Radical Truth

Why, after decades of high-profile "impact" conferences and trillions in capital pledges, have the underlying mechanics of the financial system barely moved?

In this episode, recorded in the run-up to the PEI Impact Investor Global Summit in London, Robert delivers a sharp, structural critique of why the financial system aggressively resists working for all stakeholders. Every year, asset owners, pension fund CIOs, and global elites gather in Davos, Monaco, and New York to sign stewardship pledges and print glossy sustainability reports—yet on Monday morning, the capital flows exactly where it always has.

We don't have a failure of awareness; we are drowning in awareness. We have a failure of structure. Discover why the same extractive industries get funded while regenerative entrepreneurs get a polite "no," and learn what it will actually take to shift the real plumbing of global finance. This is the audiobook version of Robert's urgent call to action.

• The Conference Ritual: Why the annual cycle of inspiration at events like the PEI Impact Investor Global Summit results in business-as-usual capital allocation.

• Awareness vs. Structure: Moving past "purpose drives profit" slogans to look at the structural blockades keeping money trapped in extractive finance.

• The Monday Morning Reality: Why fossil-fuel pipelines get refinanced while high-integrity, regenerative solutions are left out in the cold.

• Fixing the Plumbing: What a real structural shift in the global financial architecture looks like.

#PEIImpact #ImpactInvestor #FinancialSystem #RegenerativeFinance #SustainableFinance #CapitalFlows #ESG #ClimateFinance #SystemicChange #RadicalTruth

Have the global financial elite invented an entirely new way to feel good about themselves while doing absolutely nothing to fix the system?

In this episode, Robert exposes The Impact Mafia—the exclusive club of high-net-worth individuals and fund managers using the beautiful language of "impact investing" as a convenient smokescreen. We look past the $5,000 suits, the champagne galas, and the high-minded rhetoric to pull back the curtain on what is frequently just an accountability facade designed to protect capital while performing virtue.

This episode is a direct adaptation from the upcoming book, Radical Truth. It’s an unfiltered, unapologetic look at how the financial sector replaced systemic change with performative metrics. If you are tired of the "Impact Theater" and want to talk about true non-extractive finance, this conversation is for you.

• The Impact Mafia Defined: Who they are, how they operate, and why the current system rewards virtue signaling over actual social and environmental outcomes.

• The Ultimate Smokescreen: How the beautiful terminology of sustainable finance is used to obscure business-as-usual wealth accumulation.

• Radical Truth: Moving past the elite comfort zone to spark a disruptive, honest conversation about where capital actually flows.

#ImpactInvesting #TheImpactMafia #RadicalTruth #SustainableFinance #ESG #Greenwashing #ImpactTheater #CorporateEthics #WealthManagement #FinancialSystemicChange #NonExtractiveFinance

A high-powered banker walks away from a massive salary and a prestigious title. Why? Because he realized he was optimizing spreadsheets for people strip-mining the planet, and he wanted true, nature-based solutions.

In this episode, Robert breaks down why the financial industry’s obsession with being "nice" is actually fueling the climate crisis. We dive into the critical difference between Conservation vs. Restoration, and why we continue to fund the wrong environmental solutions because the right ones can’t be securitised.

Using a powerful distinction inspired by Simon Sinek and Trevor Noah, Robert explains why niceness is a performance, but kindness is a posture. Discover how conflict-avoidance, performative ESG metrics, and polite greenwashing in the wealth management space are deferring catastrophic costs to the next generation. It’s time to trade comfortable politeness for radical honesty.

• The Great Escape: Why top-tier financial professionals are leaving banking for true nature-based solutions and big purpose.

• Conservation vs. Restoration: Why we fall in love with photogenic restoration while ignoring fast, cheap, and unglamorous conservation.

• Kindness vs. Niceness: Why "nice" is conflict-avoidance dressed up as virtue, and why finance is the most aggressively nice (and quietly cruel) profession on Earth.

• The Frictionless Economy: How performative arithmetic and ESG reporting protect bonuses while stalling real climate action.

#ESGInvesting #ClimateFinance #Greenwashing #NatureBasedSolutions #EnvironmentalConservation #ImpactInvesting #SustainableFinance #CorporateEthics #SimonSinek #KindnessVsNiceness #WealthManagement #ClimateChangeSolutions #RadicalTruth

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 bank holding your deposits could actually work for your community and the climate? Kat Taylor, Co-Founder and Board Chair of Beneficial State Bank, joins Robert Rubinstein to explain how a CDFI and certified B Corp is proving banking can be rebuilt as a force for justice instead of extraction.

Real experience. No greenwashing.

What if the real gender gap isn't pay — but ownership?

Women in management and on boards exit the companies they help build with, on average, just 1% of the equity. In this episode of the Radical Truth Podcast, host Robert Rubinstein sits down with Michaela Berglund, CEO of Feminvest and Feminvest Ventures — the Stockholm-based fund and 50,000-strong community backing companies that are at least 50% women-owned.

This isn't a diversity conversation. It's a capital allocation conversation — and one of the most under-priced commercial opportunities in finance right now.

We cover:

• The 1% equity problem — why women build companies but don't own them

• The capital access gap and where it actually comes from

• What LPs, family offices and institutional allocators keep missing

• Feminvest's investment thesis and how the 50%+ women-owned filter changes deal flow

• The Nordic model — what it gets right on gender and capital, and where it still falls short

• How a 50,000-member investor community actually moves money

• What needs to change for women-led capital to scale

🎧 About Radical Truth

Radical Truth is the TBLI Group's interview series with the people rebuilding finance, capital and capitalism from the inside — sustainable investing, impact, ESG done seriously, and the truth no one says out loud. Hosted by Robert Rubinstein, founder of TBLI Group.

🔔 Subscribe for more conversations with the people changing how capital moves.

🌐 More from TBLI Group: https://www.tbligroup.com

👤 Connect with Michaela Berglund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelaberglund/

🌍 Feminvest: https://feminvest.se

#Feminvest #WomenInFinance #ImpactInvesting #GenderLensInvesting #RadicalTruth #TBLI #SustainableFinance #VentureCapital #WomenInVC #NordicModel #FemaleFounders #EquityGap #MichaelaBerglund #RobertRubinstein

What if the fastest way to save Earth was to build a village on the Moon?That's not science fiction. That's the radical, rigorously-thought-through proposition behind Project Moon Hut — and at the centre of it is David Goldsmith, one of the world's most provocative innovation thinkers and the architect of the Mearth (Moon + Earth) economic system.In this episode of Radical Truth, host Robert Rubinstein, Founder of TBLI Group — one of the world's leading voices on sustainable finance, ESG, and impact investing — sits down with David Goldsmith, Co-Founder of the Project Moon Hut Foundation, the organisation working in collaboration with NASA-affiliated researchers, scientists, and innovators to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon — for the explicit purpose of solving the converging crises facing Earth.David is a global futurist, paradigm-shift thinker, and the developer of the Innovation methodology used by governments, Fortune 500 companies, and universities worldwide. Through Project Moon Hut, he is building the case that lunar infrastructure is not an escape plan — it is leverage. Leverage to accelerate clean energy, regenerative agriculture, advanced materials, water systems, climate resilience, and a new economic model that integrates Moon and Earth into a single, mutually-reinforcing ecosystem.In this conversation, we explore:-Why a Moon Hut — and why now? The thinking that flips space exploration on its head-The Mearth ecosystem: how lunar innovation drives Earth-side breakthroughs in energy, food, water, and shelter-Why incremental thinking is failing the climate crisis — and what radical, exponential thinking looks like instead-The role of capital, investors, and business in financing humanity's next leap-How space-based innovation has historically delivered the technologies we now take for granted on Earth-Why David believes solving Earth's mega-problems requires us to look far beyond Earth-The moral, economic, and civilisational stakes of getting this decade rightThis is a conversation about radical truth: that the scale of our problems demands a scale of imagination most leaders are still afraid to access — and that the boldest path forward may also be the most practical one.🌖 Learn more & take action: https://projectmoonhut.org💼 TBLI Group: https://www.tbligroup.com🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3h3sUhuclxb2BETNEXY1mN⏱ TIMESTAMPS00:00 – Introduction02:30 – Who is David Goldsmith? From innovation methodology to the Moon08:00 – What is Project Moon Hut? The origin story and the NASA connection14:00 – The Mearth ecosystem explained: Moon and Earth as one system22:00 – Why space is the leverage point for solving Earth's crises30:00 – Climate, energy, food, water: the Earth-side breakthroughs38:00 – The role of investors, capital, and business in funding the next leap44:00 – Radical truth: what it will take to act at the scale the moment demands(Update timestamps after editing)#ProjectMoonHut #DavidGoldsmith #SpaceInnovation #ClimateAction #FutureOfHumanity #Mearth #MoonHut #LunarEconomy #SpaceEconomy #Innovation #Sustainability #ClimateCrisis #Exploration #NASA #SpaceTech #Futurism #RadicalTruth #RadicalTruthPodcast #RobertRubinstein #TBLIGroup #ImpactInvesting #SustainableFinance #ESG #DeepTech #SpaceForEarth #NewEconomy

Welcome to the TBLI Radical Truth Podcast — the platform dedicated to the pioneers redefining the purpose of capital.  Real experience. Real results. No greenwashing. For over 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world’s leading ESG and impact investing network—educating, advising, and connecting investors to build a sustainable and equitable future.

I'm your host, Robert Rubinstein, and today we're diving into one of the most urgent and transformative conversations of our time.

My guest is Jojo Mehta, co-founder of Stop Ecocide International — the movement working to make the destruction of nature a crime under international law. We'll explore what ecocide law actually means, why it matters for business, finance, and governance, and how making it an international crime could fundamentally reshape the way corporations and governments relate to the natural world.

We'll talk about the momentum building globally, the resistance from powerful interests, and why Jojo believes that changing the law can change the logic of the entire economic system. This is about more than environmentalism — it's about accountability, moral courage, and what it truly means to lead in a world on the edge.

This is TBLI Radical Truth Podcast.

#StopEcocide #EcocideLaw #RadicalTruth #TBLIPodcast #Sustainability #ImpactInvesting #ESG #NatureRights #ClimateJustice #ResponsibleBusiness #PurposeOfCapital #GreenFinance #CorporateAccountability #EnvironmentalLaw #JojoMehta #Podcast #Leadership #SystemsChange #CapitalMarkets #Regenerative

🌐 tbligroup.com

Welcome to the TBLi Radical Truth Podcast, where we challenge the fundamental assumptions shaping how we lead, organize, and create value in a rapidly changing world.In an era defined by VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity), traditional leadership models are no longer sufficient. In this episode, we are joined by Stefan Beiten, a serial entrepreneur and the visionary founder of The Argonauts, to discuss a transformative evolution in organizational culture: Conscious Intelligence (CQ).The New Equation: $IQ + EQ = CQ$Stefan argues that for leadership to scale and for cultural transformation to truly take root, we must move beyond raw intelligence and emotional awareness. He introduces a new formula for the modern leader: Conscious Intelligence. By "Creating Conversational Fluency™"—a collective language rooted in radical trust—organizations can finally bridge the gap between their higher purpose and the bottom line.In this episode, we explore:The CQ Advantage: Why expanding consciousness is the ultimate solution for both global impact and financial performance.Psychological Safety: How to build high-trust environments where innovation actually thrives instead of being stifled by fear.Measuring Purpose: Concrete strategies for identifying and engaging the most mission-aligned members of any team.Democratizing Leadership: Shifting the power dynamic to foster collective responsibility and agility."To change the world, we must change the way we communicate. Trust isn't just a feeling—it’s a fluency." — Stefan BeitenAbout TBLI Radical TruthReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. For over 25 years, TBLI Group has been the world’s leading ESG and impact investing network—educating, advising, and connecting investors to build a sustainable and equitable future.Let's begin our conversation with Stefan Beiten on Conscious Intelligence and the future of leadership.This is TBL Radical Truth Podcast.#tbliradicaltruth #ConsciousLeadership #CQ #FutureOfWork #VUCA #LeadershipDevelopment #ESG #ImpactInvesting #StefanBeiten #TheArgonauts #PsychologicalSafety #EthicalBusiness #SustainableSuccess

In this TBLI Talk, Rennie Hoare — Partner and Head of Philanthropy at C. Hoare & Co., the UK's oldest private bank — shares the 20-year journey to total portfolio impact: 100% of reserves invested to deliver positive social and environmental outcomes alongside financial returns.

Since 1985, the Golden Bottle Trust (which donates 10% of the bank's annual profits) has made over 10,000 grants aligned with the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. But Rennie recognised that grants alone weren't enough. The investment portfolio had to align too.

In this episode:

• How to move from a single VC impact fund to 100% SDG-aligned investing
• Using donor-advised funds (DAFs) as tools for values-led philanthropy
• Why most philanthropic capital funds the very problems grants try to solve — and how total portfolio impact fixes that
• Practical lessons from transforming a legacy institution over two decades
• How family offices and foundations can align investment strategy with mission

The key insight: Most philanthropic capital sits in traditional investments funding fossil fuels and extractive industries, while grants attempt to solve the problems those investments create. Total portfolio impact eliminates that contradiction.

This episode is essential listening for family offices, foundation trustees, wealth managers, ESG professionals, and anyone serious about making capital work for people and planet.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTH Real experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.

🌐 tbligroup.com

#ImpactInvesting #ESG #SDGs #TotalPortfolioImpact #Philanthropy #SustainableFinance #FamilyOffice #WealthManagement

The True Story of Davos: How a Swiss Mountaintop Meeting Became the World's Most Powerful Annual Gathering

What if the world's most influential economic forum started as a small academic conference in the Swiss Alps? Barbara Erskine was there for the transformation—and in this episode of TBLI Radical Truth, she reveals what really happened behind the scenes.

As Director and Executive Board Member of the World Economic Forum from 1990-2000, Barbara led the media strategy that turned Davos from a regional business gathering into the defining global platform for stakeholder capitalism, ESG leadership, and climate action. This is the unfiltered story of how it happened—the strategic decisions, the relationships built, the moments that mattered.

We explore: How did Klaus Schwab's vision gain traction with heads of state and Fortune 500 CEOs? What made global leaders willing to trek to a mountaintop each January? How did strategic communications transform a niche event into essential attendance for anyone serious about shaping capitalism's future? And what can impact investors, ESG professionals, and sustainable finance practitioners learn from the WEF's rise about positioning, narrative power, and building movements?

Barbara also shares battle-tested lessons on building media relationships, launching global initiatives, and crafting messages that cut through noise—insights directly applicable to anyone working in impact investing, corporate sustainability, or climate finance today.

This isn't hagiography. It's an insider's honest assessment of how influence actually works, how stakeholder capitalism went mainstream, and why Davos became the annual pilgrimage for the world's economic elite.

Why This Matters for Impact Investors & ESG Professionals:Understanding how the World Economic Forum shaped the global ESG conversation helps us see where sustainable finance came from—and where it's headed. Barbara's story reveals the power dynamics, communication strategies, and relationship-building that turned abstract concepts like "triple bottom line" and "stakeholder capitalism" into business orthodoxy.

About Barbara Erskine:Director & Executive Board Member, World Economic Forum (1990-2000) | European Editor, Wired Magazine | Former strategist for New York Times Paris Bureau and French government | Expert in global media relations and strategic communications

About TBLI Radical Truth:TBLI Radical Truth brings you unfiltered conversations with the people building sustainable finance, driving ESG integration, and transforming capitalism from the inside. No corporate spin. No greenwashing. Just honest insights from practitioners who've been in the arena.

Hosted by Robert Rubinstein, founder of TBLI Group—the world's leading ESG and impact investing network advancing sustainable finance for 25 years.

#RadicalTruth #Davos #WorldEconomicForum #WEF #ESG #ImpactInvesting #StakeholderCapitalism #SustainableFinance #ClimateAction #ESGLeadership #MediaStrategy #CorporateCommunications #GlobalLeadership #SustainabilityPodcast