Harish Hande is the definition of a social entrepreneur. In 1995, after learning about the power of a distributed energy model, he founded SELCO India, which “provides sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses” and recently won the 2018 Skoll Foundation award for social entrepreneurship. Harish has won numerous awards over the years and has an incredible amount of wisdom to share. Today he also heads up the SELCO Foundation and SELCO Incubation Center which support start-up social entrepreneurs working to alleviate poverty. The SELCO family helps the underserved out of poverty and eliminates the environmental and health impacts created by today’s kerosene, coal and wood energy sources.

We talk about setting up a social enterprise in the 90s, SECLO's approach and business model, key lessons Harish has learned along the way, SELCO's impact to date and the other 3 arms of the SELCO family: SELCO Foundation, SELCO Incubation Center and the SELCO Fund. 

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Find the show notes here  

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"Louis Masai is a visual artist based in London. He uses his research on endangered species as a topic of discussion to heighten the general public’s awareness of the ‘sixth mass extinction’. When not working in the studio, Masai travels around the world painting murals in cities, towns, and villages. These are often of locally endangered species. His paintings have reached out to people in ways that environmentalists and activists find hard to capture. To this effect, he often works alongside scientists, and conservationists as well as environmentally minded companies."

This episode is a little longer than the usual because we were enjoying ourselves and found so many topics that were fascinating to cover with Louis including Louis’ inspiration, his evolution as an artist, his local and international projects and the role of his art in communicating important messages. If you want to jump to a specific topic covered in the interview have a look at the timestamps in the show notes.

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Find the show notes here

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Todd Lemons is an economist, engineer and ultimately, an environmentalist (quite the unique combo). Over the last 25 years, Todd Lemons lived and worked in South and Central America, Mainland China and South East Asia. In that time, he has:

• Served as CEO for EnVision Corp, an “incubator for sustainability technologies and a leader in the development of market-based environmental finance solutions”

• While at Infinite Earth, together with Biruté Mary Galdikas he founded the Rimba Raya Project, the first validated REDD+ project under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and helped define the criteria by which all projects are measured

In this episode, we cover Todd’s background, how he went from chopping down trees to saving them, the mechanisms being used to do this and how blockchain will be used to dramatically improve how carbon offsets are traded for companies and consumers.

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Find the show notes here 

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Aaron ‘Bertie’ Gekoski is an environmental photojournalist, presenter, and film-maker. Over the last 10 years, Bertie has been at the coal face of animal conservation around the world including exposing Namibia’s annual seal cull, pursuing the ‘tortoise mafia’ through Madagascar’s sacred forests, training as an anti-poaching ranger in Zimbabwe, living on-board a commercial tuna fishing vessel and reporting on Borneo’s ‘Sea Gypsies’. His articles and images have appeared in more than 40 international publications, winning multiple awards including the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year, photojournalist category. Bertie is a currently a TV presenter for the wildlife and conservation specialists, ScubaZoo TV (SZTV) and has a number of epic projects in the works including, the focus of our discussion, a project on the dark side of the on Wildlife Tourism industry. This is a long-term project for Bertie, kicked off by a trip he made to Thailand where he visited a number of popular animal tourist attractions.

This interview is a little different from our usual in that our topic is not a happy one. It covers Bertie's latest project which exposes the horrific cruelty behind the Wildlife Tourism Industry. The major objective of this episode is to raise awareness and educate ourselves and others on these issues and to ideally slow down demand and support for these types of cruel attractions. 

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Find the show notes here  (including the ink to Bertie's crowdfunding campaign)  

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Ana Berliner is the President of the ATN (Associação Transumância e Natureza), a not-for-profit organization set up to own and manage the Faia Brava Nature Reserve, which is a private reserve in the Côa Valley region of Portugal. The reserve was started by Ana and her husband 20+ years ago with the purchase of 20 hectares of abandoned land. Ana is also the owner of the guesthouse in the small medieval town of Castelo Rodrigo. She is an inspiring person who is the centre of her community, working hard to save endangered species and bring economic development to this rural region of North Eastern Portugal.

We really enjoyed this relaxed conversation with Ana on location overlooking the beautiful Portuguese hills and valleys. We covered a bunch of topics including: how and why she started the Faia Brava Nature Reserve almost 20 years ago, rewilding in Europe and the species they’re helping to save from extinction, how Casa De Cisterna along with other ecotourism businesses in the Côa Valley region are conserving endangered species and how the ATN and Faia Brava work to build local economic development.

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Find the show notes here 

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Hayden Wood is the CEO and co-founder of Bulb Energy, an award-winning renewable energy startup, based in London. Hayden has a background in management consulting and together with his friend Amit, spotted an unmet need in the UK’s energy market. They created Bulb in 2015 and have enjoyed the challenge of building a socially driven enterprise whilst delivering low prices and next level customer service.

We had a great discussion with Hayden on a number of topics, including his personal journey to becoming a co-founder of a successful renewable energy startup; the state of the energy market in the UK, how renewables are challenging the status quo, what the secret sauce is behind Bulb’s impressive growth and his advice on getting a next-gen startup off the ground.

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Find the show notes here 

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James (Jim) Norrod is currently the Chairman of Recyclebank and the President and CEO of Tellabs Inc. Jim has a tremendous amount of experience making great businesses better and has, in recent years, increasingly focused his attention on mission-driven businesses.

Jim has a pretty impressive business improvement and leadership track record including the following:

• Segway Inc. as Chairman, President & CEO

We had a thought-provoking discussion on the intersection of sustainability and business with Jim. He shared his thoughts on what the major differences are in leading a triple bottom line business vs a profit only model; what role consumers, businesses and governments should play in sustainability; if and when a Benefit Corp or B Corp type ethos will become mainstream; what businesses can do to use sustainability as an economic driver and many other nuggets of wisdom on making good business

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Find the show notes for this episode here

*Note: Apologies for the poor audio quality in patches on this one - Skype was not playing ball!*

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Umberto is a mountain guide in the Abruzzo Region and a naturalist photographer. He works between Abruzzo and Molise regions where, among the immense beech forests in the mountains or in the meadows, you can still see some extraordinary animal species. At the end of the 90s, Umberto had an emotional encounter with the bears of the valley which guided him to what has become his job. He is the creator and the director of Wildlife Adventures project and now he tries to convey the emotions he felt when he was young to those who walk along the paths and the mountains of Central Apennines with him.

Daniela is a conservation biologist who has undertaken several state funded studies of animal species in Abruzzo National Park, including the Marsican Brown Bear, wolves and Chamois (a species of mountain goat). She also works as a tour guide for Wildlife Adventures.

We spoke to Umberto and Daniela on location in Pescasseroli, Italy. They shared their favourite animal stories and the most impactful moments they’ve had in the wild. We also talked about why it’s important to spend time in nature, the role of eco-tourism in conservation, why humans and nature need to learn to co-exist and how the Abruzzo National Park has been successful in involving local communities. 

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Find the show notes  here

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Florence Gschwend is a PhD graduate from the Imperial College in London. She’s won numerous awards for her work in the use of waste wood for biorefinery applications. Florence was named as one of Europe’s most promising gamechangers under 30 by Forbes. She’s passionate about using her skills to help future-proof the environment. She now runs the Chrysalix Technologies startup which aims to further disrupt the behemoth fossil fuel industry, by turning wood that would otherwise go to the landfill or be incinerated into plastics or fuel.

We had a fascinating discussion with Florence on location at Chrysalix Technologies. We discussed a range of topics from her path to becoming a co-founder of a tech startup; the pros and cons of the bioeconomy; how Chrysalix Technologies aims to disrupt the 150 year old petrochemical industry; her tips, tricks, hacks and advice for scholars, students or anyone aiming to get their own tech startup off the ground.

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Find the show notes here

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Tim Flach is a world-renowned photographer. His body of work, which includes 5 published books (Endangered 2017, Evolution, 2013, More than Human, 2012, Dogs Gods, 2010 and Equus, 2008), focuses on a wide variety of animal species but is united by a distinctive style that is derived from his concerns with anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. His interests lie in the way humans shape animals, and shape their meaning. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Norwich University of the Arts in 2013. His latest project, Endangered, showcases a selection of species that are on or near the brink of extinction.

In this episode, we had the opportunity to talk with one of the most fascinating animal photographers in the world today. Recorded onsite in Tim's studio in Shoreditch London, we covered a range of topics including Tim's journey to becoming a self sustaining photographer; why he defines himself as an animal photographer and not as a wildlife photographer; what his favorite and toughest animal subjects in his career have been; the role art plays in communicating the challenges of our generation and how we can reconnect people with nature. 

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Find the show notes here

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