Radical Truth

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast, where we feature pioneers redefining the purpose of capital. For 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network.

Why Radical Truth is different: most finance podcasts protect the industry. Radical Truth interrogates it. Unfiltered conversations with the founders, fund managers, and system-changers actually moving capital toward a liveable future — and calling out the impact-washing that isn't. No sponsors. No pretending.

What if AI agents have become too autonomous for humans to govern alone?

In this episode, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group, sits down with Kelly Forbes, Co-Founder and Director of the AI Asia Pacific Institute. We cover why some organizations now need a second AI just to govern the first one, Stanford's record of 233 new AI-related risks in a single year, the luxury-brand backlash against automated marketing, and "cognitive debt" — what outsourcing our thinking to AI may be costing us.

Real research. No greenwashing.

For anyone serious about where AI governance is heading, this episode is essential listening.

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast, where we feature pioneers redefining the purpose of capital. For 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network.

Why Radical Truth is different: most finance podcasts protect the industry. Radical Truth interrogates it. Unfiltered conversations with the founders, fund managers, and system-changers actually moving capital toward a liveable future — and calling out the impact-washing that isn't. No sponsors. No pretending.

What if the nonprofits spending the most on overhead are the ones making the biggest difference?

In this episode, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group, sits down with Rick Peck, founder of The Philanthropy Guy® and host of the "Money to Give" podcast. After 21 years in charitable gift planning at Dartmouth and beyond, Rick breaks down why only 17% of U.S. giving comes from foundations, why the "overhead myth" misleads donors, and why McKenzie Scott's trust-based model may work better than traditional restricted grants.

Real experience. No greenwashing.

For anyone serious about what makes charitable giving actually effective, this episode is essential listening.

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast, where we feature pioneers redefining the purpose of capital. For 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network.

Why Radical Truth is different: most finance podcasts protect the industry. Radical Truth interrogates it. Unfiltered conversations with the founders, fund managers, and system-changers actually moving capital toward a liveable future — and calling out the impact-washing that isn't. No sponsors. No pretending.

What if the corporate world's most celebrated sustainability pledge made companies worse, not better?

In this episode, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group, sits down with Christopher Marquis, Sinyi Professor at Cambridge Judge Business School and author of "The Profiteers: How Business Privatizes Profits and Socializes Costs." Formerly of Harvard Business School and Cornell, Christopher has spent 25 years researching corporate sustainability — and become one of its sharpest critics.

We explore:

• Why signatories of the Business Roundtable's 2019 stakeholder pledge scored worse, not better, on environment and labor
• How BlackRock's ESG commitments evaporated the moment Texas pulled its funds
• Why a carbon capture company raised over $1 billion without meaningfully removing carbon from the air
• Why MBA rankings are built on graduates' starting salary, not education
• How Costco's governance structure has kept it out of private equity's hands

Real research. No greenwashing.

For anyone serious about telling real sustainability work from a well-funded press release, this episode is essential listening.

Christopher Marquis https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-marquis/

Let’s get started with our guest Christopher Marquis. This is Radical Truth

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast, where we feature pioneers redefining the purpose of capital.
For 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world's leading ESG and impact investing network. Why Radical Truth is different: most finance podcasts protect the industry. Radical Truth interrogates it. Unfiltered conversations with the founders, fund managers, and system-changers actually moving capital toward a liveable future — and calling out the impact-washing that isn't. No sponsors. No pretending.
What if 65% of startup failures had nothing to do with product or market — and everything to do with unhealed founders? In this episode, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group, sits down with Joshua Haynes, Co-Founding Partner of Masawa — one of the world's first mental health impact investment funds.
With co-founder Sabine Flechet, Joshua is pioneering Nurture Capital: a fund architecture with a 4x carry cap, 10% of carry shared with founders, 50% of carry tied to impact, and coaching and therapy paid from the management fee.
We explore:
Why 65% of early-stage startups really fail
What Nurture Capital changes in due diligence and founder support
Portfolio wins: Five Lives, Kwan, Psyon Games
Why "impact funds are VC funds with an impact sticker"
What every investor can do this week Real experience. No greenwashing. 

For anyone serious about the history, present, and future of impact investing, this episode is essential listening.

George Carlin once said the planet doesn't need saving; the planet is fine. It's the people who are fucked. He was talking about a different kind of delusion, but he might as well have been watching a Climeworks investor deck.

I've spent thirty years in the impact space. Thirty years of watching money that was supposed to change the world get dressed up in language that would make a marketing professor weep with joy. I've seen greenwashing dressed as strategy, incrementalism sold as transformation, and now, in what may be the purest expression of wishful thinking the financial sector has ever produced, I am watching the world's largest banks write checks to a machine in Switzerland and Iceland that is, by its own operational math, a net carbon emitter.

Let me say that again. A company whose entire business model is removing carbon from the atmosphere has been, in documented periods, adding more carbon to the sky through its corporate operations than its machines are taking out. And the response from the financial establishment? More agreements. More press releases provide "the illusion of choice dressed up as progress."

The Guest List at the World's Most Expensive Dinner Party

Let's give credit where it's due. The agreement roster is extraordinary in its ambition and its scope. These are not small actors.

JPMorgan Chase signed a nine-year, $20 million purchase agreement for 25,000 metric tons of carbon removal. Morgan Stanley committed to 40,000 tons stretching out to 2037, their first direct air capture deal, which was celebrated as a landmark. TD Bank signed a 10-year agreement announced in June 2026. UBS is locked in a 10-year removal deal. Swiss Re signed what was breathlessly promoted as the world's first long-term direct air capture purchase agreement. Boston Consulting Group went further than any of them, a 15-year strategic partnership for 80,000 metric tons, the largest corporate buyer commitment in Climeworks' history. NTT DATA Group came aboard in April 2026.

And the corporate world didn't stop at finance and consulting. Stripe signed up. Microsoft. Shopify. H&M Group. SAP is committed to 33,500 tons. Schneider Electric pledged 31,000 tons.

This is, on paper, an impressive coalition of institutional credibility. In practice, it is the most expensive proof of concept ever assembled for a technology that is currently operating at 0.3% of its claimed capacity.

These agreements reveal everything you need to know, not about the climate, but about how elite institutions manage their reputations.

What the Journalists in Iceland Found Out

Here is what the press conferences did not cover. Investigative reporters at Heimildin, the Icelandic news outlet that actually bothered to audit what was happening on the ground rather than in the boardrooms, dug into Climeworks' own carbon accounting and found something remarkable in its ugliness.

In 2023, Climeworks' global corporate operations, the flights to climate summits, the infrastructure, the expansion activity, and the administrative machinery of a company that had raised hundreds of millions of dollars produced approximately 1,700 metric tons of CO₂. Meanwhile, the lifetime atmospheric capture of Climeworks' Orca plant at that point sat at roughly 2,400 metric tons. Total. In its entire operational life.

The company's own internal corporate footprint was rapidly approaching, and in some accounting periods, surpassing its total atmospheric removal output. Heimildin didn't editorialize. They simply did the arithmetic that the corporate communications teams had conspicuously avoided. The machines weren't keeping up with the company's own travel schedule.

CleanTechnica then took the Heimildin data global. Their piece, "Climeworks' DAC & Fiscal Collapse & The Brutal Reality Of Pulling Carbon From The Sky",

What does it take to walk away from a global retail dynasty and redirect your wealth toward healing the planet? Stephen Brenninkmeijer did exactly that — and in this episode, he tells us how.In this episode of TBLI Radical Truth, host Robert Rubinstein sits down with Stephen Brenninkmeijer, private investor and founder of Willows Investments, to explore his remarkable journey from family business leader to pioneering impact investor.💡 What you'll learn:How a 30-year career in global retail (C&A across the USA, Japan, England, and Europe) shaped Stephen's investment philosophyWhy he pivoted to strategic impact investing in 2002 — and what triggered that shiftHow Willows Investments identifies and supports ventures with a genuine social missionStephen's perspective on climate change, education, and where impact capital is most needed todayAbout Stephen Brenninkmeijer:Stephen Brenninkmeijer is a private investor focused on climate change, impact investing, and education. For three decades, he held senior roles in C&A, one of the world's largest family-owned retail businesses. Since founding Willows Investments in 2008, he has backed promising ventures that put social mission at the centre of their model.

About TBLI Radical Truth Podcast:Every week, host Robert Rubinstein brings you honest, unfiltered conversations with the investors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders who are doing the real work of repairing the global financial system — through impact, intention, and radical accountability.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly episodes#ImpactInvesting #ClimateInvesting #SocialEntrepreneur #WillowsInvestments #ESG #ImpactFinance #TBLI #SustainableInvesting #PhilanthropicCapital #PurposeDrivenBusiness #radicaltruth

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Can a pension fund managing £30 billion in public money genuinely integrate ESG and impact investing — without sacrificing returns?Denise Le Gal, Chair of Brunel Pension Partnership, says yes. And she has the results to prove it.Brunel is one of eight national Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) pools in the UK, bringing together the investments of 10 like-minded funds. In this episode of TBLI Talk, Denise shares what responsible investing looks like at institutional scale — and why managing financial, environmental, social, and governance risk is no longer optional for pension funds.In this episode:• Why pension funds can no longer ignore ESG risk in their investment strategy• How Brunel pools £30 billion to drive responsible investing at scale• The real challenges of integrating impact into a public pension mandate• What other pension funds and institutional investors can learn from Brunel's approach• How ESG integration protects beneficiaries — and the planetAbout Denise Le Gal:Denise is Chair of Brunel Pension Partnership Limited, one of the UK's leading responsible investment institutions. A recognised thought leader in sustainable finance, she brings deep expertise in governance, fiduciary duty, and long-term value creation.About TBLI Radical Truth:TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years. TBLI Talk: Knowledge that Inspires.Website: https://tbligroup.comYoutube: https://youtu.be/fPQwM5f5nsE#PensionFund #ESGInvesting #ResponsibleInvesting #BrunelPensionPartnership #DeniseLegal #ImpactInvesting #LGPS #SustainableFinance #TBLI #TBLITalk #InstitutionalInvesting #ESG #Governance #SustainableInvesting #PensionFundESG

©MYSTERY SAX Kevin MacLeod  Intro music

Why did a consortium of the world's most risk-averse institutions—including the World Bank Treasury, BNP Paribas, and Amazon—just pour $91 million into a forest that does not yet exist?

In this episode, Robert exposes the bizarre, inverted logic of modern climate finance. We break down the strange math behind a massive cross-border deal funding 50,000 hectares of "future forest" in South Africa at a staggering $1,820 per hectare—all while existing, high-integrity ecosystems are left to burn because they don't fit the financial sector's securitisation models.

Discover the structural flaw at the heart of the Restoration vs. Conservation debate. Wall Street and corporate giant offtake buyers have fallen in love with a photogenic future asset class while entirely ignoring the cheap, fast, and unglamorous work of protecting the standing forests we already have. This is an unfiltered look at the performative arithmetic driving today's green bond and carbon market landscape.

• The $91 Million Deal: A look inside the capital stack involving the World Bank Treasury, sovereign wealth, and corporate offtakes like Amazon.

• Future Forests vs. Existing Ecosystems: The dangerous financial incentive structures that value hypothetical future trees over standing, high-biodiversity primary forests.

• The Securitisation Trap: Why institutional finance is obsessed with funding risky, long-term restoration projects instead of deploying immediate capital to conservation.

• A Financial Reality Check: Deconstructing Amazon's own celebratory data to show the deep contradictions in "risk-averse" climate investing.

#ClimateFinance #GreenBonds #CarbonMarkets #NatureBasedSolutions #ConservationFinance #WorldBank #Amazon #ESG #SustainableFinance #Greenwashing #RadicalTruth

How does a true political underdog come from absolute obscurity to win the election for Mayor of New York City, defying every expert who said it was impossible?

In this reflective episode, recorded on a brilliant Indian Summer day along the canals of Amsterdam, Robert looks back at his roots as a Brooklyn kid to unpack the monumental upset victory of Zohran Mamdani. This isn’t just a conversation about politics; it’s an exploration of the heavy lifting, unglamorous street-level work, and sheer structural grid-shifting required to build real grassroots change in America today.

Robert dissects a singular, haunting image: a young assemblyman standing on Fordham Road in the Bronx with a handwritten sign, ignored by passersby, putting in the invisible work that nobody celebrates but few are willing to do. Discover what this historic win says about the changing face of modern leadership, systemic resilience, and why the real work of transformation always begins long before the crowds finally show up.

• The Anatomy of an Upset: How Zohran Mamdani overcame institutional inertia and massive financial blockades to capture the soul of New York City.

• The Invisible Heavy Lifting: Why real systemic change is never built on flashy marketing or performative announcements, but on unglamorous, solo work in the trenches.

• A Brooklyn Kid's Perspective: Connecting the lessons of grassroots community building back to structural problems in global institutions and finance.

• The America We Are Becoming: What this victory signals about the shifting appetite for authentic, bold, and untraditional leadership.

#ZohranMamdani #NYCMayor #UnderdogWin #GrassrootsMovement #NewYorkCity #SystemicChange #BrooklynRoots #PoliticalUpset #HeavyLifting #RadicalTruth

How do you lift the poorest farmers out of poverty while building a world-class business? 🌾

On the latest TBLI Radical Truth podcast, host Robert Rubinstein sits down with Arvind Narula, Chairman & Founder of the Urmatt Group. With 30+ years pioneering organic agriculture across Thailand, Argentina, and Laos, Arvind drops unfiltered wisdom on what it actually takes to scale purpose-driven businesses in frontier markets.

🌱 What you'll learn:

• Raising Capital: The brutal do’s and don'ts for social entrepreneurs.

• Team Building: Who to hire (and who to avoid) in emerging markets.

• Risk Management: Why you can't fully de-risk a project—and how to stay resilient.

🎙️ About the Podcast:TBLI Radical Truth cuts through the noise of mainstream finance. Hosted by Robert Rubinstein, it delivers unfiltered conversations and radical honesty from the changemakers repairing the global financial system through genuine impact investing.

👇 Listen & Subscribe:🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tbliconference🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3h3sUhuclxb2BETNEXY1mN?si=15980bb71561420b

#ImpactInvesting #OrganicAgriculture #SocialEntrepreneur #FrontierMarkets #ESG #Sustainability #TBLIRadicalTruth\

©MYSTERY SAX Kevin MacLeod  Intro music