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Rodrigo explains how we should manage climate risks, warns that with the current trajectory, a society level climate chaos could happen by 2035? and argues why better risk literacy could help us all plan our future.

Rodrigo Souza is a senior lecturer in accounting and risk management at the Business School of the University of Roehampton. He has a significant professional and academic experience risk management, corporate governance, internal controls and internal and external auditing, and related areas including cost and management control accounting. He is especially interested in the implementation of risk management in relation to controllership, audit, corporate governance, environmental management and business planning.

Highlights of the episode:

10:23: Irreversible climate change might be happening much sooner than 2050. People, governments, institutions, and individuals must think about climate resilience. 

11:53: David Spiegelhalter from Cambridge University, a statistician from the Royal Society, talks about risk literacy: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1191181

12:53 report from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries about the IPCC report and about climate change fundamentally affecting human life taking place as early as 2035: https://actuaries.org.uk/media/gebdhxzi/climate-emergency-final-report.pdf

https://actuaries.org.uk/media/isvotyer/parasol-lost.pdf

14:45: climate change as an interconnected risk

17:30: about availability bias

21:20: about the importance of changing the rhetoric and the framing of climate change

22:34: it is essential to move from observation mode to action mode

23:00 rapid fire quiz with letter 'K':

• Key Performance Indicators, KPIs
• Kyoto Protocol, and in general, global agreements

Note: 24:10: Larry Fink pronouncement earier this year: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/04/14/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-blackrock-ceo-larry-fink.html

24:20: adding another ‘E’, Economic, before ESG, Environmental, Social and Governance

24:35 People, planet and profit vs people, planet and prosperity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnu_xGel2xg

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2019/12/10/what-the-3ps-of-the-triple-bottom-line-really-mean/

29:18: So, for instance, for the first time in history, neuroscientists have verified that the IQ of people is decreasing with AI: https://thequantumrecord.com/philosophy-of-technology/global-iq-decline-rise-of-ai-assisted-thinking/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6xz12j6pzo

30:11: AI as a global challenge to climate change

30:49: Oxford professor, Juliane Reinecke, about the desirable worlds: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2e91cff1-bda2-43fa-86dc-b1e6d48c48b4/files/s2514nn59z

37:14: why it is important to become risk literate in the everyday life

39:02: further research and paralels to earlier crises: https://www.aicpa-cima.com/resources/download/building-and-enhancing-organisational-resilience-before-and-after-covid-19

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Welcome to the latest episode of Ready, Steady, Green. This time we share a short snippet, to extend invitation to an event that is happening the last week of April in London, at the University of Roehampton. On the 29 April, 10.00-4.00pm London time, the hybrid workshop on ‘Climate Resilience in UK Firms’  invites finance managers, management accountants and risk managers to discuss critical and topical issues related to climate change. In this teaser episode we discuss what challenges does the climate crisis bring to companies and why the development of a Climate Resilience Toolkit is essential for them to prosper.

I am joined in the studio by Rodrigo Souza, a senior lecturer in finance at the Business School of the University of Roehampton who is one of the co-organisors of the event. 

For the detailed programme and to register:

https://climate-resilience.uk/

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/climate-resilience-and-emerging-risks-turning-threats-into-opportunities-tickets-1985270060192

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Chitzi Ogbumgbada argues why governments should ensure energy security, how the African communitarian approach addresses renewable energy injustices, and why the individual actions of countries will never bring us even close to the goals of the Paris agreement.

Chitzi is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter. His PhD thesis developed an African communitarian approach to global energy justice and demonstrated how this approach could be operationalised through international climate law and international human rights law to address renewable energy injustices. His primary research interests lie at the intersection of international energy and environmental law and are mainly concerned with how legal obligations interact with issues like climate change, energy security, and clean energy, conceptualised through the energy justice framework developed along African philosophy. 

5:13: UK Climate Change Act: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/contents

9:15: about consultation with the community to secure extracting of critical minerals in Cornwall

10:15: about the Niger delta and how neglecting led to vice and violence

14:00 free market versus welfarism

17:30: about the distribution of renewable energy benefits across international communities

19:20: COP28, Dubai: the first Global Stocktake: https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake

22:20: why it is so difficult to phase out fossil fuels

27:00: about options that save the planet and are gentle on the wallet

29:20: Rapid Fire game with words starting with ‘I’, the 9th letter of the alphabet

• IPCC
• Industrialisation
• Inaction

31:50: there should not be any conflict between industrialisation and conservation

32:55: it is our actions that have caused us climate change and it is our inaction that stops us addressing this issue

34:50: about the African communitarian approach to energy justice

35:40: about the leading professors of the political philosophy of African communitarian approach

Professor Thaddeus Metz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaddeusmetz/

Professor Kwame Gyekye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Gyekye

The essence of African comm: relationalism: how we relate to others

44:30: incorporating energy justice in the law school curriculum

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Simon King argues how one can make sustainability the competitive edge of their organisation, why climate credibility matters for young people, if sustainability is primarily a management or a technological issue and why local authorities cannot afford to follow net zero.

Simon is a senior partner in Edenseven, a management consultancy firm that helps companies of all sizes achieve their sustainability goals and work towards net zero emissions. Edenseven provides sustainability solutions across a diverse range of industries in both the public and private sectors, for example focusing on buildings, electricity, supply chain, and transport. They develop effective strategies informed by data to ensure quantifiable results that deliver carbon reduction, cost savings, compliance with regulations, and enhanced credibility with stakeholders.

Highlights

7:50: About the 3 scopes of carbon emissions

12:25: about Science Based Targets Initiatives (SBTI)

17:40: how should we overcome the bareer that local authorities cannot afford becoming Net Zero

29:20:  78% of millennials, and it's even higher on Gen. Z will consider the climate credibility of the organisation they apply to work for

31:00: University of Roehampton launching both an MSc Business Analytics and a BSc Business Data Analytics programme

40:10: why nature based solutions need to be part of the toolkit

42:00: controversies around carbon offsets 

43:10: Rapid Fire with letter 'H', the 8th letter of the alphabet:

• Heat pumps
• Heat waves
• Hydrocarbons

46:00: the wet bulb temperature and the human body 

52:02: the biggest thing every individual can do is advocating for change 

55:45: the analogy of mandatory seat belts and banning indoor smoking should encourage governments to mandate climate actions as well

58: 41: how carbon border adjustment (CBA) coudl contribute to people paying the full price of products and stop exporting carbon emissions to poorer countries

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Veronica White explains what makes one bike across the UK, and interview over fifty farming women across the UK. Is there a pattern for sustainable farming in England? How can farms contribute to sustaining food security? Are farmers to adapt more nature-friendly farming practices? How shall we prioritise between competing demands for land use?

Veronica is an ESRC funded PhD student at the University of Exeter, exploring visions of the future of farming in England. She describes herself as a creative and passionate environmental social scientist, researching visions for the future of farming and food production in England. Veronica advocates sustainable farming through sharing her journey across 85 days, 2000+ miles, and 50 interviews with farming women.

Episode notes:

3:55: the birth of the idea of cycling around the UK and interviewing farming women

6:30: the mental and physical challenge of cycling and interviewing every day

13:00: the split of roles between women and men in farming might be surprising

15:10: how surprising it is to see the differences between the farms. No two farms are similar

18:40: with climate change happening, is there a future for farming in the UK?

19:50: food security, education of the public and  competing demand for land us are farmers’ top concerns

23:15: farming as an aging industry but with strong potential to attract young people

29:00: the route for farms to produce, process and sell locally

33:00: are field trips important to understand sustainable farming?

36:10: Rapid-fire terms with ‘G’, the 7th letter of the alphabet:

• Global warming
• Green spaces
• Greenwashing - in relation to ‘farmwashing’

41:55: supermarkets making up as if milk and eggs came from those cute little farms

Farmers fighting against farmwashing: https://www.sustainweb.org/news/sep24-farmers-against-farmwashing-campaign/

42:40: the research group Center for Climate Communication and Data Science: https://c3ds.ex.ac.uk/

44:40: individuals should support local farmers and cut back on meat

47:30: through taxing and regulation, companies should be forced to do more to save the planet

50:40: your power to vote and support those who really mean sustainability 

52:20: The Farming Futures Cycle Tour: https://youtu.be/iDPS9EYVxHY?si=qWfXCFqmsHqHBJas

If you liked the episode, make sure to follow Ready, Steady, Green! on your favourite podcast channel, share the episode with your friends and invite others to listen. You can catch up with our earlier episodes and tell who would you like to hear next. Help us get the message through: We must act on sustainability now!  
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Leo Rayman argues why it is both a moral duty and a career advancement opportunity to come up with sustainability solutions, why the atmosphere of a climate tech conference is different to a sustainability conference; how the ability to control the local things will lead to controlling the big stuff; why innovation should not be a dilemma but the fundamental focus and why putting a degrowth in the diary of company management will never work.

Leo is the founder & CEO of EdenLab (edenlab.co) and the former CEO at Grey Consulting. His main focus is to make sustainability something that leaders and customers want to do, and to how, through communications and marketing, sustainability can be made more engaging and exciting. He is working with company managements to reinvent their businesses successfully.

Highlights of the Episode

2:40: EdenLab: https://www.edenlab.co/whoweare

24:45: why sustainability communication often fails and how it could be made to stick.

25:55: John Marshall pioneering simple climate messages: https://www.ted.com/speakers/john_marshall

26:30: why we should be talking about energy security and comfort, instead of grid flexibility and kilowatt hours

30:47: the innovation dilemma of large companies, as explained by Clayton Christensen, https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/disruptive-innovation/

31:20: what the food system will be like in 2036?

31:55: living the new frugal experience and on future back thinking

36:30: Rapid-fire quiz of the day: thoughts about the key words with the 6th letter of the alphabet, ‘F’:

• Fossil fuel
• Fast fashion
• Full cost pricing

37:12: living off the back of ancient sunshine instead of today's sunshine

37:30: reframing fashion through vintage

38:48: the National Bureau of Economic Research on the real cost of carbon:  https://www.nber.org/papers/w32544

The social cost of carbon: https://www.rff.org/topics/scc/

https://www.energymonitor.ai/features/could-the-global-cost-of-climate-change-really-be-six-times-worse-than-thought/

39:26: proposed carbon take back obligation: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/12/fossil-fuel-producers-must-be-forced-to-take-back-carbon-say-scientists

42:06: living in the period of ‘in the Meanwhile’

42:50: ‘Power Station’ film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38567062/

44:42: Copmitment, 52 video threads of climate positive actions: copmitment.com/actions

47:20: the importance of thinking of an abundant positive future

48

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Franzisca Weder believes in activist academics who don't just stand on the sidelines; sustainability communication needs to build on exciting and disruptive stories; to underline climate emergency one has to speak about the burning issues that effect everyone, instead of mentioning climate change; people need spaces to come to agreement about what they mean by sustainability; and noticing the fundamental difference between companies that make sustainability part of their DNA and those who just do greenwashing.

Franzisca is Professor in Organisational and Sustainability Communication at the Department of Business Communication at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria. She has over 20 years of experience in researching, writing and teaching in the areas of Organisational Communication and Public Relations with a specific focus on Sustainability Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility. Before joining the Department of Business Communication, Franzisca worked as Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and the University of Klagenfurt.

Highlights of the episode:

5:10: about the age of polycrisis

17:20: about Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion and the Last Generation

20:15: YOUGOV research about global sustainability scepsicism:  https://yougov.com/articles/46714-more-than-half-of-global-consumers-are-skeptical-of-a-brands-sustainability-claims

23:30: about the changing role of Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG

25:20: about affording to be sustainable

30:22: about throwing away an empty jam jar

33:30: link to book chapter on climate journalism: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003044253-39/sustainable-journalism-crisis-casey-fung-franzisca-weder

34:50: about the importance of having opinionated journalism

36:55: about how to step on students’ toes and make teaching ‘really different’

37:30: link to paper: Still Watching From the Sidelines? The Case for Transformative Environmental Communication Scholarship | International Journal of Communication https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20507

39:30, Rapid Fire test of the day: thoughts about key words with the 5th letter of the alphabet, ‘E’:

- emergency
 - ethical investment
 - ESG

46:40 about the university carbon balance and academics flying to conferences

48:02: about the importance of keeping asking questions

If you liked the episode, make sure to follow Ready, Steady, Green! on your favourite podcast channel, share the episode with your friends and invite others to listen. You can catch up with our earlier episodes and tell who would you like to hear next. Help us get the message through: We must act on sustainability now!  
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Filipe Machado Franca claims it is time that indigenous voices that had been silenced and suffered are finally brought to the table, why nature restoration efforts are more than just throwing seeds in the ground, why sister tree and brother jaguar are our family and how tropical forest fieldwork in Brazil, Ghana and Malaysia help understand what is happening in Sweden and Romania. 

Filipe is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, and Researcher at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Brazil. He is a native of Brasil, has a PhD in the science of tropical environments, and studies lives of the smallest insects to the largest tropical forests.

Highlights of the podcast include:

3:05: How does one become a researcher of tropical forests?

5:50: How to combine managing tropical fieldwork of 25 people with a university senior research fellow role at the University of Bristol

9:52: Fieldwork in Brazil, Ghana and Malaysia as UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellow

11:57: Tropical forests are not the lung, but the heart of the Earth! 

14:00 COP30: The uplift of indigenous voices vs fossil lobbyists hindering the roadmap

15:00: About talking to Mary Creagh, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the UK, Marina Silva, Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil and Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil

21:10: Urban wildlife surrounds us

22:55: ‘I think insects’

23.10: The importance of urban forests

25:30: link to the Amazonia book of Sebastiao Salgado book: https://amzn.eu/d/fFHbVd7

27:10: link to the museum of Amazonias museum with an exhibition of Sebastian Salgado, showing planting of 3 million trees, to turn bare land to a restored tropical forest: https://www.instagram.com/museudasamazonias/

30:00: The risks of planting non-native species, co-authored and published in Science: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aba2225

31:45 - lessons from the temperate climate: forest management in Sweden and Romania

36:28 Reacting to terms starting with letter ‘D’, the 4th letter of the alphabet:

• decarbonisation
• durability
• diversity

41:00: Day dreaming about the ideal world: mobilisation of individuals, accountability of governments, responsibility of businesses

43:50: It is a problem that scientists and politicians usually have different timeframes

46:30: Importance of water footprint

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Anne Robertson, a professor of ecology at the University of Roehampton in London, speaks about why fieldwork is essential to understand what is happening to our rivers; how cutting back on screen time could help youth volunteering, extended droughts and flooding are proof of the climate change; why is it we don't know where our rivers are coming from and why have COPs lost their purpose and what can be done about that.

Water ecosystems are in the centre of her research and teaching, including freshwater biodiversity in groundwaters and the impact of climate change on disturbances of freshwater ecosystems.

Highlights of the podcast include:

6:30: state of our rivers globally

8:10: river contamination in Zambia: https://www.birdlife.org/news/2025/03/07/environmental-disaster-unfolds-in-zambia/

9:10: should industrialisation and pollution go necessarily hand in hand?

10:10: education, motivation and mobilisation to act on saving the environment

11:10: do we need another pandemic to reconnect with nature?

14:35: Rights of Nature: https://www.garn.org/rights-of-nature/

https://www.lawyersfornature.com/blog/rights-of-nature-in-the-uk-from-vision-to-viability

17:08: about the River Ouse, Sussex: https://loveourouse.org/

18:22: guardians of rivers and AI driven sensors for citizen science

https://sheffield.ac.uk/news/cloud-based-ai-helps-reduce-river-pollution

19:58: More than Human - exhibition in the Design Museum, London: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/more-than-human

21:00: worldviews on nature and the rights of nature movement

24:58: about the state of our groundwaters

26:30: where is our water coming from

30:42: Thirst, in Search of Freshwater  - exhibition of the Wellcome Collection, London  https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/thirst-in-search-of-freshwater

31:47: slowing down the water and setting fresh flowing rivers:

https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/nature-restoration-regulation_en

35:12: overstepping planetary boundaries: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html

38:38: tension between the words of sustainable and development

39:30: C letter Rapid-Fire words:

• Climate scepticism
• Carbon sink
• Collaboration
• COP movement

45:36: teaching sustainability and the problem with siloed education

48:00: taking up volunteering opportunities 

If you liked the episode, make sure to follow Ready, Steady, Green! on your favourite podcast channel, share the episode with your friends and invite others to listen. You can catch up with our earlier episodes and tell who would you like to hear next. Help us get the message through: We must act on sustainability now!  
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Ash is an experienced sustainability workshop facilitator and climate educator. He is Director of Climate Clarity whose mission is to raise awareness and empowerment around the climate and ecological crisis using mainly Climate Fresk workshops. What is the future of sustainability education? Is talking about climate in the classroom enough? How shall we get young people engaged in tackling the climate emergency? We look at what individuals, companies and governments would need to do differently.

Highlights of the episode:

3:30: One in every 25 participants at COP 30 is actually a fossil fuel lobbyist: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/14/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop30

7:48: Pew Research on dip of number of people concerned about climate change: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/08/19/global-climate-change-as-a-threat/

14:00: I find that when people come to these workshops, it can create quite a big shift in kind of culture or experience in ‘oh, I'm now a person who talks about climate change'.

18:28: Top climate action tips:

• Grantham Institute, Imperial: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/stories/climate-action/
• Take the Jump: https://takethejump.org/six-shifts-help
• Natural History Museum: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/galleries-and-museum-map/fixing-our-broken-planet.html

21:10: Personally, I have a dream of engaging my neighbours in a food cooperative purchasing from a wholesaler nice organic food,  at lower prices and then distributing on the street. 

27:05: Sometimes there's a bit of a veil up between us and the organisation,  they might have a degree of secrecy of keeping information private and not wanting to disclose too many secrets.

35:00: Rapid Fire Responses - letter ‘B’: 

• Belém
• Banks
• Biodiversity
• Behaviour change

42:00: green skills, sustainability skills and learning: https://www.isepglobal.org/sustainability-skills-map/#thirteencompetencies

43:40: Axa Climate School

https://axaclimateschool.com/

48:50 Take the time to understand what are major risks in your area and sit down with family and friends and ask what is our plan here. 

49:35: the potential collapse of AMOC with sea ice down to Liverpool: https://www.carbonbrief.org/ocean-current-collapse-could-trigger-profound-cooling-in-northern-europe-even-with-global-warming/

55:00: National Emergency briefing: 

If you liked the episode, make sure to follow Ready, Steady, Green! on your favourite podcast channel, share the episode with your friends and invite others to listen. You can catch up with our earlier episodes and tell who would you like to hear next. Help us get the message through: We must act on sustainability now!  
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