Humanitarian psychologist, Sakshi Bansal is a strategy consultant and sustainability advisor for Arup and the recipient of The Diana Award – the highest civilian award for humanitarian work across the globe.

She is also the world’s first UNESCO Kindness Leader based on her work as the founder of Project LEAP, a social service project with over 300 volunteers based in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, pan Africa and throughout Australasia, who deliver capability development training to climate activists and sustainability leaders around the world. 

Sakshi discusses global ambitions for sustainability, people and the planet, and how big corporations are adopting a shift in mindset to embrace the benefits of working more sustainably by mobilising their investments to support ESG goals in emerging markets.

If we all took a moment to consider how to re-use materials rather than recycle we would be one step closer to repairing our planet.

 These are the sentiments of Duncan Baker Brown, a practicing architect, academic, environmental activist and author of ‘The Re-Use Atlas: a designer’s guide towards a circular economy’. 

Duncan founded his practice BakerBrown, a research-led architectural practice and circular economy consultancy, to address the huge demands presented by the climate and ecological emergency. During this podcast, Duncan talks to host, Dr Graham Kelly about his passions for sustainability and his drive to transform the design process to utilise existing building materials rather than sourcing new ones through a re-use economy.  

Futurist and award-winning inventor Sally Dominguez has a dual background in Architecture and Entrepreneurship, she is a faculty member at Singularity University and coaches business leaders in Moonshot Thinking, 10X strategy, and sustainable transformation. 

Famed for saying that innovation is her touchstone to helping others activate their creative confidence, host Dr Graham Kelly asks Sally what drives her to empower others to improve their confidence and explain more about her 10x Mindset approach. 

The pair talk about continuous growth and productive optimism, personal and professional resilience and one of Sally’s favourite hot topics, AI. When asked for her AI future predictions, Sally responds: “I encourage people to let go of knowledge, move outside of what they know into the realm of possibility. I like to put power into the hands of the people. I like people generating their own power and sharing it. I like that all the people on this planet have say about their future.”

The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom (UK) belonging to the British monarch. It is one of the largest property managers in the UK, administering property worth £15.6 billion.

In this first episode of the new Okana Podcast, host, Okana Managing Director Dr Graham Kelly invited Judith Everett, Executive Director of Purpose, Sustainability and Stakeholder for the Crown Estate, to talk about its commitment to sustainability and why it is placing an emphasis on net zero and biodiversity.

When asked what good looks like for the Crown Estate, Judith replied: “What good looks like is that we have this phrase of “everything is connected”. We really want people to be thinking of connected systems and how working in systems, and being part of those in a way that we can help drive change for a bigger dynamic flourishing ecosystem”.