The last eighteen months have seen a global public backlash against plastic. Everyone talks about the huge impact that Sir David Attenborough and the BBC's Blue Planet series has had in raising public awareness about the damage that 8 million tonnes of plastic which enter the ocean every year is having on sea life. It was one of the triggers for consumers, governments and companies to decide that action needed to be taken. But what does it mean for businesses which depend on plastic as a core raw material or for the packaging and retail industries, both deeply reliant on plastic? Caroline Bayley talks to companies about the opportunities and challenges presented by the plastic backlash.

Presenter: Caroline Bayley

Picture Credit: BBC

Guyana, a country of just 750,000 people wedged between Venezuela and Suriname on the north-east coast of South America, has never had an oil industry. But a series of recent discoveries in its waters has revealed billions of barrels of oil beneath the ocean, potentially one of the world’s biggest reserves.

Next year, the oil is due to start flowing and the impact on business is already being felt. A shoreside oil service industry has popped up; workers who previously struggled to get by are finding stable employment; and cafes and hotels are overflowing with foreign customers. But encounters with the Venezuelan Navy, huge environmental risks, and legal challenges mean this is a business that is far from straightforward.

Presenter/Producer: Simon Maybin

Photo: A trainee at the Totaltec Academy in Georgetown prepares for work in the new oil sector

The face-to-face interview can be life-changing. But it comes with risks attached, of bias on the part of the interviewer, or nerves on the part of the candidate. Lesley Curwen looks at the fast-changing process of getting hired in companies, big and small. Large companies are increasingly using recruitment tools including artificial intelligence to weed out the weakest candidates, in order to find the right candidate for the right job. But there is resistance in some quarters from some small employers who believe in the old ways of sifting through CVs by hand to produce a short-list. So can the traditional face-to-face interview survive longterm?

Presenter: Lesley Curwen

Picture credit: Getty Creative Stock

Can the United Arab Emirates grow its own food? The Desert kingdoms today import 90% of their own food, at great cost. And each year consumption increases by 12%. This raises issues of food security, price and environmental damage – flying in fruit from California is not environmentally sustainable. This is a region with little soil and few water resources. On average it rains just five days a year. So why is agriculture now considered one of the most exciting growth areas in the UAE? Farmers here depend on desalinated water from the Arabian Sea – costly to both the farmer and, once again, to the environment. But new agricultural technologies are being developed. Starting at a small scale, can such businesses really be built up? Or are they vanity projects reliant simply on oil wealth? Georgia Tolley examines if the Emiratis can make their desert bloom and ensure their business of food production grows.

Presenter: Georgia Tolley

Picture Credit: BBC

The relationship between landlord and tenant is an important, often unseen, dynamic that most of us don’t give much thought to. And yet, it's reshaping high streets up and down the country. High rents are blamed for the collapse of so many retailers - they appear unsustainable yet they are the vehicle through which much of our pension wealth is invested. In this programme, Ruth Alexander looks at different models of ownership: from the big financial institutional investors through to the original aristocratic landowner and asks how - in the turmoil created by the rapidly changing retail environment - these landlords are facing up to a new reality.

Presenter: Ruth Alexander

Its top stars can earn millions of dollars a year, without breaking into a sweat. They train for hours a day and have legions of fans, who fill stadiums to watch them. But these aren't normal sports stars. They're part of one of the fastest growing industries - known as Esports. And, as John Murphy discovers, the distinction between real physical sport and this online, virtual version is narrowing, as major companies and some of the world's most famous football clubs are signing up the top Esports players to play in major competitions. A number of video games, including Fifa, Dota2, Call of Duty and League of Legends, have their own international leagues and world championships. The global audience is now estimated at more than 200 million, and growing. Annual revenues from Esports, currently around 650 million dollars for events, continue to rise. Billions more are generated through video games sales. In the UK the video games sector, from which Esports have sprung, is now worth more than video (films) and music combined. There's even talk of Esports becoming an Olympic sport. So will dexterous Esporters become the new athletic champions, or is this a business that will play itself out? Who is making the money and how? And why are top soccer clubs clamouring for some of the virtual action?

Presenter: John Murphy

Image Credit: BBC

Much has been made of the death of the high street, but some places are staging a comeback. The government has announced this Spring a £1.6bn Stronger Towns Fund to help less well-off areas. Six hundred million pounds of that will be shared out to towns which can come up with credible plans to help their high street adapt to the rapidly changing retail environment. So what does it take to turn a town around? In this programme, Ruth Alexander visits two towns in Cheshire - Northwich and Altrincham - which have tried two quite different approaches to see what works, and what doesn’t.

Presenter: Ruth Alexander

As the global economy slows and the search for new areas of growth becomes more intense, many countries are looking beyond their coastline to the vast, untapped potential of the sea. The “Ocean Economy” is now attracting attention from governments, businesses and investors, not only in traditional industries like fishing and shipbuilding but also in new areas like biotech and robotics. Integration is the watchword and one country, Portugal, is now taking this seriously enough that its government has even established a Ministry of the Sea. For this edition of Global Business Tanya Beckett visits first Lisbon, where the ships they built half a millennium ago sent explorers across the Atlantic and round the Cape to bring home riches from South America, Africa and India; and then Leixoes, an Atlantic Ocean port where a cluster of technology enterprises combines with the local fishing industry and an ocean cruiser terminal in the embodiment of the integrated model that represents the Ocean Economy today.

Presenter: Tanya Beckett

Picture Credit: BBC

There’s more money spent on innovation today than ever before. Yet the process by which we come up with ideas is still poorly understood. If only we had a better grasp of how great ideas are generated, we would have the key to unlock huge new waves of innovation and productivity. Adam Shaw looks at the growing study of innovation to uncover its secrets and looks at what companies and individuals are doing to make them more innovative than ever before.

Picture Credit: Getty Images

Five years after Uruguay became the first country to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, what does a legal cannabis industry look like? When the small South American nation of Uruguay made it legal to grow and buy marijuana for fun, an entire industry had to start from scratch. For producers, regulators, investors, and consumers, it was a blank canvas. Now, as Canada and more and more US states follow in Uruguay’s pioneering footsteps, what can others learn from Uruguay’s approach? And as even more US states and other countries legalise the medical use of marijuana, can Uruguay, which also legalised growth for medical use, benefit from being at the vanguard of a new - and potentially huge - global industry.

Presenter/Producer: Simon Maybin