Flourish Systems Change

To round off the first season of the Flourish podcast, we speak to Sagarika Bhatta, an environmental scientist, climate activist and social entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. We explore how cultivating female and youth leadership in climate action is necessary for a just transition; and discuss the disconnect between the realities of “developed” or “developing” economies in how they mitigate, adapt to and are impacted by the climate crisis.Sagarika Bhatta is environmental scientist, climate activist and social entrepreneur based in Kathmandu. As Chairperson and Founder of activist NGOs PowerShift Nepal and ERST-We Care Nepal, she encourages female leadership and agency building for climate justice. Her work, introducing urban rooftop agriculture to women in the increasingly urbanized Kathmandu Valley, was recognised by the DO School in Berlin, and awarded the Climate Action: Race to Zero Innovation Award 2021. Sagarika was runner up for the NASO Women in Science Award in 2020. She was recently nominated for the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award and is both a former Climate Tracker 2016 Fellow, participant in the Asia Climate Leadership Camp 2019 and recipient of a Korean Green Grant.

Our guest today is public philosopher Roman Krznaric, who writes about the power of ideas to change society. We speak with Roman today about how rethinking our understanding of time and planning for the long term can achieve regenerative transformation and a better future for generations to come. Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His latest book is The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short Term World. His previous international bestsellers, including Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 20 languages.

Our guests today, Sumi Dhanarajan and Anna Biswas, are leaders at Forum for the Future, a leading international sustainability nonprofit organisation. For over 25 years, they've been working in partnership with business, governments and civil society to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable future.Understanding how to make changes at a fundamental level requires an integrated way of looking at the world - a systems view. But many of us are not taught to think about problems in this way. That's why we wanted to seek out the perspective of an organisation who put systems thinking front and centre.

In this episode we welcome Jeremy Lent, author of ‘The Patterning Instinct' and ‘The Web of Meaning'. Jeremy investigates the underlying causes of our Civilization's existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.

This episode welcomes scholar Professor James Ogude to speak about the concept of Ubuntu - a Nguni Bantu term meaning "humanity" that is often translated to, "I am because we are" or "I am because you are". Together, we discuss how the humanities can complement scientific perspectives, and what modern cultures can learn from "banished knowledges" and Indigenous world views, particularly in relation to community and a rebalanced relationship with the Earth.

Today, we feature Crystal Chissell, a multidisciplinary climate action leader and senior member at Project Drawdown. In this conversation, she speaks to Flourish Systems Change about co-solutioning for a climate-resilient future through education, collaboration and communities, and how, sometimes, knowing where our motivations lie might just help to scale our efforts for climate action.

Kate Raworth, renegade economist and author of Doughnut Economics, joins Flourish Systems Change to press the case for rethinking the entire global economic system. Drawing on insights from emergent schools of thought – including complexity, ecological, feminist, behavioural and institutional economics – she argues that today's economies are divisive and degenerative by default, and must become distributive and regenerative by design.

With Sarah, at the Hive in Singapore and Michael at Cast Iron Productions in London, we kick off the Flourish Systems Change podcast by explaining why sustainability can never go far enough.