Nathan Surendran is a Transition Engineer and principal consultant at Schema Consulting Limited, bringing with him an extensive knowledge of macro-scale systems and risks, and synthesising economic, energetic, and environmental factors.

Nathan is an active member of Degrowth Aotearoa New Zealand and passionately advocates for realistic, fact-based strategic decisions on issues of resilience and strong sustainability across all levels. Here Nathan helps bring much-needed understanding to some key concepts around energy efficiency and limits, degrowth, renewables and so much more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Nathan’s background and his work as a transition engineer
• Biophysical constraints vs wishful thinking
• Degrowth Aotearoa New Zealand and their advocacy work
• Degrowth 101 – what is degrowth?
• The challenges and limitations of green growth
• The concept of net energy, and its decrease over time
• The impact of renewables on total energy consumption
• Are renewable energy technologies truly renewable or scalable?
• Promoting and transitioning to a degrowth paradigm in Western societies
• Percentage growth rates and the rule of 70
• Taking action: Community level resilience and the fallacy of individual self-sufficiency

Nathan has also generously provided links to his ‘Distributed Energy Generation in Southland’ presentation and his recent submission to a draft regional energy strategy if you are keen to dig deeper into the facts, figures and scientific concepts mentioned in this episode.

Further resources mentioned by Nathan in this episode:

• To Catch The Rain
• To Catch The Sun

To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave us a review and share this episode with your friends and family.

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To view all the links to the websites and documents, visit the show notes on our website.

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