Frank Krikhaar leads the Global CSR team in Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), a global corporation with 65 offices and 35000 people. DAN has worked on creating marketing campaigns to create mass awareness for the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as working with local partners to achieve behaviour change at a community level.

In this episode, Frank talks about his 6 years in DAN and how he achieved the culture change in this large global marketing agency and why people are now knocking on doors wanting to engage in sustainability.

Frank made the internal move from finance and strategy into sustainability. With a background in the creative and marketing industry, Frank emphasises the importance of using connections and relationships in building on the sustainability transformation within Dentsu Aegis Network.

Frank also shares with us where he takes inspiration from and his personal concerns of the future of CSR.

​Head over to Dentsu Aegis Network CSR page here.
​Frank Krikhaar tweets at @FKrikhaar

Business Week described John Elkington as "a dean of the corporate responsibility movement", a poll placed him in the top 5 of global CSR leaders and he created the concept of the Triple Bottom Line: he truly is the sage of sustainability. ​

In this episode, John talks about his personal journey over the decades pushing for sustainable development.
He discusses his work bridging the gap between activist NGO campaigners and those mainstream businesses looking to be responsible.

During the conversation he shares insight from the Volans report “Breakthrough Business Models: Exponentially, More Social, Lean, Integrated, and Circular.” John suggests that the sustainability industry needs to disrupt itself and how we need to think in much longer terms. A serial sustainability entrepreneur and thinker for 40 years, he started his first business, ENDS, in 1978 (which is still going strong), founded two high profile consultancies, SustainAbility and Volans, is the author of 19 books and is on the boards of 20 organisations. ​

Head over to Volans to learn more about Breakthrough Business Models.
John Elkington tweets at @VolansJohn

Ethical purpose champion, author and philanthropist, John spent over a decade with Business in the Community before managing several of the Prince of Wales' charity programmes. More recently John wears several hats within Omnicom, where his passion for purpose led positions is evident.

He brought all his learning from the last decades together in his book "The Power of Purpose", which has the tempting sub-title: "Inspire teams, engage customers, transform business" and has got into the Top 10 for Amazon, and Top 3 for WH Smith business book charts.

John is a #GameChanger within the world of charity, social enterprise and business, and in this podcast we discuss how anyone within an organisation has the potential to influence and add purpose to their place of work. 
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John shares his obervsations of the shift towards purpose lead organisations following the financial crash, the rise and fall of "CSR" and how to use the power of purpose to create a new culture within your organisation. 

Find see his Tweets here.

​Solitaire Townsend, Co-founder of Futerra shares the inspiration behind her new book, 'The Happy Hero', the Climate Optimism movement & successful Futerra campaigns

Solitaire Townsend’s Twitter profile  succinctly reads: “Author of www.thehappyhero.org. Co-founder of @Futerra. #ClimateOptimist”
 
In this equally succinct interview we dive into an exploration of what inspired Solitaire to become a green entrepreneur as a teenager, how that has influenced her to investigate the connection between happiness and heroism and the evidence of its impact. 
 
We discuss how she is passionate about communicating that whilst we must take climate change seriously, that linking climate and optimism isn't either weird or dangerous, and how we can deal with apathy around climate change by believing that we can deal with it.
 
Along the way we also find out about the work Futerra has done with the likes of WWF and Sky, their partnership with The Climate Group for #ClimateOptimist, the importance of empowering and educating women, and more, all in a succinct 26 minutes.

Andy Last co-founded MullenLowe salt in 2000 and in 2016 published the award winning 'Business on a Mission: how to build a sustainable brand'.

In this conversation we have a fascinating chat about his career, his clients, the book and the power of business to do good and grow profitably.

Andy advises brands and corporates on social purpose and sustainability communications and is a regular speaker and commentator on the power of business to lead positive change.

His consultancy was one of the first companies in the UK to be accredited as a B-Corporation, working on high profile campaigns for brands such as Unilever, Manpower and JLL. 

Pat Harned leads the Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI), regularly engaging with leaders of global corporations and the US Department of Justice as well as testifying before Congress. She was named one of the ‘100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics’ in 2014.  

In this wide ranging conversation, she shares how culture trumps compliance, the key to reducing corporate risk and her volunteer role as a baby cuddler.

Dr Jane Davidson has achieved many things in her time and this conversation takes us from her childhood in Africa to her current role as Pro Vice-Chancellor for Sustainability and Engagement and Director of INSPIRE at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David which is on a journey to embed sustainability throughout the university’s culture, campus and curriculum. Jane has won a number of UK wide awards for this work.
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A highlight of Jane’s career is her work, from 2007- 2011, as Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing in Wales where she proposed legislation to make sustainable development its central organising principle – the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act came into law in April 2015. 

Her work saw her being recognised as the third most influential environmentalist in the UK for the Independent on Sunday in 2009.

Listen to this fascinating journey through a life which has been devoted to inspiring sustainability.

 Just prior to the launch of their Renewables 2017 Global Status Report, which found there was a record of 161 GW added to global power capacity, for 23% less investment, I talked with Christine Lins, the Executive Secretary of REN21, which is based at the UNEP.

In this fascinating conversation, Christine and I discussed Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement, and why it may aid global action on climate change, baseload myths, fossil fuel divestment and how policy makers and innovative small businesses can help drive the renewable revolution.
 
REN21 was created in 2004 as a ‘Coalition of the Willing’: all those in the private and the public sector that are keen on advancing renewable energy. Their members span from national governments to different international institutions such as the UN, European Commission, World Bank, industry associations, NGOs and actors in the field of science and academia. 

In this fascinating and inspiring conversation Paul Gerrard, Group Policy and Campaigns Director for The Co-op tells us about why this grand-daddy of the co-operative movement was one of the leading businesses to campaign for the introduction of the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA).  

The interview also covers how the Co-op first started to address slavery over 150 years ago and how they have now developed a range of partnerships to help people in slavery to break free. 

I was also delighted to be joined by an expert in the MSA, Jessica Cresswell, from the highly-regarded consultancy Carbon Smart who asked insightful questions regarding the challenging area of engagement with suppliers regarding modern slavery.  

As an added bonus Paul also shares at the end of the discussion two further fantastic initiatives that the Co-op are delivering in their communities.

Ian Joesph, the CEO of Trustees Unlimited, a leading resource of trustees and board roles for not-for-profits, had a fascinating conversation with Adam Woodhall about the benefits of good governance, avoiding Napoleon’s and finding where the magic happens. 

Beginning life as a church minister, Ian Joseph has had an eclectic career.  He moved from being a pastor to working with those experiencing homelessness and drug addiction, and then took an interesting step into being a head hunter.  His heart was still in the right place however, as he continued working in the charity sector, recruiting the CEO's of numerous charities such RSPCA and National Autistic Society.  As well as being a father of three, Ian walks the talk himself as a trustee of a charity.