This week, we chat with Elena Kinane, founder of Greenheart Farms on the importance of ‘clean food’ and how to grow it. She also shares their expansion plans into other sustainable initiatives around their makeup and cleaning products.

We live in an era where social responsibility and profit are no longer disconnected. More and more companies are adopting sustainability as a way of doing good while making a profit. One such company is Neutral Fuels. This week, their founder & CEO Karl Feilder chats with us about their work to improve carbon footprint through recycling cooking oil into biodiesel. Karl also shares his thoughts on carbon prioritization-—what problems we must tackle first if we are to survive on our planet.

1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every single year. For every person who is malnourished, there are two who are overweight or obese. How do you go about dealing with the growing food needs of the world and balancing that out with the continuing amount of waste generated? This week we’re talking to Ryan Ingram, founder of Terraloop about their solutions to commercially handle food waste in the country as well as educate people on reducing food waste at source.

On this episode, we talk to Ayla Bajwa, founder of Ampuz and Board Member at the United National Global Compact UAE. Ayla shares her drive to measure the impact of sustainability which led her to found Ampuz and the current challenges faced in operationalizing the UNGA Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

This week, we talk to Alex Malhouf, Corporate Communications Manager at Procter & Gamble and a fellow podcaster. Alex shares his thoughts on how P&G views sustainability as being a collective responsibility, and how they’re doing more to educate as well as designing products to make it easier for consumers to do the right thing for the environment.

This week, we talk to Kamelia Zaal, the first Arab landscape designer to participate at the Chelsea flower show and best known for her landscape design at Al Barari. Kamelia shares numerous sustainability initiatives taken up at Al Barari—the greens, the water and the waste, how she hopes to redefine play areas in the region and her tips on improving sustainability in the UAE.

Welcome to Forward Talks, a new podcast by Goumbook, bringing you weekly conversations with leaders & professionals who, through their work, entrepreneurship & commitment, promote positive impact and sustainability in the UAE and beyond. On our inaugural episode, we talk to Stefanie Schachtschabel, founder of Globally Connected Companies: Stefanie pivoted her media company in 2014 to focus on sustainability and has since launched a video platform to serve all sustainable innovations in our region.

We look forward to bringing you conversations with sustainability changemakers in April 2019.