Forget fighting the climate. Paul Hawken argues we are part of it—and that single shift can change how leaders, teams, and communities act. We bring Paul into a candid conversation about language, agency, and the practical levers businesses can pull right now to lower risk, save money, and grow life.

Paul Hawken has shaped how business leaders approach climate action for over 60 years. "The Ecology of Commerce" inspired, amongst many, Ray Anderson's transformation of Interface. Drawdown became the definitive roadmap for climate solutions. Now Carbon calls for a shift from fighting carbon to fostering life.

In this episode, we go deep on:

• Why "fighting carbon" and "net zero" might be the wrong frame entirely
• The incredible story of meeting Walmart executives in a closed basement for 5 hours - and writing the speech that transformed the company
• What actually changes leaders and CEOs mind's on climate and social justice

Enjoy the episode, share it with your team, and leave a review to tell us which term you’re retiring first! 

PAUL HAWKEN'S BOOKS

Carbon: The Book of Life (2025) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670480/carbon-by-paul-hawken/

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation (2021)

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (2017)

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World (2007)

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999) Co-authored with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability (1993) 

PAUL HAWKEN'S PROJECTS

Project Drawdown https://drawdown.org/
Project Regeneration https://regeneration.org/
Paul Hawken's Website https://paulhawken.com/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Beyond Zero (Documentary) https://beyondzerofilm.com/
Interface - Our Sustainability Story https://www.interface.com/US/en-US/sustainability/our-history
Ray C. Anderson Foundation https://www.raycandersonfoundation.org/Lee Scott's Walmart Speech (October 2005) - "Twenty-First Century Leadership" 

PEOPLE REFERENCED

Ray Anderson - Late founder and CEO of Interface
Damon Gameau - Australian filmmaker (2040, Regeneration)
Lee Scott - Former CEO of Walmart
Doug McMillon - Current CEO of Walmart
Jib Ellison - Founder of Blu Skye Sustainability Consulting
Toby Kiers - Researcher on mycorrhizal networks and fungal communication
Andrew Adamatzky - Royal Society researcher on fungal communication patterns
Tiokasin Ghosthorse - Lakota elder
Dana Meadows - Systems thinker and author

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Heat, forests, and hard choices: COP30 in Belém turned climate ambition into a street‑level experience. We have our first return guest, as Beth Dowe, Executive Director of the Climate Leaders Coalition, comes back to the Green Fix to unpack what truly moved the needle at COP: a global push to triple adaptation finance by 2035, Brazil’s big bet on the Tropical Forest Facility, and the fierce debate that stripped fossil fuel roadmap language from the final text while igniting new conversations at home in Australia.

Listen in to hear about the real action inside the pavilions where governments, business and civil society intertwined, and why that proximity matters for turning high-level pledges into projects. 

Beth shares how Australia’s signature on the Belém Declaration creates pressure to refine the Safeguard Mechanism and rethink diesel rebates, even as our COP31 hosting bid fell short. With Minister Bowen confirmed to preside over negotiations, we dig into how Australia can still raise ambition, shape rules and attract global capital to clean energy, critical minerals and value‑chain innovation across the region.

Beth shares that it was Nature that took centre stage in the Amazon. We explore how net zero strategies actually depend on halting deforestation, why more than half of global GDP is tied to nature and how the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is evolving from disclosure to design through pilots that reimagine products, sourcing and end‑of‑life. 

We also spotlight Indigenous leadership across COP. From the Great Peoples’ March to calls for early engagement and Indigenous‑informed governance to include pathways to co‑ownership in minerals and nature markets, this legitimacy is a prerequisite to investment. 

Finally, we talk about language that lands: swapping 'decarbonisation' for 'modernisation', treating efficiency as the silent moneymaker and scaling what works through trusted business coalitions and pre‑competitive collaboration for at-scale positive impact.

Subscribe, share with a colleague who cares about climate and nature strategy and leave a review to help others discover the show. 

What’s the one change you want Australia to lead next?

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

What if every job could be a climate job? In this episode, we speak with Lucy Piper, Director of Work for Climate, a non-profit helping employees drive climate action from inside their workplaces. Lucy shares how professionals in any role — not just sustainability — can influence corporate climate policy, push for science-aligned net zero commitments, and hold companies accountable on lobbying and financed emissions. We explore employee activism, avoiding the "climate purity test," and why focusing on the movable middle matters. Whether you're in marketing, engineering, or finance, this conversation will change how you think about your role in the climate crisis.

To learn more, please visit: 
https://www.workforclimate.org/

Lucy's Recommendation:
The Great Simplification Podcast with Nate Hagen:
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 6 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Sea level isn’t creeping up by accident; it’s obeying physics we’ve understood for a long time. We sit down with Professor Benjamin Horton—one of the world’s leading sea level scientists—to translate complex mechanisms into plain English, connect polar ice to equatorial risk, and show how today’s choices shape tomorrow’s coastlines. From ocean heat swelling the seas to the accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica, we walk through the drivers, the uncertainties that matter, and the signals we can already measure from space and on the ground.

The conversation travels from the Vostok ice core—800,000 years of atmosphere trapped in bubbles—to geological snapshots 2.8 million years ago, when CO2 sat near today’s levels, global temperatures ran 3 to 5 degrees warmer, and sea level rose 10 to 20 metres. That deep history frames the present: it tells us what Earth is capable of and why peaking emissions by 2030 is not a slogan but a lifeline. We also get granular about regional and local realities. Gravity changes as ice sheets shrink, pushing more water toward the tropics. Currents stack seas unevenly. Cities on sinking deltas face a double hit from subsidence and storm surge. Risk is layered, and so are the solutions.

Ben lays out three priorities for the next five years: invest in science and monitoring from pole to postcode, accelerate renewables instead of leaning on unproven carbon capture, and build genuine community engagement so warnings turn into action. There’s grounded optimism here too. We spotlight new cooling materials inspired by desert ants that reflect over 90% of sunlight, practical research that helped trigger timely evacuations in Vietnam, and the steady engine of education driving new ideas. We close with a cultural challenge: bring influencers into the fight and pull climate scientists into the rooms where the biggest decisions are made.

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 5 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Systems don’t change neatly; they lurch, resist, and then tip. That turbulence can be terrifying or energising, and in this conversation we choose energy. With Dr Sally Uren of Forum for the Future, we trace a through-line from cleaning a polluted canal to steering global coalitions, showing how climate solutions and public health gains are two sides of the same coin. The energy transition is surging, regenerative agriculture is rewriting the goals of the food system, and health care is shifting from cure to prevention — fertile ground for positive tipping points if we design for co-benefits.

Sally unpacks resilience with a kayak metaphor that keeps leadership grounded in agency. We look at how cleaner air, active transport, and heat-resilient cities slash emissions while reducing mortality and chronic disease. We confront equity head-on: women and children bear outsized risks from heat, water stress, and shifting vector-borne diseases, while undercounted heat deaths hide the true burden. The answer isn’t more band-aids; it’s structural policy reform, smarter incentives for adaptation, and private sector strategies that treat climate and health as the same brief.

Collaboration is the engine. We examine why harmonising standards, as in Cotton 2040, unlocks scale; how systems evolve from startup to acceleration to stabilisation; and where leaders can pull real levers — financing, procurement, disclosure, and cross-sector coalitions. Along the way, Sally challenges outmoded leadership training and invites us to “compost” failing models so better ones can grow. If you want practical ways to align ethics and economics, to turn personal choices into system ripples, and to help your organisation multi-solve for climate, health, and equity, this episode is your map and paddle.

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Markets don’t just reflect change—they can create it. We sit down with two leaders in responsible investment to unpack how stewardship, smarter regulation, and clear definitions are accelerating corporate decarbonisation and funding solutions at scale. From boardrooms to supply chains, they reveal where investor pressure truly lands, when escalation matters, and why Scope 3 conversations are reshaping strategy across sectors.

We dig into Australia’s new sustainability reporting regime and what comparability unlocks for capital markets. But good data is only a start; the real edge comes from analysis that weighs abatement costs, feasibility, and long-term risk. Our guests break down the crucial difference between risk, relative sustainability performance, and impact, and how sloppy language feeds greenwashing while precise terms protect ambition. Fiduciary duty isn’t a brake on climate action—it’s a mandate to manage systemic risk over decades, which turns pensions and sovereign capital into engines for transition.

Divestment gets a sober assessment: selling shares usually changes owners, not outcomes. The bigger lever is enabling clean solutions with new capital while engaging incumbents with clear milestones and consequences. We explore why renewables now outcompete fossil fuels in many markets, where technology can design out waste across value chains, and how circular thinking creates durable advantages. The stakes for laggards are rising—physical damage, stranded assets, reduced access to finance, reputational hits, and shrinking export pathways as trading partners tighten standards. Australia has a chance to lead by investing in IP, basic science, education, and advanced manufacturing, turning ideas into industry.

You’ll also hear personal journeys into climate finance, practical advice for students and career-changers, and two bold system fixes: cut mis/disinformation at the source and price externalities so value tracks harm and benefit. Ready to see how capital can push us past the next positive tipping point? Follow the show, share this episode with a friend who cares about climate and markets, and leave a review with the one lever you’d pull first.

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Heat shouldn’t make home feel unsafe. In this episode, we meet architect and regenerative design leader Caroline Pidcock and advocate Emma Bacon, CEO of Sweltering Cities, to map a practical pathway to cooler, fairer, low‑carbon urban life—one retrofit, street tree, and planning rule at a time. The core idea is refreshingly direct: build less and design better. That means using the buildings and streets we already have and upgrading them with smarter materials, shade, ventilation, and green cover rather than pouring more carbon into new construction.

We dig into the standards gap that leaves wealthier suburbs cooler while hotter, poorer areas get unsafe new builds. Emma explains why building codes must use future climate data, not historical averages, and how minimum requirements—light-coloured roofs, cross‑ventilation, deeper eaves, and shade—lift the floor for everyone. Caroline shows how good design and clear regulation spark creativity, from pocket parks and bikeways to vertical gardens and external skeletal frames that retrofit towers without displacing communities. Health is front and centre: heat waves are predictable disasters, so cities should treat nature as essential infrastructure, with “social green space” where people actually move and gather.

We also zoom out to systems. Faster, more frequent trains can relieve pressure on overheated cores, connect regional towns, and stitch biodiversity corridors along rights of way. Accounting for true social and environmental costs flips the economics toward efficient, cool, and equitable design. Throughout, our guests share hopeful signals: scaled social housing upgrades, community-led projects, and movements shifting mindsets inside the professions.

If you care about urban planning, climate resilience, social housing, or just sleeping better on hot nights, this conversation delivers clear steps and real optimism. Subscribe, share with a friend who sweats through summer, and leave a review with the one heat-fighting change you want your council to adopt next.

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 2 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney. 

In this episode we meet Professor Carlos Nobre of the University of São Paulo,  Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon, and Professor Peter Cox, CBE Director of the Global Systems Institute University of Exeter. 

In this episode we discuss how Amazon’s stability depends on a dance between climate, deforestation, drought, and fire, and why some feedbacks can lock in change far faster than politics tend to move. From early land–atmosphere models to today’s field experiments under engineered drought, we unpack what science has learned about tall tree mortality, rooting depth, evapotranspiration, and the fire thresholds that can flip dense forest to open, flammable savanna.

The conversation moves from ocean drivers—El Niño and a record‑hot North Atlantic—into the messy human layer: man‑made fires, land grabbing, and organised crime accelerating degradation even as official deforestation drops. We get specific on numbers that matter: 120–200 billion tonnes of carbon stored; around 20 billion tonnes of water recycled daily; record droughts in 2005, 2010, 2015–16, and 2023–24; and why crossing 2°C makes saving the basin dramatically harder. Cox presses the global need to phase out fossil fuels quickly; Nobre details the Arc of Restoration, a plan to recover vast degraded zones and build a bioeconomy of standing forests and flowing rivers grounded in indigenous knowledge and local enterprise.

Hope here isn’t wishful—it’s strategic. Positive tipping points in human systems are already forming as renewables undercut fossil power and social norms shift. We talk practical climate justice: what high‑emitting nations can fund now, how to confront misinformation and political headwinds, and why indigenous stewardship is indispensable for biodiversity, carbon, and water security. If we pair rapid decarbonisation with zero deforestation, fire prevention, and large‑scale restoration, the Amazon can remain a cooling engine rather than a carbon source. 

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]

Welcome to Episode 1 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney. 

What if the smartest way to cut climate risk is to make progress contagious? We sit down with Professor Tim Lenton to decode climate and positive tipping points—how small, smart pushes can trigger self-propelling change in technology, policy, and social norms. 

Tim unpacks why systems slow down before they snap, and how that same nonlinear logic powers breakthroughs: Norway’s EV market tipping to ~95% battery electric sales through activist-driven policy, learning curves that crushed battery costs and boosted range, and solar’s decades-long price freefall that’s delivering the cheapest electricity in history. We dig into green hydrogen for zero‑emissions steel, green ammonia shipping that cleans port air, and synthetic aviation fuels that cut contrail warming—plus the policy mandates that can push these solutions over the edge so scale takes care of the rest.

Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
Subscribe to our podcast to get the latest Sustainability insights every two weeks. And follow us on Linkedin and Instagram.

Email us your ideas, feedback and interviewee suggestions at [email protected]