Find inspiration and guidance for the change you want to create and learn how others have achieved it in their life and work in pursuit of a more just, equal and beautiful future. Nourishment for the change making class.
Catherine Fitzpatrick is on the show today, and what an impressive career she's already had, all while her scope of influence continues to grow and the evidence of what she's affecting is increasingly visible and demonstrable. Catherine has 30 years of experience as a journalist, corporate executive and now an entrepreneur, she's an author and researcher and advisor to the NSW and Australian governments plus the World Bank. In 2018 she was awarded an AFR 100 Women of Influence in recognition for how she'd catalysed and then led the establishment of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's domestic and family violence strategy, but has since gone on to become the number one international authority on financial safety by design. Her work now as the Founder and CEO of Flequity Ventures has had far reaching impacts on the banking, insurance and essential services sectors, as well as playing a vital role in the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry in 2024 into how financial services regulations and frameworks relate to financial abuse. A series of ground breaking reports under the banner of Designed to Disrupt has gone a long way in piercing a bubble of ignorance for Australian corporates in how their products and services have been and are continuing to be misused for financial abuse - you can learn even more at Respect & Protect.I first met Catherine about eight years ago when she was stewarding that work on domestic and family violence plus an internal gender equity committee. Immediately I understood that I'd come across an operator of the highest class, and we worked together on a bunch of different initiatives and projects.The content of the conversation today may be difficult listening for many, while for some it could cause harm or distress. We cover topics like domestic violence, suicide, coercive and controlling relationships and behaviours, and there are many stories on how gender-based violence and discrimination show up in relationships in homes, workplaces and in our society. If any of this is concerning to you you may want to hit stop. If you do feel distressed listening consider contacting 1800 Respect.Catherine's working at the tip of the spear for how all organisations in this country and beyond can and need to step up. As bystanders to the behaviours of their customers and the use of their products and services, the obligation to design these with leading practice safety principles and outcomes in mind is paramount in a context where Australia's issues with deep seated and long held gender bias, discrimination and violence is apparent on a daily basis. We know that the scourge of violence towards women permeates our society, and Catherine's work is shining a light on how organisations can contribute to enabling perpetrators to enact fear, shame and isolation on women in Australia.I hope you take from this conversation Catherine's call to action - play a role, don't be a bystander. We all - especially men - have an urgent role to play in gender equity and creating a safe, harmonious world for women to live in. Til next time, thanks for listening. Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Humanitix. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use code FindingNature25 to get 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with InnerZone. RefereSend me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Marco Lambertini is on the show today, and where to start with describing one of the most iconic and visionary leaders of the environmental movement of the last 50 years. From eight years spent as the Global General Director of WWF, to being a current sitting member on the China Council, he was the CEO of Birdlife International too amid many other appointments. Marco forged a career in local and regional wildlife and landscape conservation campaigns, and with training as an ecologist and an inherent love of the natural world from before the beginning of his memories, having Marco and someone of his stature and credentials on the show is a remarkable honour for me. This was undoubtedly two of the most invigorating and insightful hours of my professional life to date.Marco was recently in town as part of his work as Convenor of the Nature Positive Initiative - a coalition focused on preserving the integrity of the Nature Positive concept and goal, drive action and provide aligned guidance to deliver it. The proliferation and use of terms by those in our industry can be dizzying - nature positive is one of the later arrivals and Marco takes away the jargon in this chat to help define our terms in plain language.His experience over 40 plus years is entirely evident in this conversation, and we cover a lot of ground - personal reconnections to the world around us, threats, psychology, magical thinking, a clear recipe to go from a nature negative economy to one that is nature positive, Financial flows, planetary tipping points, social tipping points, the rights of nature, dominance, nature as a security issue, measurement, governance, connectedness, and heaps heaps more.Spending time with Marco was a gift, and I've barely stopped thinking about many of the gems of knowledge and pearls of wisdom he offered up in our chat. He is very easy to find online with a google search. Go check out the Nature Positive Initiative and grab a copy of the new book - Becoming Nature Positive. It's available for order now and offers a compilation of some of the most experienced and knowledgeable nature positive actors globally sharing their insights, their guidance and their hope for the future. If you're interested in nature positive at your organisation, get in touch with them too.Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with InnerZone. Reference Finding Nature for 50% off a career reset program.Today's show is delivered with Regenerate Talent.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Ben Rennie is on the show today. A jack of many trades, from life as a prodigious rising star of Australian cricket during one of it most remarkable periods of success, to Dolce and Gabana red carpet events in Milan with Brazilian Ronaldo to starting and re-starting business endeavours to becoming the Chair of Design Declares Australia, attempting to quick describe Ben and his life is no easy feat. From walking away from the national game with everything in front of him to leaving a gig with bank executives and then pulling a professional geographic, Ben has done what I know many aspire to - change. I'm fascinated by the tools and practices that exist that sustainability professionals don't use - our reports and our frameworks and our LinkedIn posts have resulted in edge-case incremental wins by in large, all while environmental and social indicators of health, justice and security have eroded year on year. As someone from a radically different background, with a different mindset and a different approach to making an impact, I wanted to get Ben on the show to explore how I and all of us can understand creativity, what creative confidence is and the ways all of us can develop a broader set of tools to do the work we attempt valiantly day in day out.Ben's just published one of my favourite books in a long time - Lessons in Creativity: Stories and Strategies to Cultivate Your Creative Confidence. You'll hear how in this chat how the book's coming into existence is one long story of serendipitous moment after serendipitous moment, but so was my discovery of this book and then how much it affected me. I came across it a few weeks ago having attended a previous guests book launch - James Bradley - and Ben's book grabbed my attention. I checked out the title at home and realised Ben was described as a cricketer of rare distinction and wondered how someone who came through a system I was familiar with - stifled, conformist, eroding of every positive idea of self and amplifier of every insecurity, could write a book about creativity and live a life of twists and turns where making leaps from context to context was possible. I needed to read this book, and boy did I relate. It's part memoir, part guidebook part trade book and it's got something for everyone.In this conversation Ben and I traverse his experience as a seeker, his views on risk, fear and doubt, and how living for freedom is a transformative perspective to make decisions from. We chat about how he's upended and re-designed his life four times over, the role of connection, family, friendship and trust, placing faith in one's own abilities and deciding to pursue what's in your heart over prioritising what our society and culture expects of us and the way projections can cause us to shrink and retreat. We get into Ben's own progression to becoming a vocal and strong advocate for real impact and sustainability in his work and career, what Design Declares is and what we can all learn from a protocol of minimum standards deliberately designed to halt and reverse climate calamity.I absolutely loved this chat with Ben. I can't wait to spend more time with him, and to see where he goes next. He is extremely easy to find online - his website is benrennie.com while renystudio.com is where to find his design agency. He's a great follow on instagram too, so check him out and let him know how you found this chat and go and get his book.Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Bec Blurton is on the show today. A Noonga woman who has built a substantive career at the intersection of First Nations rights, climate action, justice, gender, policy and finance. Speaking with Bec was a pleasure and offered me many lessons. Understanding the experiences and perspectives of those who come from different backgrounds and circumstances, but where I find commonality in experience and belief is always powerful for me. I was humbled several times in this chat with Bec being reminded of my own inherent privilege, and despite the efforts I go to and versions of challenges I face, I'm fortunate to not face structural or situational vulnerabilities like many others who aspire to versions of safe, just and beautiful future just like I do. Bec reminded me again and in new ways that with my privileges comes duties to be of service and to be a proactive proponent for equity in our society.Bec is a powerful advocate for justice for First Nations communities and peoples, taking her extraordinary work ethic and directing it towards activating and building collectives and communities that find their voice, connect more powerfully to their identity and seek new modes and methods for justice and dignity. She is a Conceptual Foundations Working Group member of the The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures , Deputy Chair of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute's Advisory Committee, she's worked in large corporates and government, and is now the Managing Director of First Nations Affairs, is a Member of the Ballardong Aboriginal Corporation and is the founder of another climate collective.This conversation covers a lot of terrain - origins and identity, finding ways to do work without end and the necessity of seeking professional help and being involved with communities of solidarity, the lengths still needed to truly address First Nations inequalities, the green shoots arising in many parts of our society and economy demanding better futures, and the challenges and honest reflections of where being an agent of change is more likely and possible.We cover a lot of territory, and felt like a conversation with an old friend for me. I took plenty of learnings and looking forward to being more involved with Bec's work in the future. If you are too, Bec is easily findable online - head to firstnationsaffairs.com and search for another climate collective. Her work is vital, differentiated and shining a very bright light on how power and history combine to obfuscate reality and what's truly needed for more equitable and just futures.In the May edition of the Finding Nature substack, I'm exploring perfect imperfection. Maria Montessori said this, which I think represent Bec's actions for justice and equity “Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with InnerZone. Today's show is delivered with Regenerate Talent. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is Professor Carl Rhodes. It's new book season at the moment and Carl's latest offering is titled Stinking Rich - The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire. This is his latest work, coming after previous titles such as Woke Capitalism; How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy and CEO Society: The Corporate Takeover of Everyday Life. Carl is also the Dean of the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney, but he's also held professorships at Swansea University, The University of Leicester and Macquarie University. His career in the private sector involved senior positions at AGL, Lend Lease, Citibank and The Boston Consulting Group. His experience across business and academia allows Carl to have a unique and deeply experienced view on what make companies tick, how economic structures reinforce capitalist priorities to the detriment of a just society, and unpack and be clear on the role of governments and businesses in a western world where those roles are increasingly unclear and uncertain.Stinking Rich is a brilliant book. I loved reading it in preparation for this conversation and came away informed, hopeful, appalled and fearful. In a context where the rich are getting richer at faster rates, and the billionaire - from Musk to Gates to Rinehart to Cannon-Brooks - their everyday-ness in our culture is overt. Carl's book pulls back the curtain on the archetypes and drivers of the very very very rich, and how their access, influence and power is distorting democracy for the benefit of the few. It's easy to malign capitalist structures without deeply appreciating their origins and ontologies, as well as the mechanics and examples of how wealth becomes might. This book was illuminating for me in how it examined and exhibited the runaway authority billionaires have over our everyday lives in everything from medicine and health to climate action to politics and government decision making.Stinking Rich - The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire - like all of Carl's work - is a message about the dangerous path our society is on. Co-opted by rich vested interests and often outside the view of the public, this conversation illuminates what we all need to know and actively work to slow, stop and reverse.Perfect imperfection is about the idea that progress is what matters, that perfectionism is a trap of over thinking and a desire for control. Surrendering to what is better and acknowledging perfection is nothing but a myth is something I try to work on daily. After speaking with Carl and his call for new political imaginations that deliver economic justice and equality, this quote from Marilyn Monroe struck me as a relevant and a call to action for all of us: “Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius. It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with InnerZone. Today's show is delivered with Regenerate Talent. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Dean Spaccavento is on the show today. And if there is someone who embodies the mind, body and spirit of the enormity we as attempted change makers more than Dean does, then I haven't met them. In a week where we've seen nuclear energy and the Liberal party totally poleaxed by the electorate - and what a surprise that is - the race to decarbonise the Australian and global energy systems is absolutely on at the moment. For more than 15 years Dean has been on the vanguard of what a new energy system in this country could and needs to be. The distraction and denial that has permeated the energy transition to deliver zero emissions and support justice and equity for as many people as possible is an immense undertaking, and certainly not an undertaking I wish to sound dismissive or cynical about. Re-engineering and re-wiring how we all live and work on a daily basis is a staggering effort, and add into that vested interests who have demonstrated no interest in being part of this transition, the challenges of land access, problems of bad operators and poor practice, plus the necessary changes in our own practices regarding energy plus finding alignment on value propositions for new energy models is all incredibly complex.Dean has seen it all though, and as the CEO and Co-Founder of Reposit Power, his life's work since 2008 has been to been to play a central role in elegantly threading a needle that too often has seemed to have no eye. Reposit Power have created a customer proposition that is still unmatched in the market, where alignment between a customer who's homes acts as renewable energy generator exists with Reposit's technology and energy market service capabilities, then their ability to be able to work with a solar install sector that one third of the time doesn't deliver what they're paid to do, plus navigating complex regulatory conditions all within the largest machine in the world - the National Electricity Market, is extraordinary. And he does it all without being a far right sympathiser, hasn't sought prosecution for the head of an infectious disease department nor publicly slandered people seeking to help and rescue trapped kids in a cave in Thailand.Today's chat is a lesson and primer on the Australian electricity system and the transition we want and need it to go through. It's full of stories from Dean's experience - the ups and downs, the illogical and the logical. We chat about the increasingly bifurcated energy system we now have in place, the array of problems this causes, obfuscation by vested interests, the problems of accelerating technology evolution and the downside for the less well off and the crucial, central role of trust and truth in this grand endeavour to change the underlying functioning of our economy and society.Dean Spaccavento is a role model for me in how to go about making change - with perseverance, integrity and maybe most importantly, a sense of humour. I hope you take as much from this chat as I did.Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Climasens. Mentions Finding Nature when you contact them for 50% off your Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's episode is with Jane Rawson - an author, novelist and essayist whose new book Human/Nature On Life in A Wild World is just out and she's on the show to chat about it. Jane has a diverse and brilliant background where she's worked extensively as an independent writer, within governments supporting citizen communication initiatives and was also the Environment and Energy Editor for The Conversation in its early origins. Her work has focussed on bringing stories of climate change and environmental degradation to life, and how to think about both proactive chosen change and reactive forced change.This chat and her latest book is a fascinating one. I was immediately drawn in by the title and cover of the book - I always like to judge them that way - thinking this would be an autobiographical account of her experience of leaving the big city to connect with a life on Country and connected to nature. How myopic that view was - we get into in this chat but the book is unlike anything I can remember reading before. Part vulnerable memoir, part historical analysis of humanity's relationship to topics like extinction and species, part compendium of all that has been and is wrong with coloniser mindsets and relationships to ecosystems and the planet, but mostly a contemplation on the question - what is nature? How do we define it, what stories do we tell about it, what about nature is or isn't valuable, and to who, how do historical perspectives on how nature inform opinions on how nature should be today. I came away realising the bewildering ways by which nature is understood and treated when it is all around us, when we are literally nature. It left me feeling engrossed in an idea that much of what I do when I talk about nature is placing a sentimental value on something I have almost no idea about how it was at some ‘better or more pure' time.We go well beyond the boundaries of Human Nature in this conversation though. From the magical thinking of telling more people more information as a theory of change, that the array of societal and environmental problems we face are a symptom of the same core issue - a disconnected, extractive and violent view of the world and others, the struggles of reflecting on a career of work only to see almost all measurable indicators in decline and how reading and working are outstanding ways to avoid difficult feelings like grief, rage and despair.Human Nature: On Life in a wild world offers insights and poses many questions, I hope listening to this conversation with Jane does the same for you.Jane is easy to find online at janerawson.com and on instragram at janebryony. I can't recommend this book more highly, it's a fantastic read and available at all the bookstores you like to go into as well as the conglomerate digital marketplace too. Go and grab a copy and let Jane know your thoughts. Supporting writers who are putting their wisdom and efforts into writing - especially books - is important to me, and I know many a listener out there who value the same thing.The April Finding Nature journal hit inboxes last weekend on the theme of unity, and it's a cracker as always. There are now 12 months worth of these, and something like 30-something different vulnerable and wise offerings from people just like you in the finding nature community. It's available to read and subscribe to over at findingnature.substack.comSend me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Jocelyn King is on the show today. Joc is a Bundjalung woman who over the course of her life and career has worked to develop her own understanding of and connection to traditional knowledge systems. She's worked in and around finance for more than a decade, where today she is the Chair of First Australians Capital. At the same time, she's building a farm in NSW's Hunter Valley that reprises First Nations knowledge of caring for and re-awakening Country while adapting regenerative agricultural practices too. Jocelyn walks the talk as she seeks to advocate for First Nations justice, truth telling and self-determination, while also appreciating the limitations of working and interacting with capitalist neoliberal systems that do their best to erode equity, habitats and power dynamics.I was very humbled and very honoured to spend this time with Jocelyn. The sharing she offered and wisdom imparted on me - a non-Indigenous ancestor of colonisers - was remarkable to experience. My efforts as a non-Indigenous man to act in allyship with First Nations people feels too limited for my liking, which I'm ashamed to say, but feels true. My efforts to support, listen and prompt questioning feels like an area I want to evolve and advance this year, which I'm hopeful to do through our upcoming project Eating Country to Save Country. As a white man I was genuinely enthralled and privileged to have this time with Jocelyn.In this chat we cover a lot of ground - from reparations for past harms financiers have facilitated including the origins of banking in Australia to flipping mindsets and stories from extractive to responsibility oriented to the role of listening in truth telling. It felt like we barely scratched the surface but leaves me looking forward to speaking with Jocelyn again in the future.Efforts to make good for the harms perpetrated on First Nations people in this country for over two centuries has a very long way to go. The struggle is sobering but the resolve of Australia's First Nations people is a remarkable story of perseverance, unity and love, and Jocelyn does a beautiful job of offering her own experience, strength and hope here.The April Finding Nature journal hits inboxes this Saturday morning and it's on the topic of unity. Ina ll we heard from Jocelyn today and with that theme in mind, this quote from Tony Evans struck me in our combined efforts to seek voice, treaty and truth in this country: “Unity is oneness of purpose, not sameness of persons.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Climasens. Mentions Finding Nature when you contact them for 50% off your first asset heat risk assessment. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's show is with James Bradley - renowned Australian author who is returning to the show a year after releasing what was one of my favourite books of 2024 - Deep Water, Life in the Ocean. James' books have been nominated and awarded prizes all over the country, and in 2021 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for "service to literature as a writer'. He's written for the Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper and The Conversation. His work is incisive and always brilliantly written, and at a time when it's difficult to keep up or fully appreciate what is happening in our world, I always enjoy seeing James' work appear whether in book form, his essays or newspaper contributions.James is on the show today to talk about his upcoming book - Landfall. A return to more familiar territory for him of fiction after his first non fiction effort in Deep Water, this is anything but a normal read. Blending the science of climate change in a radically altered Sydney landscape in a medium term timescale, Landfall is a crime story where impending disaster, omnipresent surveillance technology, social dysfunction and forced migration are all background characters. This is a story of kindness, heartbreak, fear and hope. I loved reading it and I'm looking forward to getting to the launch of Landfall in Sydney on April 29 - search for James Bradley Landfall and Gleebooks to get your ticket too.James is a brilliant story teller. Landfall is another contribution on how we can think about time and futures, story and the stories we tell ourselves about the future, the practice of writing, writing as a tool and what all of this means for any and all of us who think in or use words as a medium of attempting change.Speaking to James and how he weaved kindness into Landfall, and with April's substack being on the theme of unity, this quote from Marielle Heller is very apt - “With all of the bad things that are happening in the world right now, I think we need a message of togetherness and true unity. I believe that starts with personal reflection and then we can find kindness toward each other.”Til next time, thanks for listeningEvents are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Climasens. Mentions Finding Nature when you contact them for 50% off your first asset heat risk assessment. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Hello out there, this is the Finding Nature podcast and my name is Nathan Robertson-Ball. I started this show with the intent of creating the types of conversations that I knew I needed but also thought people that work in the broad tent of sustainability wanted to hear too - combining discussions on the issues and problems our civilisation and planet face with the optimism of what has and could be done but also getting into the mindsets and philosophies of the people who have been on the frontlines of attempting and succeeding in this work. I wanted to have conversations that blend cognitive stimulation with emotional nourishment and spiritual enlightenment with the intent of helping me and hopefully you grow and evolve as a person and support our shared aspirations to contribute to a safer, more just and equitable future.Today's guest is Michael Bones, and when I invited him onto the show I thought maybe we'd have a chance of hitting those dimensions and the overlap between them, and it didn't disappoint. I absolutely loved speaking with Michael, as I have every time I have over the last couple years when we've connected over our shared love/hate of trying to work out how financial services entities and government can be far more proactive and take actually meaningful action on the dark shadow a changed and changing climate means for everything everywhere. Under Michael's cognition is an awakened spirit and loving human. We get through much on the climate risk and adaptation side, policy and the risks of capital flight in addition to the physical degradation of a stable climate. We chat about Michael's own grief and challenges when confronted with the breadth and depth of a changed climate, his own journey to reclaiming his own sanity and health, and he also manages to get a lot of me and my own despair and life meltdowns.April is about unity at the finding nature substack this month. Nick Lowles founded Hope not Hate in 2004 as an anti racist and anti fascist movement and this quote from him resonates after learning from Michael “It is in unity that we find strength; in unity we find hope, and in unity we can stand firm as the darkness approaches. Land us stand together - and stand firm - against many faces of hate”I absolutely adored this conversation. Michael is a special person, a gift to all of us as we navigate our own journeys. I hope you enjoy it and find your own story in parts of his. Til next time, thanks for listening. Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Climasens. Mentions Finding Nature when you contact them for 50% off your first asset heat risk assessment. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
I'm very pleased to bringing you a chat with Victoria Whitaker. I was really excited to chat with Vic - she's another of the originals of the Sydney and Australian sustainability crew like Lee Stewart and Nicolette Boele I've had the chance to chat with on this show. I did some work with Vic the best part of a decade ago when she was at The Ethics Centre, and it was immediately evident how thoughtful, well regarded and insightful she was.Vic has held a number of different roles in various organisations over time. From being involved in the earlier days of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership and running Al Gore's Climate Project in the UK, to joining Choice, working on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the initial Kevin Rudd prime ministerial years, she brought the Global Reporting Initiative and UN Global Compact to Australia, spent time at the Ethics Centre and was recently a partner at Deloitte doing all sorts of sustainability, human rights and social licence work.Vic represents the required breadth of knowledge, skills and capabilities of the sustainability professional. under that though is a person driven to make a difference. She has Always been looking to find a way to alter the trajectory of a problem or an organisation's contribution to it. It was a pleasure having Vic on the show to chat about the history of this work, her own stories and then the fundamental role of ethics, values and principles in decision making that is often the missing factor in a corporate sustainability machine that is now fixated on mandatory disclosures, mandatory ESG assessment and mandatory e-learnings. Change doesn't happen when you try to force it on people, and as we hear from Vic here, the reprisal and spreading of the original ontology of sustainability needs work, stretching back to what Rachel Carson's seminal Silent Spring from 1962 helped reveal.Chatting to Vic was illuminating. I haven't been able to stop thinking about the pursuit of more sustainable futures without different ways by which decisions are made which value and prioritise ethics, values and principles. The April newsletter is on the theme of unity, and in crisis it's easy to feel isolated and alone. Together though, we are far stronger, our unity is where our power lies. With Vic in mind, and the theme of unity, here's this quote from Thomas Paine which to me represents the situation of the sustainability professional “It is not in numbers but in our unity that our great strength lies.”Til next time, thanks for listening. Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Climasens. Mentions Finding Nature when you contact them for 50% off your first asset heat risk assessment. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Brian Schmidt is absolutely one of these extraordinary people - a normal person who's lived an entirely abnormal life. Besides being awarded a Nobel Prize, Brian was also the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University for eight years, including during the Covid pandemic. He's a physicist, astrologist and astrophysicist by training, receiving his undergrad from the University of Arizona then his PhD from Harvard. For more than 30 years he's called Australia home, making the move here and becoming one of the most significant figures in the history of humanity's understanding of the universe and our extremely small place in it.This was a brilliant conversation - covering everything from Brian's research to his time at ANU, his views on Australia's education system, the role of universities and how we can all approach learning, education and lifelong development. As well, we chat about how Brian thinks about hard problems, his own calculus in making a difference today on some of the world's greatest challenges from food shortages to nuclear proliferation.This was a real honour. Brian is a global leader in his field - one of the greatest that's ever lived - so to spend some time with him was remarkable, and I hope you take from this how within reach the extraordinary is. The newsletter is out this week on the theme of choice. With Brian on the show to explore and understand cosmology, astronomy and physics, the great Carl Sagan is appropriate this week - “We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us. Or we can squander our 15 billion year heritage in meaningless self destruction.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is someone I've wanted to bring on the show for a little while - Kaylene Langford. The reason why I wanted to have Kaylene on is because her job is all about helping people take their hare brained schemes or half concocted ideas and turn them into businesses. This matters to me - both because I've done it and experienced a remarkable transformation in how I understand and can exercise my agency in attempting to make a difference, but because I know just about everybody listening today does harbour ideas and visions of starting their own thing.Part of what I set about undertaking this year was finding voices that are adjacent to or completely outside the world of sustainability and to bring their knowledge and wisdom into ours. People who are creative, who are creating. At a time of planetary crisis and societal unrest, we need something new. More corporate disclosures won't reverse greenhouse gas emissions. More parliamentary inquiries won't deliver more trust in democratic institutions. New action is needed for new outcomes, and Kaylene is a master at helping you, me and anybody else get after that problem addressing idea you've got tucked away from sight. I wanted to speak with and learn from Kaylene - the role of story telling, the necessity of starting and the paralysis of fear.Kaylene is a business starter and owner of Start Up Creative, she's an author, a coach, a speaker. She writes, she hosts courses and workshops, she shares her lessons through podcast. Most of all though she's the type of unique and valuable voice I think those in the Finding Nature community need to hear, and it's such a joy to bring this conversation to you today.Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is a larger than life personification of that change - Kal Glanznig. Kal is a force - animated, enthusiastic, humble, curious and as a youth climate leader he's entirely committed to doing all he can to avert a climate catastrophe.Kal's successes to date are plenty.- from activating a school solar installation to launching a community anti-plastic platform, to scaling and changing a retail business to becoming one of the youngest local government councillors in this state to now driving a national youth eco anxiety mental health initiative. His list of achievements is extraordinary for a 24 year old though it's immediately apparent when you meet and speak with Kal how he's managed to get so much done already.Kal came into my orbit at the AdaptNSW conference last year where he made a pointed remark from the stage that he couldn't see any younger people in the audience - something that struck me then and we chat about today. I also learnt in preparing to chat with Kal that two thirds of young Australians experience eco anxiety and fear of the future of the planet. Two thirds - that is an incredible and terrifying number. I wanted to chat to Kal as I know my life is not as full of folks in their 20s these days, and this generation is both who are often driving so much action globally, but are also entirely dependent on all of us getting our act together and being effective in what we do whether its addressing climate change, plastic pollution, avoiding the impending threat of deep sea mining or being an advocate for the ocean.I hope you're as moved, inspired and in awe of him listening as I was speaking with him. Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Today's show is delivered with Econome. Check them out and add your application for their next Climate Stream starting March 17. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest though is someone I was very excited to spend some time with - Digby Hall. Digby is a renowned architect who for more than three decades has played a leading role in shaping and delivering versions of sustainability and resilient projects. More than that though, his thinking, influence and understanding of complex dynamic systems and being able to make sense and create practical actions that are necessary for adaptation is outstanding. To go with his registered architect label, He's also a Ted Speaker, advisor, PhD scholar and entrepreneur who has helped me appreciate that adaptation isn't just an abstract concept or something relevant only for the most at risk places and people around the world, but a notion that everything, everywhere will need to be evolved and changed to deal with a new climate reality. From the obvious like homes and coastal infrastructure, to food systems and how government procurement processes operate.Digby is a deep thinker and pragmatic operator, blending high quality research with his own extensive experience to now be one of Australia's - if not the world's - most astute purveyor of the necessity of adaptation.Alright Digby. As I think becomes immediately apparent in this conversation he has a legitimate understanding about the scope, scale and urgency of adaptation. Efforts to decarbonise haven't progressed as they've needed to and a result we all have an enormous amount to do in making the physical, cultural, social, political and economic changes required to avoid the very worst of the losses and damages that are now locked in from a changing climate.The March newsletter is going to be on the theme of choices. And don't we have some to make at this moment. To fight, to freeze or to fly. This conversation with Digby - and the choices regarding adaptation - reminded me of one of my favourite quotes from Jerzy Gregorek: hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.Til next time, thanks for listening.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Today's show is delivered with Econome. Check them out and add your application for their next Climate Stream starting March 17. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Emma Bacon is the Executive Director of Sweltering Cities and she's on the show this week to talk about and share more on the terrifying reality of what she describes as the personal tragedies of a hotter everywhere world.My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and welcome to the Finding Nature podcast. I started this show nearly a year ago and the broader endeavour that is Finding Nature as a response to my own disaffection and distress over the trajectory of so much. In that time we've had another record year of greenhouse gas emissions, heat records just about everywhere have been smashed again and the election of - and my favourite description so far - a useful idiot in the US has emboldened authoritarianism, emboldening dumb binary politicking and a massive retreat from organisations who a couple of years ago were all rushing to commit to play their part in the avoidance of planetary calamity. What halcyon days they seem like now.So Finding Nature is a response to that disaffection and distress. I have this show where each week I get to go longer form with the people on the frontlines of change making and impact creation, over on Substack I write about the Encroaching Apocalypse or a Glorious New View and also collect the views and contributions of many others in our community. Lastly - Finding Nature holds events that bring life and atmosphere to this whole thing. Like a refuge for the people who often feel like mutants in the environments they spend their time in. Finding Nature is easy to find on Substack, Humanitix, Instagram and LinkedIn, and then we're on all the podcast platforms including the one you're listening to this episode on now.OK so Emma Bacon, Sweltering Cities and heat. This topic legitimately terrifies me. As a civilisation dependent on a goldilocks climate zone for our stable existence, what happens as we enter a new climate era - defined primarily by not only more frequent and intense disasters - but by the ratcheting up of heat everywhere. From average temperatures and the ways by which that affects the delicate cycles of life in specific locations, to blasting furnace heat waves that obliterate heat records and cause widespread suffering, loss, death and damage. So much of the climate crisis is esoteric or abstract for the regular person - but everyone knows heat. It's inescapable, and it's arrived and arriving. Emma outlines plenty in this chat - the despair over how decisions makers at all levels can't hide behind plausible deniability as a valid reason for inaction, how vested interests lock in structural inequality and worsen conditions through inappropriate building standards and the ways by which everyone everywhere is at risk of heat.We cover a lot of ground in this chat, and I hope you come away not only more informed but ready to action.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Today's show is delivered with Econome. Check them out and add your application for their next Climate Stream starting March 17. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is a really fun one - Bel Chellingworth - none other than the Garbologist - joins to chat all things waste, packaging, circularity, business models, structural change and individual agency.Bel's career to date spans government, corporate and is now Director and Principal Consultant of BC Consulting, continuing to help business and community reduce waste and make circular economy real. Previously she's led the circular economy portfolio for the London School of Economics, The GPT Group, Australia Post, and ALDI Stores AU - always advocating for prevention, reuse and repair to be the first responders to waste issues.Waste is a topic that daunts me. My first few years out of uni were working in and around waste - from compliance driven packaging reporting to staff education on bins to municipal scale biowaste renewable energy projects. It left me pretty scarred, and to be honest it's a problem I am familiar with but not overly involved with or participating in. When I heard the story of Bel and the remarkable feat she has achieved in reducing her own personal waste footprint to essentially zero I was spurred to go and listen to her and the stats and trajectory of basically every product and their waste was overwhelming. I knew I had to get over my own anxieties and avoidance and get Bel on the show.And she doesn't disappoint. I took an absolute tonne from this chat - from the invisible forces of industry power to convoluted regulatory and legislative frameworks that don't serve environmental outcomes, to the ways new types of business are embedding actual circularity into their business models from the get-go as opposed to trying to retrofit existing broken systems and paradigms, and then her own journey and experiences in shifting her own practices.She also appears regularly in the Australian media as an expert 'Garbologist' and has a residency on ABC Radio Nightlife, the program aptly named 'Waste Not, Want Not' fortnightly broadcasting all around the country, demystifying circularity, and making actions for waste prevention clear and accessible for everyone. Bel is an example of personal change and the power of attraction over promotion. How by being the example as a lighthouse she helps inspire and allow others to realise what their potential is and how they can make a valuable contribution to environmental protection and sustainability. I had such a blast chatting to Bel, and she's helped reform me on my own waste system anxieties and avoidance. Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Today's show is delivered with Econome. Check them out and add your application for their next Climate Stream starting March 17. Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is Zack Schofield - one of the lead organisers and who Murdoch media describe as a prominent member of the climate action and activist group Rising Tide. Now I know protest and civil disobedience isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I suspect just about everybody listening to this show has joined one at some point - whether the school strike for climate, one seeking justice regarding Indigenous deaths in custody, respect for women and an end to gender based violence, or maybe it was the Rising Tide prostevial in Newcastle in November last year or in 2023, they certainly have a role to play. From just being able to capture the energy and zeal of a group through to being a deliberate effort to raise anger and demand a response. Personally I think they are important, and as Zack points out in this chat so much social and political change over time has been born out of and the result of acts of protest, boycott and strikes. At the same time though, I appreciate they are not everyone's cup of tea.During a planetary crisis, when fossil fuel projects continue to be approved for expansion here and abroad - which is against the science and I would have thought contradicts climate commitments and the actual decarbonisation of our economies and societies - I wanted to bring Zack's experiences and stories to you today and to share more about what drives him, what Rising Tide is about and how to make sense of and discern the aspirations and demands of such entities in the grand tapestry of meaningful and effective action.I was in a near constant state of awe speaking with Zach about his and the efforts of other activists out there. This is an emergency, and while there is a need and space for the work many do in corporates or start ups or academic research or policy development and implementation, increasingly I think there is a space for a movement of direct action to hamper and restrict the fundamental cause of the climate crisis - generating emissions.Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.Follow on LinkedIn, Substack and Instagram. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today I'm launching and introducing to you the listener and the reader over on the Finding Nature Substack a project titled The Encroaching Apocalypse or A Glorious New View.Like all things Finding Nature I feel compelled to examine and imagine what could be possible, but I want to know more about the barriers and the blockers of the present moment. I've spent the past few years working almost exclusively in the baffling world of climate risk management - the science of climate, the efforts to convince people that benign historical data is no indicator of a future we've never experienced as a civilisation, the visible progressive degradation caused by more frequent and intense disasters - often in new and expanded locations, but also the invisible progressive decline of how financial institutions are working out how to manage their enterprise risk and the types of restrictions or barriers they're placing on access to the fundamental products people and businesses require to operate in an economy. The lack of action on changing building codes, the complacency of leadership, the sticking of heads in sand, the mindsets and incentives of the present and what those need to evolve to to avoid total calamity.Watching the recent LA fires play out I couldn't help but feel struck by how apocalyptic the scenes from Pacific Palisades and other parts of the city looked. I've visited and run on those now ashen trails and suburbs. Another city hit by something unprecedented. It struck me that these fires were just the latest disaster ground zero. The apocalypse another step closer, encroaching. Just this week North Queensland here is going through the downpour of all downpours. Yet life keeps moving on. CEOs do talks. Balance sheets seem unaffected. Politicians scramble for snippets.Beyond the doomerism though I want to know what to do, but also why we're so stuck. Where is the creativity, where is the novelty, where is the madness and the anger and the resistance and the outright petulance? What else do we need for that awakening at both individual and societal levels? More of the same that got us here will just result in more of the same. ESG surveys and benchmarks, time wasted lamenting disingenuous and disinforming politicians, another beige home energy assessment portal - this time with added AI, more AI for good. I want to go beyond that and explore intervention options, choice points, the invisibility of progressive decline, the potential imagery and metaphors by which to build new stories and make hope out of, to understand the relevance of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun in this day and age.Today's full epsiodes:Lesley HughesAlexander PuiKate CotterSam KernaghanRegina FeatherstonePaul OostingNadya HutagalungToday's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today'sSend me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Hello out there and welcome to or welcome back to the finding nature podcast. My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and this is my show where I speak to the change makers and paradigm busters who are working towards and making a difference in our collective efforts to make the world a safer, more just and sustainable place. I love doing this show, and over the last couple of days finding nature as an endeavour turned one years old - what started as an experiment by running hosted conversations at my actual job just like this and holding three pilot events has become this wonderfully enriching and meaningful undertaking. I'm very grateful for all the help and support and participation and listening so many have offered me this past year, it's been the greatest professional undertaking of my career and I'm really pleased to be bringing you another fantastic guest who's been on the vanguard of Australian and global sustainable finance efforts and changes.Nathan Fabian joins today, and he is a man that an introduction on what roles he's held and work he's done barely addresses the phenomenal impact and contribution he has made towards reforming and creating a new trajectory for sustainable finance in this country and around the world.Nathan's career has involved being the Chief Executive at the Investor Group on Climate Change during the hottest years of Australia's climate wars, advisor to senior politicians, a formative experience in management consulting and since 2015 he's had an array of roles and titles at the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment based in London and Brussels - from policy director to chief responsible investment officer and now chief sustainable systems officer. At the same time he was also appointed as the chairperson of the European platform on sustainable finance which developed and launched the world's first sustainable finance taxonomy. And in 2023 he was included in POLITICO's annual ranking of the 28 power players behind Europe's green agenda - a list involving Vladimir Putin as ‘the invader making the EU green'.This conversation was an absolute cracker. I've been replaying it in my head and recounting it to others ever since we sat down to chat. Nathan's experience and wisdom at the helm of some of the most significant efforts globally to re-plumb the financial system are simply remarkable, and as someone who has now spent a fair bit of career time in finance, this was both fascinating and insightful. From his experiences in multi-stakeholder dialogue processes to lessons from investment cases in the early contested years of clean energy policy in Australia to how he handles and manages his personal responses to breaking through the 1.5 degree barrier and watching the latest climate calamity in LA. This has something for everyone looking to make a mark in the world and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.Few have achieved what Nathan has not only in Australia but anywhere in the world, and this chat is essential listening for any of us striving to make big audacious change practical, possible and a reality. I hope you enjoy it.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
This week's guest is a huge one - the one and only Nadya Hutagalung. Activist, conservationist, film maker, model, mother and attuned citizen on Planet Earth. Nadya's experiences, her work and her own efforts to heal herself from all she has seen, encountered and felt is extraordinary, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be sharing this episode with you.Nadya's trajectory to stratospheric stardom in the mid 90s didn't come from a normal or predictive route - an Indonesian Australian child growing up in regional NSW, she was catapulted into modelling in Japan at the age of 12, and less than a decade later she was part of launching MTV in Asia as one of their first VJs. An innate connection to the natural world existed though, and before long she was sharing the stage with world leaders, heads of state and other public figures in bringing attention and awareness to issues such as wildlife trafficking and poaching, plastic pollution and the ills of fast fashion. Nadya's trajectory took a turn in 2018, when a series of stressful and life changing experiences and opportunities - from launching UN Environment Program reports, to reading an Uninhabitable Earth and a private session with His Holiness the Dalai Lama created a new set of conditions by which to continue to both pursue urgent and widespread change in reversing no shortage of problems, while also seeking to practice stillness and undertake deeper inner inquiry. In 2021 a serious and acute health condition put just about everything on hold, and before long she returned home to Australia for the first time in decades, and today, she's on the show to share in much more detail about all of this.Nadya is a fantastic guest to have on this show, and someone who represents and aligns with so much of my own thinking and the reasoning behind why I started Finding Nature in the first place. Her explanation that our society's out of control relationship to planetary boundaries is a matter of simple calculus is straight forward and clear, but what lies underneath all of the statistics and facts and rationale as to why action on any number of serious environmental problems is a broken relationship to self, to each other and to our planet. Unless we address our values, our worldviews, our beliefs, our relationships, it's hard to appreciate how this is going to end up any differently than the trajectory we're on at the moment. The other thing I wanted to chat about with Nadya was how to help people go from apathy to care, and what are the tools of inner resolve that are necessary when people do care. Because to care is to feel pain, to despair, to experience fear. They are difficult emotions and feelings to encounter and deal with, and as an attempting change maker, this has become increasingly important to focus on as the apocalypse continues to encroach with just the latest calamitous, unprecedented disaster.This time with Nadya was special. I hope from this you realise that you aren't alone in your own struggles, and that there are modalities, practices and people out there who care about who you are, how you're going as a person attempting to and making change, and that help is always available as you traverse the ups and downs of what life offers up on a daily basis. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Today's guest is someone who has absolutely been one of those people on the forefront of impacting business, our world and particularly the voiceless for the better. Richard Boele is on the show today to chat about his remarkable life and career - from visiting China and Tibet in the late 1980s and witnessing violence on his first day in Lhasa, to playing a vital role in making public to the world the deleterious impacts Shell's oil operations in Nigeria have had and the impact that Ken Saro-Wira had on him, through to how businesses today and their leaders face a seemingly overwhelming array of inputs, data and choices, all while juggling their shareholder obligations, community expectations, short and long term perspectives, responsibilities to respect human rights and the role of purpose and having a reason to exist that is more substantial than favouring extractive financial results. We also talk briefly about Richard's personal practices that have helped him stay sane, well and optimistic after all of these years working against, in and for business right around the world, as well as the tragic losses he's experienced as a father.Richard is somewhat of an idol to me. I had the grand privilege of working for him for seven years in the early part of my career, and it's annoying how I realise the role and value of experience and wisdom after the fact, when I've gotten old enough to recognise and appreciate it. Professionally he's one of if not the most significant person in my career to date, and the time I spent with Richard on jobs and around the office chatting about power, understanding relationships, always thinking about work as an opportunity to deliver a trojan horse and how systems and individuals relate and interact are things I've carried ever since.It was a great privilege to reprise my relationship with Richard, to catch up, to hear a few of his stories and be reminded that one of the best in corporate sustainability in the world is always at the end of a phone call for me. I really hope you get to enjoy this one, and feel inspired and hopeful by Richard's example.Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends, colleagues and on social media - tag me in with your comments - and subscribe.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Send me a messageThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageDr Anastasia Hronis is a clinical psychologist and founder of the Australian Institute for Human Wellness. She is a practicing clinician, as well as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney. She has published in a number of prestigious academic journals, appears regularly on TV discussing all manner of topics related to mental health and wellbeing, and has also performed at some of the world's greatest music venues as a concert pianist. If that's not enough, she's also the author of The Dopamine Brain which I found an utterly compelling and valuable read.With the growth in interest and understanding of how our brains work and the neurology that lays down the wires that inform and influence every one of our choices, behaviours and actions, dopamine has gone from being an abstract topic discussed in universities and health clinics, to a hot topic across social media, the news and in our culture. Seemingly all of a sudden everyone is an expert in dopamine, or neurotransmitters or how our brains operate and drive our lives. The Dopamine Brain myth busts, defines, explains and brings to life the incredible ways by which our brains work.Anastasia and I chat about this but also the role dopamine plays in both resisting and enabling what we do, which is relevant as we enter the second week of January and those resolutions or goals for 2025 become increasingly difficult to stay on track with. There's good science as to why that is - beyond the myth that this is all about willpower and unlimited levels of personal responsibility. Our neurology can dictate and open or shut opportunities to change, and Anastasia's book plus this chat reinforced that change is difficult for two fundamental reasons that are beyond the power of my will - changing my neurology involves a period of painful withdrawal where slipping and returning to pattern is a more convenient option despite the irrationality, while creating new pathways and resetting dopamine levels is physically uncomfortable and about re-organising the neurology in my brain. It helped me have compassion for myself as I look to make shifts and some transitions this year, why these have been so difficult in the past and also helps me hold onto optimism that the difficulty of these periods do eventually erode, and that light is shining at the end of the tunnel.Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends, colleagues and on social media - tag me in with your comments - and subscribe.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageFinding Nature wouldn't exist without today's guest. A man I've known for 25 years and has been a role model, coach and mentor to me through much of that. Richard Burton is the perfect person to be kicking off the new year. Why's that? Being the new year, no matter how much we seek to avoid the platitudes of new year's resolutions, I find it impossible not to experience moments and periods of reflection. Many of us have a bit of time and space from our usual routines, habits and obligations over this period, and for me that surfaces questions, aspirations, questions and ideas.Richard is a career coach, a recovering corporate executive, father, husband and truly one of the greatest people I have had the privilege of knowing. In 2023, when I was at a low ebb personally he reached out to me in a way that very few could. He sheltered me from the storms of change occurring in my life and helped create a refuge where I could begin to feel grounded and supported. Later that year, as I began to steady myself I knew something needed to change for me professionally. Lost in my own career, I was reminded of the value of coaching. Listening to others talking about the importance and role of seeking and receiving help for our working lives, it hit me that I needed to revisit work I'd done with Richard over a decade ago in exploring my strengths, interests and motivations to help me become clear on what my purpose is.Purpose I hear you say? That vague and awful exercise my workplace every now and again attempts to induce me to contemplate in 30 minutes of awkward group exercises. Or that hacky snake oil stuff just about everybody seems to be pushing with their hokey one liners and Instagram-esque quotes. What the hell is purpose? With Richard I was fortunate not to need convincing on the necessity of this work, its role in my life and why I needed professional help. So I went and got it and the gifts of help from a master of his craft was evident immediately. Relief and liberation in assessing where I was, where I'd come from, and able to begin to imagine what was possible. Not only was Finding Nature seeded in those coaching sessions, but my whole approach to how I turned up and engaged professionally was transformed.The work with Richard was organised, evidence-backed and experiential, and it progressively helped me re-connect to my own sense of confidence and self assuredness that had deteriorated in the previous couple of years. That gift was priceless, and as Richard says in this chat, our careers can be re-framed as 50 year investments, or opportunities to get lost. I'm grateful I took the action when I did, and it's changed my life.Richard has worked with thousands and thousands of people. From helping teenagers think about what they might to be when they're adults, to those experiencing redundancies, to Executives and whole teams.I need to offer a warning and apology for some of the sound quality in this recording - a technical problem has infected my equipment which I'm confident will be fixed in the next couple of weeks with some tweaks and replacements, but I'm sorry if it inconveniences or affects the quality of your listening experience.Richard changed my life in my late teens through our sporting connection, then again in my late 20s when I first received his career coaching support, and again 15 months ago. I hope you take from this some of what I have, and it helps to launch you into a glorious 2025.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageWelcome to the show and my podcast where I endeavour to have long form in depth conversations that matter - or at least I hope they matter - with thought and action leaders who are making positive change across business, health, society and politics.Today's episode is the second and final part of the finding nature 2024 anthology. I hope you managed to enjoy the first part reprising some of your favourite guests or coming across some new ones, and the second part is more of the same.The intent of these two episodes is to create a little inspiration, to help you set the right mood and mindset to reflect on the year that's nearly passed and better contemplate what may lay ahead for you, and launch you into 2025 in a state of clarity and optimism to ponder what it is you are going to pursue.These two episodes are my way of saying just saying that I hope you get to enjoy the new year period and to offer a huge thank you. Thank you for investing in my work. Thank you for being an incredible audience, for honouring the guests and taking on board their messages and calls to action. I love this show and I love the privilege of serving you all with a new episode each and every week, and I promise the year ahead is going to be even more of what 2024 launched for me. I really cannot wait for what is to come, to connect with so many of you, to learn from so many of you and to know that there is a huge and growing community of people who are looking to leave a mark in the pursuit of more just, equitable and beautiful futures.The Animals Do Not Want To See Us - Satyajit Das On The Perils of Wild QuestsDr Vanessa Pirotta is Forging New Paths: Humpbacks, Drones and Creating What Doesn't ExistSisyphus is No Obstacle - Chris Nunn on the Clarity to CatalyseTammi Miller Will See You Now: Work Addiction, Identity and The Perils of Pursuing It AllInternal Integration, External Actualisation - Mark Rowland is Here NowThe Voice of A Community: Nicolette Boele on Local Politics, Local Change and the Potential For A Real ShiftWe're Allies On The Same Team - Davina Rooney and Jorge Chapa Make Friends and Change BuildingsFrom Housing Dream To Inalienable Right - Kevin Bell is Reframing For DignityThe Slow Road to Gender Equality: Catherine Fox Wants to Break The Delusion and Realise The Power of Intention and ImaginationBuilding and Maintaining A Body To Live, Work & Play In with Dr John PanagopoulosChanges Requires Changing - Grounding Helicopter Thinking With Pablo BerruttiClimate Councillor LeThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageHey everybody, how are you all doing. Happy holidays to all the good people out there, and welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast. I do my best on this show to have meaningful, insightful and valuable conversations with people who have made it their mission in life to make a positive difference and to bring their stories to you.My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball, this is my show and thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, thank you for spreading the word with your friends or colleagues, or maybe today over the lunch or dinner table with your functional and dysfunctional relatives. Welcome to my first best of series, an anthology of the year that was 2024 on this show, where I feature excerpts from some of my favourite conversations.As many of you know, I got the Finding Nature show on the road this year after harbouring ideas and hopes and fantasies of heading off on a personal/professional quest to meet with, learn from and create a platform for courageous and persevering people who are making a difference in the pursuit of more just, safe and beautiful futures.As a podcast I attempt to reflect my own breadth of interests and passions across sustainability, wellbeing, meaning-seeking, personal evolution health and business, and I pride myself on inviting on a wide range of perspectives, experiences and mindsets onto the show. To have now hosted and published 42 episodes since starting in March, I'm experiencing both awe and surrealism. It's been such an incredible experience beginning Finding Nature - an act that has brought me personal liberation, new relationships and friends, experiences I couldn't have imagined and it's a real pleasure to be bringing you the first annual best of series.What You Don't Know Does Harm You - Nina Jankowicz Is The Valiant We NeedReaching for What's Possible - Emma Pocock's Vision for Sport as a Vehicle for ChangeIndigenous-Designed Finance - Bruce Chapman and Chris Andrew Want To Reflect RealityThe Open Secret Change Relies Upon & Sustainabilators Have Missed - Rob RogersSubversion and Exertion - Jess Miller Wants to Have Fun, Win Hearts and Change CitiesThe Word For World Is Ocean: James Bradley On The World In The OceanDesigning Transitions for Sustainable and Equitable Futures - Madness or Mission with Cameron TonkinwiseAdapt or Lose - Kate Cotter Has Inconvenient TruthsWhat Needs to Change for Sustainability to Work - Lee Stewart is Throwing Down The GauntletBlowing The Whistle on the Climate Crisis - Regina Featherstone Won't Go With The FlowAlrighty, I really hope you enjoyed that one, the best of finding nature 2024, part one. I'll be back in a few days witThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageA topic and issue I've been grappling with is artificial intelligence. It's a space that has dominated so much in 2024 - news, investment, executive wish lists, fears, hopes, fantasies. Personally, I've just been overwhelmed and it's a topic that's allowed me to find compassion and empathy for all the folks out there that aren't consumed and living the issues of environmental protection, human rights and sustainability more broadly - this stuff is technical, expansive and has a lexicon all of its own. Artificial intelligence is something I want to explore more in 2025, but to begin today's guest is Lee Schofield.Lee is an unusual character in the realm of AI - and not just because she's a woman, but she's a trained economist, and her professional career has spanned investment, sales, marketing, product management and strategy. I first came across Lee at a conference in 2023 where she spoke about AI, responsible technology, and the shift from the attention economy to that of the intimacy attention. She spoke like a normal person - not an acolyte of a general purpose technology that has arrived to reshape every element and aspect of our lives for the better. She wasn't banging a big drum proclaiming that AI was the messiah to the climate crisis, the plastic crisis, the inequality crisis, the cancer crisis, the loneliness crisis.That take as a regular person was important for me to better understand, because if a non tech bro who was interested in AI as a tool for calendar optimisation or sales closing uplift could learn about, build an understanding of and then communicate about the overwhelming and often confronting world of AI, it helped me realise I had somewhere closer to home that was more than a listening or viewing experience. So this episode is one where I have basically no idea about the content - which hopefully is unusual. Its intent is to help me and hopefully you as well begin to learn about this big and broad and strange and bombastic and daunting and auspicious technology.OK Lee - she offers the value of curiosity, of taking time, the necessity for the beginner's mind, and the potential learning and growth that comes with a healthy dose of humility. I certainly need it so I remain more firmly in the realm of learning and scepticism as opposed to cynicism and sarcasm.A heads up that this is the last interview format of the pod for 2024. Over the coming weeks I'm going to release a version of a best of that offers moments and glimpses from many of the wonderful and extraordinary guests who've graced Finding Nature this year. I'm really looking forward to it, and if you're new to the show you're in for a treat and if you're a loyal listener get prepared to re-engage with some of your favourite listens.We'll be back on the first of January with a very special guest who is the perfect person to help you and I think about the year ahead, the year gone and whatever may lay ahead for all of us. I'm excited to be bringing all of this to you, so please hit that subscribe button and share it around.Until then, wishing you a safe and satisfying festive period. Thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get 25% off an annual subscription. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add FindingNature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is the indomitable Catherine Fox. A woman of such immense fierceness, incisive analytical powers and a mastery of craft that has led to authoring or co-authoring six books. Catherine was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2022 for significant service to journalism, gender equality and diversity. Catherine's career is nothing short of phenomenal - beyond the books and order of Australia medal, she wrote for the Australian Financial Review for more than two decades, editing their Corporate Women column, was awarded a Walkley award for women's leadership in media in 2017. While at the AFR she helped to establish the 100 women of influence awards, and was named as one in 2018, has been a gender equality advisor to the Australian defence force and sits on the Australians investing in women board. Time with her was nothing short of an honour.Her latest book, Breaking the Boss Bias - How to Get More Women Into Leadership is an essential read. The reality check Catherine lays out in this book affected me, and it's something the men listening to this in particular would be well suited and recommended to go out and get immediately. The book struck me for two primary reasons: the first being how delusional progress on gender equality has been and remains in Australia and around the world. And secondly how relatable I found Catherine's work to be to every other realm of sustainability from climate inaction to biodiversity loss and species extinction to housing unaffordability and the degradation of trust in our society. Catherine's works paints a picture within a picture and it's a tormenting one. Never have so many been aware of and attempting to engage in any and all issues that would deliver more equitable and sustainable futures, yet the empirical evidence and data shows that slow gains hard ear have been and are slipping. This is depressing and dispiriting information, yet also necessary. Crisis and disaster - whether that is gender inequity, the climate, housing - can only be approached in my mind if there is a shared and collective appreciation of the truth. A reckoning that at its heart is about becoming and being honest with reality. Catherine's work for decades has been about exactly this, and it was enlightening and agitating to both read her book and to spend this time with her.Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends, colleagues and on social media - tag me in with your comments - and subscribe.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature25 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageCameron Tonkinwise is back on the show today. The first repeat guest which is fun and exciting for me, but also because he is someone who I think more than anyone I've met in my career deeply understands and seeks to learn about and apply novel and innovative ways by which change happens.Cameron is a Professor of Design at the University of Technology Sydney, and has a storied career here and in the United States at some of the world's greatest design schools. Few have influenced me as much as Cameron so to get him back after his recent annual lecture at the School of Visual Arts in New York City was a pleasure.We chat about the disintegration of support and help from private and state entities, the challenges everyday people face when trying to take part in the transition to more sustainable and safe futures - everything from car purchasing to understanding the risks climate change poses to their home and health. We also get into how this year has affected me - Cameron pushes me in exploring what I've learnt from getting Finding Nature to now which does feel a little self-centred, but it was nice to share about my own experience of this effort and endeavour.Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends, colleagues and on social media - tag me in with your comments - and subscribe.The rest of the year's events are all listed and you can get your ticket or tickets by heading to humanitix.com and searching for finding nature - hit follow so that you get automatically notified of listings and access to ticket sales. The end of year party is on the 18th of December, so if you're in Sydney and you haven't got your ticket yet, I'd love to see you there for a fun time.One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. The latest edition came out last week on the topic of hope. It's really hit a nerve - people have contacted me to say they've been brought to tears, others have asked me if I'm ok, and some have expressed how they've taken hope from the strength of others. The privilege of helping to tell the stories of others is a remarkable gift, and I love to share these so please go check out them out.What comes out in December is still to be decided so Til next time here on the show, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is a very wonderful privilege to be bringing to you - Lesley Hughes. Lesley is one of Australia's most distinguished and recognised experts on climate change. Beginning her career as an ecologist where she studied the role ants played in dispersing seeds across landscapes, she turned her attention to studying the climate and its impacts on biodiversity in the early 90s. She was a lead author of the 4th and 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports - including being part of the IPCC group who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. She was appointed a Climate Commissioner under the Gillard Government, helped found the Climate Council where she remains a Director and Councillor. A Professor Emerita in Biology and Pro-Chancellor at Macquarie University. Lesley has published over 200 scientific papers, she's a Ted speaker and is now a member of the Federal Climate Change Authority. Just to give you a flavour of her remarkable career and life.Lesley is someone who has made an incredible contribution to humanity's understanding of climate change, in particular how it has, is and will affect human and non human species and ecosystems. This was a true honour for me.I found this conversation incredible - from the early years of her career conducting research and pushing for public awareness of this problem, to the hopeful years of the 2000s when substantive action seemed possible and likely, to the toxicity and insanity of the early 2010s as someone who had a front row seat on the emergence and escalation in Australia's climate wars, to how she works to stay healthy and hopeful in the face of such despair and grief. It struck me how so much of what has been vital to Lesley has been unity with her own tribe, the sense of belonging and vulnerability that comes with working together, that hope is more than a feeling but about building groups that can take collective action together. Lesley's stories are characterised by courage and perseverance, something many of us are required to exhibit on a daily basis doing this type of work.The rest of the year's events are all listed and you can get your ticket or tickets by heading to humanitix.com and searching for finding nature - hit follow so that you get automatically notified of listings and access to ticket sales.One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. October's theme was help, and the next edition that is coming out this Saturday morning is on the theme of hope.With everything occurring in our world at the moment, and with the latest COP fresh in our consciousness, where else is there to go but to Lesley herself - “hope has to be a strategy.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is Tammi Miller - a Certified Practising Counsellor registered with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia. She works with people to improve mental wellbeing, improve health literacy and looks to facilitate a path towards happier, healthier and more mindful ways of living. I dare say a lot of us could benefit from this type of work.I've wanted to get Tammi on the show for a few months, so when the chance came up after reading her book Bare Therapy I jumped at it. It's reasonable to expect that many of us can struggle with our relationship to work when so much of the news and information we're exposed to is doomish and dread-inducing. Working in the fields of sustainability, climate action and social impact is exhausting and painful, and burnout is common. I have certainly struggled with maintaining my stability and wellbeing over the years, and it's felt shaky again the past few months working solely in the science and impacts of a changed and changing climate.Tammi is on the show to chat about identity, self worth, work addiction, meaning, the pursuit of it all and the perils of the pursuit of it all. Doing the inner work is essential I believe to all of us, helping to reveal with another what we cannot see for whatever reason, to identify new insights and give strength for an evolution of our existence to help align our meaning and dreams with the actions we can take every day, every moment.The rest of the year's events are being listed regularly - we've got three coming up in the next month and I hope to see as many of you at them as possible - head to humanitix.com and search for finding nature - hit follow so that you get automatically notified of listings and access to ticket sales.One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. The most recent edition was published on the topic of help - the obvious necessity that it is for me, you and everyone else, but also the difficulty and torment it can bring up in exhibiting vulnerability and honesty when it's asked for or accepted. Entirely relevant in the context of this episode with Tammi.November is about hope at Finding Nature, and with Tammi on the show and all we spoke about and the work of change making, this quote from Lori Gottlieb stands out “Uncertainty, I'm starting to realise, doesn't mean the loss of hope - it means there's possibility. I don't know what will happen next - how potentially exciting!”Til next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageHello earthlings, my name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and welcome to or welcome back to the finding nature show. What a week it's been on planet earth too. Election results, the beginning of the latest COP kicking off in an authoritarian oil state, the abandonment of a peace process in the Middle East, but at least the Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services - that is, the astonishing malpractice of big four accounting and consulting firms - final report is in and its 40 recommendations are designed to - and I quote - lead to a comprehensive overhaul of the regulatory framework that defines how auditing and consulting firms are allowed to operate. Maybe some good news.My point is that it's been pretty bloody difficult over the last week to find and hold onto hope and optimism for where this whole thing is going. One very bright spot though is the community independent movement here in Australia. I absolutely love this model, putting communities back at the heart of campaigning and politics as opposed to divisive and inane bickering that seems to dominate the two party system here and elsewhere. The shift in political representation at the last Federal election was unprecedented, and it's fair to say that with the way the past three years have gone the push from these remarkable individuals and their community operations will hopefully deliver more high quality people to parliament.Nicolette Boele joins the show today to chat about all of that plus much more - she is irrepressible, vivacious and determined. Nic also fundamentally changed the direction of my life when she employed me back in 2011. Now she is running for the second time in the Sydney electorate of Bradfield in an effort to unseat the incumbent Liberal representative - a seat where only five white men have ever held this electorate. At the 2022 election she delivered the largest electoral swing in the country of more 16%, and for the first time in history Bradfield became a marginal seat.I have great hope in the community independent movement because it offers a clear and positive alternative to the dominant party system in Australia. Recent weeks again have demonstrated the low trust and distaste many across the country have for the current political dynamic and the ways by which individual politicians seem to be personally benefitting. Here and abroad democratic political systems are malfunctioning, which is painful but transitions and change are. Statis is comfortable, but in a context where we know major changes are required, we should accept and welcome the discomfort as we shift to whatever is hopefully to come that ushers in a more safe, more just and more beautiful future.On the US election result I've been surprised that people are surprised. Surprised that people think Trump winning is some fatal blow to global climate action when emissions have been increasing under the democrats and always have. Surprised that some people are disappointed or devastated when they aren't actively involved in any version of civic engagement or politicking - from protests to boycotts to attending local government meetings to participation in campaigns to even donating money. It's as if everything we want will just fall into our lap, as if who you think are the opposition are as apathetic and passive in their engagement as we can be. They're not. They're active, they're organising, they're taking part. Regardless of the politics of that group, I respect that they do the work. Power lies with those that show up. The showing up is what matters. And that is why the community independent movement offers me such encouragement. They work - they do real things with real people in real life.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageDr Vanessa Pirotta is a whale scientist, an author, an educator, an entrepreneur and a social media sensation. I read Vanessa's book recently - Humpback Highway - and was captivated by the stories of her work and research in the presence of these majestic and remarkable creatures. I remember visiting beaches in Sydney during the humpack's migratory seasons and being amazed by catching glimpses of their existence out at sea. Over the last thirty years humpbacks have continued to recover their population numbers right around the world - a rare species conservation success story.Vanessa is one of Australia's most recognisable scientists through the work she does both on social media and regular tv appearances. In the last couple of months she was awarded the Winner of the Emerging Leader in Science category of the 2024 Women's Agenda Leadership Awards, hosted the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science for the second time and was a finalist in the Celestion Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science. Vanessa is certainly someone on the move, and getting to spend all this time with her and get to know her a little beyond the whale research and incredible encounters she's had with them was an honour.With all the chat recently in corporate and government circles about the great utopian vision of nature positive, I couldn't help but reflect on the depth and quality of Vanessa's knowledge of a few species that call the ocean home and its relevance to these other conversations. The work done to recover some whale populations here and around the world hasn't come through fantasy nature repair bills or biodiversity markets, but the role of science based protections and restrictions on human behaviour supported by effective enforcement mechanisms. Vanessa's work in helping us better understand whales, their health and their lives points to a broader opportunity for how humans by in large need to get out of the way of non human species and focus on these types of initiatives as opposed to the financialsation and commodification of nature on a species by species basis.What an experience this was. Vanessa is clearly a rising star, and to hear about the radical transformation her life has undergone in just five years was remarkable and testament to her tenacity, passion and strength. It reminded me that it's important to step back and contemplate not so much what we can achieve just today, or this week, but over the course of an entire year, five years, a decade. This path is a long one, one without end, and Vanessa is forging one that hasn't existed before. The November edition of the newsletter is on the theme of Hope - and with Vanessa and her work in understanding whales, I was reminded of the remarkable life and work of Sylvia Earle who for more than 60 years has been researching and communicating about the oceans of this planet. “I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind. Health to the ocean means health for us.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageAnn Austin joins the show today, and it's a great pleasure and a lot of fun. Ann is someone I've known for well over a decade now, and she's been plying her trade and craft in the corporate sustainability field for more than two decades. From when saying the word was met with either confusion or scorn back in 2004 to where things are at today. I like to think the scorn is now largely gone, but the confusion certainly remains for many - what do you mean sustainability means changing? Ann and I get into that today, her dedication to attempting to be and being a change agent, learning the art and science of what that involves and how her commitment to building healthy relationships has been a critical component of her working philosophy.I have come to anticipate and enjoy these types of conversations with people who have been in the field and on the frontlines of internal organisational change efforts. I find solace and relief in their experiences as it allows me to better appreciate and realise that it hasn't been and isn't just me in a state of what feels like constant struggle to get these enormous systems and machines out of states of inertia and towards positive and hopeful action. I learnt plenty from Ann in this chat, much like I did in similar ones with Lee Stewart, Cameron Tonkinwise and Jess Miller. So much of my experience this year has been in the imperfect and unique ways by which everyone in this community is attempting to do different versions of the same things - attempting to get others on the bandwagon to go from unsustainable daily practices and dangerous futures to sufficient daily practices and healthy futures.The rest of the year's events are being listed regularly - head to humanitix online and search for finding nature - hit follow so that you get automatically notified of listings and access to ticket sales, especially for the early bird savings opportunities.One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. The most recent edition was published on the topic of help - the obvious necessity that it is for me, you and everyone else, but also the difficulty and torment it can bring up in exhibiting vulnerability and honesty when it's asked for or accepted. It's a great edition, and personally I loved being able to refer to Wayne Junior Pearce about ten times. Give it a read, offer a comment and share it to those who you think might enjoy it.The November edition is Hope - and with the next Cop rapidly coming down the content streams, I think it's something we might need a bit of. Ann spoke about the roll of planting seeds, and this quote from author Jessica Joyce is apt “hope starts with a seed.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is the greatest personification of the sustainability change maker I've met - Chris Nunn. Chris is what many of us likely aspire to be as professionals - deeply knowledgable, remarkably driven and incredibly hard working. It's easy to be impressed by the sheer depth and breadth of what he knows. But The more I've come to know Chris over the years, the more I've come to know him as a person. Warm, compassionate, generous and grounded.With a career spanning law, consulting and large scale property businesses, Chris has also dedicated a large part of his working life to serving on many, many professional associations and industry groups as part of his own mission to enact meaningful and urgent change in the built environment. Beyond that though, Chris is a loving father and husband, passionate mountain biker and crossfitter, and a faithful friend.In my own efforts this past year, Chris has been integral in acting as a trusted advisor and active contributor to Finding Nature being and becoming what it is, and it's a real pleasure to bring him and part of his own story, philosophy and experiences to this broader community.One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. The most recent edition was published on the topic of time and how it pervades and informs so much of our thinking. The six contributions are all poignant and perceptive, and I really loved getting this one out. Give it a read, offer a comment and share it to those who you think might enjoy it.The next newsletter edition arrives in inboxes this Saturday, and with Chris in mind plus the theme of help, this quote from one of the greatest leadership and change practitioners over the last century John P Kotter is appropriate: 'Effective leaders help others to understand the necessity of change and to accept a common vision of the desired outcome.”Til next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is Erin Billman, who is the Executive Director for the Science Based Targets Network. She was recently in Sydney from the US for the global nature positive summit and to share about her important and ground breaking work in setting standards and guidance on how organisations and cities need to play a role in halting and reversing the destruction of habitats and ecosystems, and the biodiversity all of these places hold and call home.It's easy to be cynical about the enormity of the task we have at hand to deal with not just a changing climate but the broader set of planetary boundaries humanity seems committed to pass and erode. The climate is just one of these boundaries, and others include ocean acidification, freshwater change, biosphere integrity and novel entities. Erin and her team's work is about setting a trajectory across these planetary boundaries that act as the minimum to be done to restore balance and health to our ecological systems. considering the mostly failures of addressing runaway greenhouse gas emissions over decades, it is daunting to stare into eight other boundary systems and wonder how we do this. This work begins to help with this though.This conversation with Erin was impactful and hopeful, and not because of the technical work being done to understand and lay out a path for meaningful action, but because of the way our inner health plays a critical role in broader industrial, societal and ecological transformations.The creation of Finding Nature has been construed almost entirely as having a literal meaning - to find the natural world. It does have that implication, but the meaning of and reason for calling this endeavour Finding Nature is to do with the work required to be curious about, explore and discover our own true inner nature. To find connection to self in a world that is bombarding us with too much of everything. Distractions, crises, disasters, doom scrolling, to do lists, bucket lists. Beyond all of that though, beyond the material and the possessive, is something each and every one of us hold sacred that can help to light a path towards true connection, real peace and freedom from the bounds of fears, self centredness and external projections. If you had a greater sense of connectedness, peace and freedom, what would you be capable of? And what would more of us be capable of? The tension with the urgency and scale of action exists, but more racing and more urgency and more doing all the time may not be the path. I know that it isn't for me.This chat with Erin ends up being almost entirely about this, which I didn't expect. I was keen to explore the disconnect with our relationship to the natural world and the SBTN in more detail, but that's not where this conversation goes, which I really love about it.This month's newsletter is coming together and is on the theme of help - something I continue to realise that I need constantly for just about everything. It's easy for me to slip into being a human doing, and I need the help of those around me to bring me back to a steady state - to be present and playful. This conversation with Erin reminded me of the work of Eckardt Tolle, especially his seminal book The Power of Now. Here's a quote that I think is relevant to Erin, this episode and help “Get the inside right. The outside will fall into place.”Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your boThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's show is another duo - the CEO of the Green Building Council Davina Rooney and their Chief Impact Officer Jorge Chapa. Many of you probably know either or both of Davina and Jorge - their work as key ambassadors and incredible contributors for two decades each to Australia's green property boom is significant. Both posses bodies of work that are individually impressive, but since coming together at the GBCA they have been able to take that organisation to even higher heights. I have an enormous regard for both, and talking about the job and what's involved practically when leading, driving and making tangible a more healthy, safe and sustainable building and asset stocks was insightful.If you're not familiar with the GBCA, where have you been? Even if you aren't in property, the GBCA have been a lighthouse of innovation, creation, hope and success here in Australia. I mentioned it in this episode, but one of the inspiring models I had in mind when I was creating Finding Nature was the GBCA. It staggers me that basically every other sector doesn't have an equivalent body such as this that offers both the practical system perspective they do and the ability to create meaningful visions, strategies and roadmaps the property sector can get behind, but also the invaluable relational fabric and spaces for people to get to know one another, connect and feel a sense of belonging.Today's episode isn't so much about the technical standards and X's and O's of how the GBCA organises itself, it's members and the work it delivers to market. Davina and Jorge share much about their own personal and organisational journeys, their theories of change, their approach to allyship and partnership, and their unique and clear approach to how they want to be part of the broader transitions occurring in our communities and economies at the moment.I was entirely enriched by the conversation, and it didn't go where I thought it would. This is a masterclass in the essential role clarity, purpose and experience play in how individuals and groups of people can come together to foster and curate a future that is more aligned to the science of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the essential work of nature preservation, water management and responsible waste practices. I've been using their thoughts and philosophies on backcasting and specific problem definition the last couple of weeks and it's transformed my approach to my daily work life for the better.Davina and Jorge - and the GBCA more broadly - they represent a group of people who are working beyond the jargon and hollowness that words like collaboration and partnership usually mean in organisational contexts. More than tin ears, more than transactions, more than politicking and jockeying for power and prestige. They both represent the best of the change making class - to help, to serve, to lift up, to get into action. The newsletter this month is on the theme of help, and I think this statement from Dr Michael Gervais - one of my favourites - is appropriate for Davina and Jorge, and their work - “No-one does it alone. It is through relationships that we become”.Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageOn the topic of climate change and an increasingly volatile and unprecedented future, the way we think about and structure finance has a key role to play and I have two very special guests - Emeritus Professor Bruce Chapman and Chris Andrew. Starting with Chris, well, I don't know if I can do justice in describing this extraordinary man. I first met Chris nearly a year ago and I instantly connected to his vision of restorative justice for the role banks have played in financing colonisation in Australia and the massacres, dispossession and marginalisation that First Nations people in this country faced, and the work he was doing on Indigenous designed finance. Chris is a remarkable person. A capital markets guy who recently described himself at his Sydney Ted talk as a reformed banker, has led a truly interesting life. A merchant banker of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, before a series of events from the 911 attacks and a New York resident at the time to a hike on Mt Kosciuszko to now years of being invited into First Nations and Pacifica communities, Chris combines his deep financial knowledge to that of sophisticated First Nations land management and cultural practices in a way that could and probably should play a significant impact in how Australia thinks about Country, agriculture and finance moving forward.Bruce Chapman is one of Australia's most esteemed economists. His work across externalities, risk management frames for equitable outcomes and contingent lending is immense, and his legacy is recognised by his Emeritus Professor title - the highest honour someone can receive in the academic world here in Australia. Bruce is not just an academic though - his work in the late 1980s in pioneering HECS - Higher Education Contribution Scheme - created a path for hundreds of thousands of Australians to access the benefits of tertiary education when prior to that it was far more likely they wouldn't because of their socioeconomic status. Bruce's work revolutionised higher education in Australia - which has been tampered with and watered down by several conservative governments since the 1990s. We get into The elegance of contingent lending in this episode, so I won't describe it here.Together these two men represent a powerful allyship to First Nations Australians - but beyond shallow words and often fruitless reconciliation action plans their work has an incredible potential to transform the lives of First Nation Australians and also re-frame how finance in this country is designed and distributed to deal with an increasingly volatile climate system.Bruce and Chris' work is essential in the pursuit of reconciliation here in Australia and self determination for First Nations people to become a reality. The theme of the October newsletter is help, and this quote reflects the work of Chris and Bruce, and something every non First Nations person in Australia ideally would deeply understand and be working towards just like they are; “allyship is not just about intent. It requires proactive action.”Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageSatyajit Das - or Das - is a man who's worn many hats. Financier, author, traveller, speaker - a strenuous protagonist for evidence and fact. He's a man who wants to understand and take into account the reality of a situation and to look deeply into the meaning of that information, no matter how confronting, surprising or alarming.Das came to Australia from India in the late 70s, and a career in banking followed, until he had some unexpected life changing expeditions in nature - one in Zaire, now Congo, and the other Antarctica, which seems to have altered his relationship to work and living. He famously predicted the impending global financial crisis in 2006, before being named as one of finance's most influential thinkers by Bloomberg. He's written a tonne of books along the way, and he's on the show today to talk about his most recent - 'Wild Quests'.I really enjoyed this book, and I have been affected by its contents as well as Das' previous work, especially that of Banquet of Consequences. Under all of our technological progress are worldviews and stories that we are still above and apart from nature, that we can elevate and innovate our way out of whatever the latest dilemma or disaster is. This book tells of the heart wrenching ways by which eco-tourism is negatively affecting remaining pristine landscapes, continuing to drive up emissions through al the travel time and with uncertain and unclear local social and economic benefits.Wild Quests is a wake up call for how we think of travel, on the whole notion of bucket lists. It forced me to reckon with my own desires and aspirations for visiting some of the world's most lauded landscapes - Patagonia, Alaska, African plains, and Australia's natural landscapes. There are so many places to go, so many options, perhaps though, we need to contemplate the potential and known harms of these trips. Real action on addressing the climate crisis, reversing land degradation and restoring the habitats and lives of non human species requires more than flawed economic models and possessive incursions into the lives of Indigenous inhabitants. Wild Quests starts with the line - “the animals do not want to see us”. What if we did that - what if we just left nature to be nature, to be wild and precious and to just exist without our incursions. As it has for almost forever, free of humanity and all we bring?Not an easy idea, but Das is in the business of raising these types of ideas and prosecuting them comprehensively.Das is generously offering Finding Nature listeners a discount on his book Wild Quests that forms much of this conversation. Head to Monash University publishing website and buy the book, and for 20% off use the code birdlife20 - all one word.Das's work has quite literally been informed by that of Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, and one of his famous lines is that sooner or later everyone has to sit down to a banquet of consequences - it's fair to say whether or not it's the loss of pristine wilderness, the expanding climate crisis or the disaster that is housing in this country, it might be time to take a seat.Until next time, thanks for listening. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for free food bundles.Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageRegina Featherstone is a Senior Lawyer at the Human Rights Legal Centre and co-authored their recent publication Climate and Environmental Whistleblowing: Information Guide. On Regina, well you know when you meet someone who is clearly a star rising - articulate, steady, eager and virtuous - that is Regina. We didn't have the time today to get into more than just this guide but her background is immensely impressive.Regina has worked in top corporate law firms but also in community legal centres where she has focussed on migrant worker exploitation and workplace sexual harassment, and for several years worked as a solicitor on Nauru assisting asylum seekers to secure refugee status. To do that work and what she has worked on since, speaks of an incredible moral fibre and a courage that is not conditional - something we talk about in this episode.And this episode - you'll hear it in the opening, but I was nervous speaking about this topic. Whistleblowing is a contested topic - the actions of the dobber, the mole, the nark, the rat. Personally I don't really get it - I don't see why anyone would go to such an extent to create such danger to themselves if there weren't serious and credible evidence of wrongdoing. But it's often how whistleblowers are perceived that prevents wrongdoings from coming to light.The Whistleblower Project set up by the Human Rights Law Centre just over a year ago is a remarkable effort to educate, empower and shift how whistleblowers are perceived and dealt with in Australia. It is essential work, which is something Regina shares about, while the specific need for guidance on matters relating to climate and environmental wrongdoings is also fascinating and has the potential to re-shape how the many and lofty future state dreams and fantasies of many organisation's climate and environmental pledges are both made and acted upon. It feels like there is a double sided sword to this, but to really avert the worst outcomes of the already here climate and biodiversity crises, we need truth, no matter it's palatability or the discomfort it causes. These crises are real and based on chemistry, physics and biology - so should the disclosures and actions in response. Without that, we are only further endangering ourselves and the lives of beings to come.The work of Regina on this guide is not one you'll want summarised though, and I hope this conversation is the beginning for you in becoming curious about going and checking it out, plus the whistleblower project's work more broadly. I can barely think of a more important part of the climate action system at the moment than this - a legitimate channel by which to raise legitimate wrongdoings that harm the future of our ecosystems, our atmosphere and ultimately all of us from now onwards.The next newsletter comes out next Saturday morning, September 28 - a nod to the good old days of Saturday mornings with coffee and a newspaper and not six jillion content sources to be inundated by. These are longer form reads that are about timeless offerings from people in the finding nature community, and the next edition is on the concept and principle of time.Regina's work and that of her colleagues is captured by this great line from Pierre Corneille - a 17th-century French dramatist. “Patience and time conquer all things.”Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageNina Jankovich is today's guest and she is a world leading expert on the mysterious and imperceptible worlds of mis and disinformation and how information in any and all forms can be weaponised in nefarious, poisonous and pernicious ways that degrade social cohesion, democratic health and how many people - including myself - perceive and make sense of the world.Nina's personal experience after being appointed by US President Joe Biden to become the Department of Homeland Security's first Executive Director of their Disinformation Governance Board is a harrowing first hand account of the dangers and threats individuals face in a culture divided along ideological lines and where multiple realities of truth exist. In today's conversation we go into what all of this was like for Nina and her loved ones, and how she continues to live in the shadows of the consequences of the seemingly deliberate and dangerous actions of many.Disinformation - what's that got to do with me? Well, the more I become familiar with and learn about the scourge of disinformation the more I wonder about my own judgement and skills. How do I detect what could be untrue, and what gives me confidence I'm able to consistently and accurately discern and distinguish the information I consume based on the rivers of it I'm exposed to day in day out? There's really no excellent answer to that - my own beliefs and stories that I'm educated, that I do know truth from lie, that I can really tell what is off the mark compared to entirely spot on.Nina's book How to Lose The Information War is one of the most important books I've read in a very long time. I cannot more strongly recommend you find yourself a copy. I was hooked reading it, swinging between engrossed in what at times felt like a masterly espionage thriller, to enraged and terrified by the extent to which disinformation is deployed and successful in manipulating regular people, through to pessimistic and disappointed again by the governing forces that have failed society through ill-conceived and inadequate responses.This was such a magnificent experience getting to meet and spend a little time with her while she was here in Sydney recently. The opportunity to speak to someone of such esteem and experience was an honour, and I'm extremely grateful to Nina for offering the chance to chat. I have been deeply affected by Nina's work - her two books How to Lose the Information War and How to be a Woman Online are essential reading. The depths of how information is used to deceive, manipulate, alter and erode the quality of our relationships are difficult to fully ascertain. It's happening though, and it takes each of us as individuals to take responsibility for our own approach to information but also to expect much more from corporate and governmental actors to raise their standards for how this affects us all.This quote by American military leader Douglas MacArthur is apt for the work that Nina does, the topic and challenge of disinformation and the progressive degradation in societal health it ferments, and the pathway we seem to be on “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay has not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. AThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is Dr Dominique Hes - an author, educator, policy advisor and regenerative thinker. She certainly fits the bill of the change makers and paradigm busters I'm curious speaking with as part of my own quest to understand and contemplate and experiment with how to go about making the world a healthier, safer and more beautiful place.There was a lot that I took from this chat with Dominique who for nearly three decades has pursued more than just sustainable futures but has been investigating and experimenting in ways by which to bring about real transitions and transformations. Her career, achievements and ongoing work are testament to the breadth of her curiosities and interests, but also her strengths and domains of knowledge. At the moment she is an Advisory Committee Member of the Federal Environment Minister's Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group, the Chair of the Board of Directors at Greenfleet and an adjunct fellow at Griffith University. She is deeply connected to and working with community driven regenerative projects across housing, agriculture and urban landscape renewal.Dominique is a distinguished guest and someone who for two decades has been on the forefront of regenerative development - not regenerative in the sense of a framework or tool but a fundamentally different frame of understanding and being in relationship with self, each other and country - to be of service and generous in how you show up to support and cultivate vitality, vibrancy and longevity. This mindset and posture can seem untenable with what too often seems like a fixation on value extraction, resource optimisation and perpetual growth. Part of today's chat is about the limitations of finance as it is currently constructed, the inherent constraints that exist with what and how monetary systems value life and relationships and reality, but also how worrying too much about those limitations and constraints can become a blocker for progress.Excellent things happen by doing excellent things. Keep showing up, maintain patience, be generous, bring people together, have fun, celebrate the successes, learn from the failures, take responsibility, combine curiosity with action, bit by bit. This chat was a pleasure, and I hope you take hope in the form of getting into action from it. Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is a special one, and a little shorter than normal. Kevin Bell's prestigious career is incredible - in 2024 he received an award of Officer of the Order of Australia for his 'distinguished service to the law and to the judiciary, and to human rights through education and reform. For fifteen years from 2005-2020, Kevin was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, where he sat in all divisions of the court. During that time he played a pivotal role in the implementation and operation of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 within the Victorian legal system. He was the Commissioner of the Yoorook Justice Commission from 2021 to 2023, and is also the inaugural patron of Tenants Victoria. His CV, credentials and achievements are immense, but today he is on the show to talk about his excellent but harrowing book Housing: The Great Australian Right.If you're in Australia, you know people here have a pathological obsession with it. From owning it, renovating it, watching shows about it, scrolling property search apps, talking about it, going to Bunnings seemingly at every opportunity. That's barely the picture though - Australia is in the midst of a housing disaster, one where there has never been more homeless people in this country, more people in insecure housing, more people in unaffordable housing and never as much mortgage debt. The system is fundamentally broken in just about every way for the majority of Australians. Yet the debate about the problem is reduced to mediocre and divisive arguments about supply, immigration and funding. Kevin's book is a must read, one I cannot impress every single one of you out there get a copy of and read. It's informative, moving and imaginative. It paints a picture of the historical context of housing in Australia and how this disaster has materialised as a form of slow violence over years, decades and centuries, going back to colonisation, terra nulius and the implantation of the British property system.As a person who experiences a version of housing insecurity - someone who is having his rights adversely affected - this is personally very important to me. It should be to every single Australian - housing is the foundation of every individual's prospects in their life and for their human rights to be protected, respected and fulfilled.I'm conscious human rights can often seem like something fluffy, soft, unnecessary. How is it though that Australia is the only western liberal democracy without a Bill of Rights or Human Rights Act? Why is it that every major governmental or corporate mess or the results of royal commissions seem to be rooted in the simple realisation that the rights of the affected people were dismissed, harmed or violated? Kevin talks about human rights simply being noted by Australians - be that in legislation or in corporate policy documents. Housing, the climate crisis, aged care, First Nations peoples, domestic violence - each of these complex problem fields and many others are underpinned by a misunderstanding, a complacency or a dismissiveness of what we all hold valuable and expect as humans - our inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms are protected, respected and fulfilled.Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. AddThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageDavid Cooke is a man likely familiar to many out there. A business leader of serious repute who through his own personal journey transformed the practices and cultures of the businesses he led and worked at. Most notably David spent eight years as the Managing Director and Chairman of Konica Minolta here in Australia, but has also held the position of Chair at the United National Global Compact Australia and the UNSW's Human Rights Institute Advisory Committee, he was a roundtable member of Westpac's Safer Children Safer Communities programme, and is now an author of his first book - Kind Business Values Create Value; A corporate world reimagined where people and planet are placed at the heart of leadership decisions.A man of stillness who has practised transcendental meditation for more than fifty years and has brought a powerful spiritual and humanistic approach to management and leadership, all for the betterment of people, society and the environment. He exemplifies the type of person and the characteristics many of us wish were the leaders of the organisation we work at - the qualities of leadership he espouses and encourages in this book are nothing short of radical to what is the status quo - sadly and tragically.Real world problems like the climate crisis, the housing crisis, the domestic violence violence, the scams crisis, the biodiversity crisis - there is no shortage of societal and environmental crisis out there. They have one common origin to me - a crisis in the soul of humanity and the priorities and qualities of leaders in organisations around the world. If we truly cared, if we truly had empathy, or compassion, or awareness - not emails or statements that simply described what was important - but truly in the sense that intention equated to action, I deeply believe many of the real problems and crisis our planet and all species face would be reduced, maybe even eradicated. Speaking to David reminded me of the power of stillness, the strength that comes from spending time in deep presence with self. Maybe this is all too woo woo - but is our approach to doing more more quickly getting us where we hope to get to?I remember hearing Deepak Chopra responding to a question about the chance humanity had to build back better in the middle of the Covid lockdowns in 2020 - he replied; 'build back better. It's more likely we'll just go more quickly to the next crisis'. He meant this in the context that we rush, we crave, we urge, we desire - but what if slowing down really was the paradoxical answer we are looking for? And in that stillness we come to deeply appreciate, recognise and embody that a new paradigm of operating at the surface level of actions and behaviours requires a deeper paradigm shift - one that involves kindness, stillness, reflection, care, pride.The theme for the newsletter this month is mavericks, and as we heard, David's approach to business leadership could be considered to be pretty radical. His life in practising transcendental meditation twice daily your fifty years has delivered him great clarity and helped him go from having an intention of caring for others and being kind to really doing that in practice consistently and regularly. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes - 'I've never had to work so hard to stay so still'.Until next time, thanks for listeningThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's episode is a real honour to be sharing. Alexander Pui is the guest, and he is an old colleague and someone I hold closely as a professional and person. He has been developing a significant volume of work across his career in both academia and industry for two decades, working in some of Australia and the broader region's largest and most influential organisations.Alex is an engineer and lawyer by training, received a PhD for his work in applied statistics specific to understanding hydrology and flood risk in the context of a changing climate, and is now a fellow of the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre and works up in Japan leading climate risk engagements for many of Asia's largest businesses. He has and continues to do outstanding work, especially at the frontlines of trying to merge and blend the incredibly complex science of a changing climate with the daily pragmatism and operational efficiency of large corporates. His work in exploring why there is such a discrepancy in how scientists describe the perils of a changing climate and the existential threat it poses to human and non-human life as we know it compared to the largely benign or muted results of individual - organisational climate scenario work is outstanding.We chat about a lot in this conversation - it's a bit of a climate101 primer, how climate does or doesn't fit into enterprise risk management frameworks, the necessity of collaboration and crossing into new disciplines and worldview, the challenge of balancing urgent action against all that is uncertain or unknown about how a changing climate will affect economies and societies, incentives, being the green sheep of his family and how to be the change as a translator and connector of disciplines, skills and knowledge sets.The theme for the newsletter this month is mavericks, and the work Alex does, what many of us do, requires some of the maverick spirit. An unorthodoxy in thinking and being that seeks to highlight hypocrisy, challenge norms and pursue curiously. I've seen it firsthand with Alex - unconditional courage despite the consequences.Arguably the first climate maverick was James Hansen, the NASA scientist who testified in front of the US Senate in 1988 on climate change. I can't decide if it would have been easier or more difficult to speak about climate change in that period. A changing climate wasn't part of the mainstream zeitgeist at the time, and it may have seemed like an impossibility to many that humans could change the climate through their collective actions so sharing something so incredulous possibly seemed insane. Perhaps though, the lack of politicised nonsense about the problem and its necessary responses were still to arise and maybe that meant it could just be said.Regardless, James Hansen was and remains a maverick, and in 1988, in that public setting he announced “Global warming is not a prediction. It is happening.” And yet here we are 36 years later.Until next time, thanks for listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageWelcome to the show, my name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and today's episode is slightly different from some of the others. It's with author and journalist Megan Maurice, about her new book Life Goes On that is her account - told through her own experience and that of several others - about life after a cancer diagnosis.Something I enjoy and want to explore through Finding Nature is how other people do change, how they grow and evolve from the person they were to who they are now and where they're ideally trying to get to. Most of the time we get to choose this, the privilege of having options to consider and make decisions about. Other times though we don't get that choice and we have to deal with the world giving us a hand that isn't one we want to take, from the sudden death of a loved one, a redundancy, the ending of a relationship, even the dreaded but much less significant call from daycare that your toddler's unwell and needs to be picked up. We all have stories of grief, loss and pain in our lives, most of which are invisible and unknown to those around us.Megan's book Life Goes On explores in beautiful detail the experience of receiving a cancer diagnosis as a 36 year old. Suddenly choices were removed and the next stages of her life were filled with and overwhelmed by the medical process that followed. Doctors, scans, treatments and therapies. What stood out to me about Megan's story though was how this diagnosis and her subsequent experiences tore through her sense of identity, her own understanding of her life and what was to come and the stories she had told herself about herself.The relevance of this conversation to me is that all of us go through these periods in our lives. We experiences themselves at some point, sudden and tragic events happen to our family members, friends and colleagues, yet so much of what we need to, have to and will do is just move on, often suffering in solitude or isolation away from the fears - real or perceived - of those around us.I'm very fortunate that I've not received an acute medical diagnosis, but it's likely that I will. I've suffered terrible losses and experience grief about what was been lost and cannot be retrieved. The immediate aftermath is usually surreal - how life was can no longer be, it's forever different, and that process of adjustment is often a rocky one, taking time, work, help, care and acceptance.While this chat isn't the usual how to do sustainability episode, it very much touches on similar themes that are familiar in professional contexts - challenge, loss, the need for patience and acceptance, the necessity of asking for help. Above all though, we all deal with grief, loss and pain in our lives as people, which is who we are under our professional identities.This chat with Megan was an honour for me, as was reading Life Goes On. I recommend getting yourself a copy as I suspect you'll also resonate and relate to parts of her experience like I did, regardless of whether you've experienced a serious health scare like she did.I hope you take something meaningful from this conversation. It helped me better appreciate the gifts in my life and bring back front and centre for me that often the most difficult periods of my life can be viewed now as times of valuable personal metamorphosis that only great pain could bring about.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add FindingThanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is a legend of Sydney's sustainability landscape - Lee Stewart. He's here today to chat about the release of his upcoming book titled How to Build Sustainability Into Your Business Strategy, but that becomes a proxy for him and I to chat about and discuss the progression and evolution of sustainability as a notion for organisation's of all shapes and sizes to grapple with for over 20 years. Where it came from, how it's changed and where it may be going.Lee is someone who has been a literal pioneer here in Australia and in New Zealand who's worked across large multinationals, dominant domestic corporations, in consulting and also as a sole practitioner - and now he can author to that impressive resume. Lee's book is an absolute must if you're curious about better understanding how to see the trees through the forest and step back from the constant demands of the daily doing and the hamster wheel of constant requests and requirements to report any and all versions of ESG and sustainability information.One thing I appreciated and valued speaking about with Lee was exploring how working in sustainability is deeply personal work. I know myself that ever since beginning to learn about the impacts humans were having on the environment as a kid, then my studies and later all the professional ups and downs that has entailed, this work I attempt is intensely personal. For many of us - once we have seen the world we are living in and heading towards, it's impossible to unsee that. I like to refer to people who are looking to change organisations as sustainability professionals as having some mutated gene that means they can both suffer the challenges of everyday bureaucracy and the disappointments of setbacks, but also hold the remarkable ability to don a proverbial cape and return over and over again, working tirelessly to make a difference, progressively altering the trajectory of wherever it is they work and continue to march along. Lee is someone who is absolutely of that make-up, and it was a pleasure to chat about this and much more with him.Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted. If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends or colleagues and let them know why you think they'd appreciate listening, and subscribe.The event schedule for the rest of this year is available - head to the Finding Nature LinkedIn page for more details on this, follow there and also on Humanitix. One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives.The theme for the next newsletter in August is mavericks, and I consider Lee to be just that. This quote from Alan Rickman appropriately captures the spirit of Lee's book and the ask he has of all of us as we seek to bring about a more beautiful, just and sustainable future - Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageJoe Steensma is today's guest and he comes all the way from St Louis, Missouri where he is a Professor or Practice at the Brown School which is part of Washington University. Joe has a diverse and fascinating background - a forest kid who came to admire and love birds, studied biology and chemistry and ever since has been applying his deep observational strengths and technical skills to address system challenges by using the lessons he has accumulated from the natural world. Joe is a Ted speaker and has started, run and sold dozens of businesses, and his applied research has seen him work everywhere from the US to Haiti, to Nigeria and here in Australia.While here in town I was fortunate to grab a bit of his time while he's been delivering a series of 'capitalism for good' and what what biology has taught me about business lectures at Macquarie University.This chat was not just so much fun, but revealing that the answers we seek are already all around us. The natural world - from the woodpecker to the powerful owl to the interactions and relationships within and between species - can be our teacher, if we let it. I came away realising not only is the disconnect from nature harming us individually and collectively, but what has replaced it - homogenised pictures and stories and ideas and practices of what a good and appropriate life look like - is narrowing our own ability to address problems effectively and create the world we all want to see.This conversation is both fun and informative. My first foreign national guest which feels like a thing, and I'm grateful for what Joe shared here and helping me to remember and re-ground back into the obvious conclusion that nature is our teacher, our answer, our hope. I hope you enjoy listening. Thank you for listening today, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends or colleagues and let them know why you think they'd appreciate listening, and subscribe.As I mentioned earlier, the event schedule for the rest of this year is available - head to the Finding Nature LinkedIn page for more details on this, follow there and also on Humanitix. One last place you can sign up is at findingnature.substack.com where each month I publish a series of contributions from other professionals working in the sustainability and impact fields on what motivates them, their philosophies and how that informs their daily lives. The theme last month was meaning, while this month for July it is perseverance.Considering Joe's love of birds and this theme, there's no quote this week but the migration story of the arctic tern which epitomises perseverance. The arctic tern completes the longest annual migration of any species on earth - travelling each year from the arctic where they breed, south to Antartica, and all while weighing only around 100 grams and with a wingspan over just little over two feet.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageToday's guest is Mark Rowland - a man of many hats and bows, and this conversation is a gem. I promise that you're in for a treat today.Meeting Mark has been a great gift of starting Finding Nature - he came to one of the events I held a few months ago and since then we've run into each other and chatted a number of times. From those simple introductions it's revealed to me in each conversation that there's another aspect of Mark's career and personality that I have great regard for. A Brit who was accidentally employed by Price Waterhouse (before the Coopers was added), a transformational experience learning systems dynamics at MIT in Boston followed by a year in Korea putting that training to the test. Senior strategy roles, CEO of a big food business, shoe retailing, a leadership position at the US Air Forces' innovation catalyser with an annual budget of US$700 million, to reprising the original Greenhouse challenge platform the Australian government mothballed in 2009. The past few years Mark has played a pivotal role in establishing the remarkable Greenhouse here in Sydney - a lighthouse of climate action and enabling ecosystem that is already making a big difference here. I can't put into words all Mark has undertaken, done and achieved. We get into parts of it today.Beyond that though is a man of poise, grace and stillness. His commitment to honest self appraisal, evolution and service was a gift to listen to and chat about. Behind the man that builds, connects and makes magic from nothing is someone I didn't expect to be so affected by.This one really challenged me to contemplate how I think, feel, speak and act - I know there is often inconsistency in those and a lack of alignment between how I want to be and how I am, what I hope to move towards and the actions that follow. This is part of my own journey as both a professional and a person. It is clear to me how important that integration and alignment is for Mark to then be able to enter and be in the world with such vitality and openness, and what he has and is creating is testament to the importance and value of the inner work, of coming into contact with and giving space for him to find and activate his true nature.Mark's mix of optimism, wisdom, determination, curiosity and authenticity is a gift, and this conversation is one too. I really enjoyed that conversation, and I hope enjoyed listening.Today's show is delivered with Altiorem. Use the code FindingNature10 to get your first month free on their gold and platinum plans. Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Thank you for listening, I appreciate it and don't take your precious time for granted.If you enjoyed this episode or any other, please offer a rating as the algorithms appreciate that type of interaction, share the show with friends or colleagues and let them know why you think they'd appreciate listening, and subscribe.With that in mind, and Mark's insights on confidence and the poise with which he carries himself, this quote from legendary US basketball coach is a good one “Poise and confidence are not possible unless you have prepared correctly. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Poise and confidence are a natural result of proper preparation."Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageSam Kernaghan is someone I've had the very good fortune of spending quite a bit of time with over the last couple of years and I'm grateful for that. Sam is the Resilience Director for the Committee for Sydney - an urban policy think tank that has the rare opportunity of being able to work above the challenges and messy interactions of problems, risks and opportunities the city faces. Sam does this after more than 20 years working in similar fields - from his time in Sri Lanka helping with post tsunami reconstruction, to working on and leading a lot of the early Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities work across the Asia Pacific in countries like Indonesia, India, Japan and New Zealand, before returning to lead this important work back in his home city.Resilience has been and can be a jargon heavy term - it's had it's time in the sun too just like regeneration seems to be everywhere at the moment. Most simply though I appreciate the simple premise of the word and it's value to what many of us in sustainability and social impact think about - how to withstand pressures and how to adapt and evolve into something stable, healthy and able to be counted on. I think one thing that can be difficult about the term is its wide applicability - everything from individual mental health to the ability of complex urban systems to handle and respond to any number of shocks and stress events. Sam is just the person to be speaking about this though as he has seen more than most as this field of urban resilience has developed and evolved since the mid 2000s as more thinking and effort has gone into better understanding the interplay between how increasing urbanisation, a changing climate and more development highlights or exacerbates existing inequalities and problems in a specific place.In this chat we cover a tonne - his role at Committee for Sydney and some great work he and his team have been doing on flood and heat perils and risks, the profundity of his time in Sri Lanka in his 20s then the fascinating and important work he's been doing since. There are a lots of valuable insights in this one, I know you'll come away more knowledgable having listened.I of course loved being able to spend this time with Sam, and his wisdom on the dynamics of power, the virtue of patience and the necessity of preparation all really struck me. I hope you enjoy it.Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Today's show is also delivered with Souling. Head to Souling.au and add FindingNature to the checkout code for 10% off. Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
Send me a messageWarning: This episode contains conversations about abuse and exploitation, domestic and family violence and some other topics you may find distressing. If those are difficult topics for you then I suggest skipping this episode and coming back next week. There are a number of resources and support services out there including 1800 Respect, Bravehearts, Lifeline and beyondblue where you can access free counselling in Australia. Hello and welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast. My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and this is my show where I explore the stories, philosophies and missions of change makers who are looking to bust paradigms and contribute to creating a more healthy, just and beautiful world.Today's friend of the pod is Anna Bowden and she certainly fits this bill. A career spanning nearly two decades across responsible and impact investing with a focus on delivering meaningful outcomes for the most vulnerable in our society. Her role now as the CEO for the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children Australia - or ICMEC - which entails work exactly as it sounds - the protection and safeguarding of children both here in Australia and overseas.This episode is one I had a few reservations bringing to you but I took comfort in the knowledge that only ten years ago domestic and family violence was a topic often too taboo and stigmatised to discuss in public - this has changed though there is still much more work to be done. Some of the issues Anna and I discuss today like child sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse materials and sexploitation are pervasive and endemic societal issues for many children and adults in our community, and it feels both right and important to do this despite the awkwardness and discomfort. My ask of you as the listener is to give this a go - it's not easy hearing topics like this, and we all wish we didn't have to not only listen to stories like Anna's but also consider the invitation to begin to play a part in preventing these types of incidents occurring in the future.Anna shares warmly her own personal lived experience as an abuse survivor, as well as helping me to better understand the convoluted and challenging world that she exists in everyday looking to create and ensure a safer world for kids both here in Australia and overseas. We discuss the emergence of artificial intelligence and how it is accelerating these issues, the ways fear and shame keep this problem field relatively invisible, the importance of collaboration but also the frustration of inertia that sits within the system of actors who do have agency to influence and alter the trajectory of these issues, while knowing that there are accessible actions that can thwart the threats of child exploitation and abuse.Anna speaks a little about trailblazers in this conversation, those who have lit a path in efforts to raise the profile and significant toll domestic and family violence has had and continues to take on mostly women and children in this country. Anna is a trailblazer in the child protection movement. Recent media stories regarding deep fake nude imagery in schools offers an insight into the tip of the iceberg this issue poses for children, their parents and families, schools and teachers, regulators and law enforcement agencies.Today's show is delivered with Gilay Estate. Add Finding Nature to your booking reservation for a free dinner and breakfast for each night you stay. Today's show is also delivered with Souling. Head to Souling.au and add FindingNature to the checkout code for 10% off. Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram
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