settle in for what this unlikely outsider who now calls Sydney homes wants to offer us all, but needs all of our help to pull off.

This conversation gives me a lot of hope, and I hope you enjoy it.

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Today's chat is with Rob Rogers - a legend of the advertising world. A world that is probably foreign and unimaginable to the sustainability people out there. I realised in preparing for this conversation that as a sustainability professional for over 15 years I've never had any formal education or focussed and consistent training in how I communicate, pitch or campaign the work that I'm doing. Considering I think a significant proportion of my time has been and is spent attempting to share, influence, teach and alter hearts and minds that results in more sustainable outcomes, this was a shocking realisation. I would suspect this is likely the case for many in this profession too.

So Rob is a seriously credentialed advertiser with more than four decades experience in Australia, the US and across Asia, and was the Grand Jury Judge at The Cannes Healthcare Advertising Festival for a couple of years in the mid 2010s. He's also a music and film creator, a writer and author artist to go with all of his professional experiences.

This conversation is all about the lessons and opportunities for sustainability practitioners to better appreciate the craft and tools of advertising, marketing and communications to support your own work, and our work more broadly. Rob is a wealth of knowledge, generous with sharing his wisdom and a very important person to me. I've been struck lately by not only how much information is now available for people in the profession I spend my days doing - this tsunami of reports, guides, analysis, policies, benchmarks - but how little there is in how this information is then converted into materials that are digestible, accessible and actionable by either other workers in other professions like risk management or product development, as well as for consumers and regular folks.

In the case of climate change, we've known about and seen just about all we've needed to as a species for over fifty years, yet 2023 was the hottest on record. There are definitely bad actor vested interests out there blocking action, but to reflect in the mirror as a profession - what have we not done, and what could we do differently? I think Rob is a terrific person to begin exploring this, and I hope you enjoy listening.

Souling has just been released by podcast guest Natasha Ritz. Finding Nature listeners can collect a 10% discount when they check out - just enter findingnature when you're buying the book and you'll get to enjoy a beautiful and wonderful book I am sure you'll enjoy. 

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Today's guest is Dr Abby Bloom, and talk about a woman with a remarkable attitude towards and record of delivering meaningful change. Abby is a powerhouse. Her life is incredible. She was born and grew up in New York City before gaining a scholarship to the prestigious Yale College in Connecticut where she was one of 200 who made up the first intake of women into that institution.

Abby has gone on to lead a myriad of careers - US Foreign Service, epidemiologist, health system designer and creator, entrepreneur, investor, Board director.

In this conversation we talk about the focus of Abby's latest venture - Prime Life Partners - an effort to build a coherent and powerful ecosystem of actors to support and provide dignity for Australians as they age. As you'll hear, our ageing population presents some fundamental challenges not only for governments but asks deeper questions about our own individual relationship to what aging means to us, to how we treat older people and the potential value in accessing the wisdom of what millions of Australians can offer on a daily basis across business and society. This problem reminds me a lot of the climate crisis - there is a real problem now, and we know it will only worsen over time, yet despite lots of rational drivers to inject new thinking and ways of acting that bring about reform, that seems too hard an ask.

I've had the great joy of knowing Abby for many years now, and this conversation lit me up, I came away knowing her even more, amazed again at stories I hadn't heard about. I'm really grateful for Abby's time here, and my relationship to her more broadly - she is vital and inspiring and generous. I really hope you enjoy listening to this one.

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