Katie opens by admitting she finds herself saying "it depends" a lot when people ask which of two options is more sustainable and that conundrum is exactly what Firstplanit was built to address. What follows is a conversation about products as systems, why radical transparency sells, and why sustainability comms may need more complexity, not less.

In this episode, we cover:

More from Ankita

www.firstplanit.com

Linked: @ankitadwivedi

Resources mentioned:

UK Green Building Council

Wild Spaces

The Rest Is Politics hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart 

Hysteria hosted by Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco

Between The Covers hosted by writer David Naimon with writer, poet and translator Eleni Sikelianos

How giffgaff built sustainability and responsibility into its media planning

Giffgaff Responsible Marketing Manifesto

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

After almost 20 years in the industry, she stepped away from that role to study for an MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change, wanting to understand what actually motivates people to change. She also sits on the Anti-Greenwash Charter's Advisory Council, alongside its founder Charlie Martin, a previous guest on the podcast. 

In this episode, we cover:

A powerful episode reminding us that progress, however imperfect, communicated honestly, is what builds the trust that silence never can.

More from Pauline

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauline-robson/

The Anti-Greenwash Charter

Resources mentioned:

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone

Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Accidental Gods Podcast, hosted by Manda Scott

Screw This... Let's Try Something Else Podcast

Positive News

YearCompass

Vestre / The Plus

Tony's Chocolonely: Impact Report

Bump into Brum, Possible

The quote about partying, grieving, and activism during the HIV/AIDS epidemic that Katie mentioned comes from author and activist Dan Savage: “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Malin is joined by Paul Randle, who spent thirty years watching marketing — the most powerful behaviour-change tool ever invented — point in entirely the wrong direction, a realisation that first hit him and his now co-author Alexis Eyre as fellow marketers on a Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership course, sitting through session after session feeling, as Paul puts it, like they had devil's horns growing out of their foreheads. So he decided to do something about it: he co-founded the Sustainable Marketing Compass, which received 750,000 views in its first 24 hours on LinkedIn and is now embedded in programmes at Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership, the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the IPA. He co-authored two books with Alexis: Sustainable Marketing — The Industry's Role in a Sustainable Future, winner of the American Marketing Association's Leonard L. Berry Book Award, and Competitive Sustainability — Driving Change with Value, which asks the most powerful question in business right now — why wouldn't we? 

Paul joins Malin to unpack why sustainability's old opening line stopped working, and what he and Alexis built to replace it.

In this episode, we cover:

A great episode to remind us that real progress is won by finding the doorway where sustainability and business already want the same thing.

More from Paul:

LinkedIn: @paulmrandle

Website: Sustainable Marketing Compass

Resources mentioned:

Books

Podcasts

Examples of Sustainable Comms

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

In this episode, Katie and Malin record from the middle of the UK's second heatwave of the summer, with climate change dominating their feeds. Rather than add to the noise, they set out to do the opposite: share the good news stories they've gathered, proof that sustainability comms are being done well in plenty of places. From the green economy overtaking healthcare in market value, to furniture passports, tap water with a conscience, and a climate campaign borrowing its swagger from an unlikely source, this is Katie and Malin's antidote to doom-scrolling.

In this episode, we cover:

Resources Mentioned

Check out the photos we mentioned here

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

This episode digs into why Ingmar thinks the comms and marketing industry is the most under-recruited force in the climate movement and what he wants them to do about it.

In this episode, we cover:

More from Ingmar

We Don't Have Time — Ingmar's global media platform for climate action; the world's largest of its kind

W Social — the new European social media platform for verified humans; public beta launched June 17th

Make Science Great Again — We Don't Have Time's campaign reclaiming the red cap and the slogan for science

Resources mentioned:

National Emergency Briefing — the UK initiative that briefed over 1,200 MPs, business and civic leaders on climate and nature science in November 2025; community screenings are ongoing across the UK via The People's Emergency Briefing film

Berkana Institute Two Loops Model — the systems change model Katie references to explain how connectors and bridge-builders make impact even when it can't be measured in gallons of water; developed by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze

Patagonia Work in Progress Report 2025

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

Charlie's work is driven by a mission to promote honest communication, responsible leadership, and greater accountability in business.

In this episode, Katie and Malin dig into the mechanics of trust, the cost of what you don't say, and why sustainability comms might be the most powerful trust-building tool a business has, if only more of them were brave enough to use it.

In this episode, we cover:

If trust is built by consistently doing what you say you'll do and evidencing it over time, then sustainability comms isn't a risk to be managed; it's the infrastructure through which trust gets built.

More from Charlie:

The Anti-Greenwash Charter

truMRK

Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn

Resources mentioned:

Asket Impact Report

Strategic Sustainability by John Pabon

The Responsible Edge Podcast

The CMA Green Claims Code

Naked Paper

Patagonia

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

One of seven original designers at WeWork who helped create the coworking product that transformed the industry, Dean went on to lead design teams across New York, London, Shanghai and Tokyo, delivering more than 3 million square feet of workspace. That front-row seat to commercial real estate's endemic waste problem sent him in a new direction: in 2024, he completed the Circular Economy Masterclass at the University of Exeter Business School and launched his 'Circular by Design' furniture collection — a direct challenge to the throwaway culture he'd watched up close for two decades.

But it's not the furniture that brings Dean to Spill the Green Tea. It's something he said on a panel at the Surface Design Show earlier this year that stopped Katie in their tracks: environmentalism needs a new narrative. In this episode, they dig into exactly what that means and what it looks like in practice.

In this episode, we cover:

None of us can save the planet single-handedly but if we each play our part within our sphere of influence, that adds up to something far greater than all of us spreading ourselves too thin.

Resources mentioned:

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder 

Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy by Jonathan Chapman

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown

AI News & Strategy Daily with Nate B. Jones

Work in Progress by Dean Connell 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation Butterfly Diagram

More from Dean

Website: https://iamdc.co/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamdeanconnell

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

With expertise rooted in sustainable design and innovation, Caroline is a former founder and director of the Material Futures postgraduate course at Central Saint Martins. She is co-author of Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future (Thames & Hudson) and guest curator of Our Time on Earth, which opened at the Barbican in 2022 and continues to tour globally.

In this episode, we cover:

This conversation is ultimately about what happens when the courage to speak gets mistaken for the risk and why staying silent has consequences that run far deeper than staying safe.

More from Caroline:

Website: https://tiltfutures.co/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/tilt_futures/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tiltfutures/ & https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-till-b701626/

Resources mentioned:

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

Rob's two most recent books, From What Is to What If and How to Fall in Love with the Future, have made him one of the most distinctive voices in the climate space, not for telling people how bad things are, but for insisting that giving people something to long for is the most radical thing any of us can do. 

In this episode, we cover:

What emerges from this conversation is both a provocation and an invitation. The future as we currently envision it is dark and scary and we need to create a sense of longing or what Rob calls “memories of the future” for a more positive outcome to give people something to move towards rather than run away from. 

More from Rob

Website: https://www.robhopkins.net/

Podcast: https://www.robhopkins.net/podcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoodooright1968

Resources mentioned: 

You can view the full transcript of this episode here

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

Inspired by an article by Solitaire Townsend, they explore why so many businesses are falling short, why both greenwashing and greenhushing are the wrong response, and what brave, honest communication could look like instead.

In this episode, we cover:

The episode is equal parts reality check and rallying cry because talking honestly about imperfect progress isn't a comms risk, it's the most credible thing a brand can do right now.

Resources mentioned:

How to Dodge the Imminent Net Zero Mass Failure by Solitaire Townsend, Chief Solutionist at Futera 

Accenture analysis (November 2024) the fourth annual Destination Net Zero report, provides a clear-eyed, empirical assessment of where the world’s largest companies stand on their decarbonization journeys 

The Power of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) by David Emerald — on moving from the drama triangle (victim/rescuer/persecutor) to empowered communicator, challenger and coach (this is an affiliate link)

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey — specifically the circles of control, influence and concern (this is an affiliate link)

Eden, by Tim Smit (this is an affiliate link)

The Carbon Literacy Project

The Anti-Greenwash Charter

1% for the Planet

Brand examples: Ace & Tate, Patagonia, Tony's Chocolonely, Fairphone

You can access the full episode transcript here

More from Katie

• Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
• Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

• Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
• Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast