Let's Talk Sustainable Business – Details, episodes & analysis

Sebastian Leape is the CEO of Natcap, a UK-based nature intelligence company which helps businesses measure, report and act on their nature-related impacts and dependencies. In this episode, we discuss why "nature intelligence should be integrated into business decisions", the role collaboration can play in helping companies develop a nature-based strategy, and why Sebastian decided to focus his career on nature-based solutions.

In this special crossover episode of Let's Talk Sustainable Business and Let's Talk Global Business, hosts Sara Murray and Barbara Mendez-Jorge delves into the complexities of ESG reporting with The Conference Board's Anuj Saush and Andrew Jones. The conversation highlights the challenges of managing complex ESG data, the role of ESG controllers, and the cultural differences in ESG adoption between the US and Europe. 

In the first episode of Season Six, Bárbara Mendes-Jorge interviews Paula Byrne (Program Director at the ESG Center) and Manali Paranjpe (Program Director at the ESG Center, Europe) on the key areas they are focusing on this year and how the ESG Center supports The Conference Board members on their sustainability journeys. We discuss how companies need to urgently familiarise themselves with the EU's CSRD legislation - which is already transforming sustainability reporting - why human rights, biodiversity and circular economy are three of the main topics the ESG Center is focused on this year and, continuing on from discussions had last season, why it is so important for companies to avoid greenwashing.

As Season Five draws to a close, the Conference Board's ESG Center Leader Anuj Saush joins host Barbara Mendes-Jorge to discuss the lessons learned and insights gained from our guests in this series. This season focused on greenwashing and how companies should tackle ESG issues, and our guests provided a lot of advice for those seeking to improve their sustainability communications and better incorporate sustainability into their corporate strategy. We'd like to thank our guests who contributed their time and expertise: Marilyn Waite, George Harding-Rolls, Louise Ayling, Malgorzata Golebiewska, Mari Granstrom, Genica Schaefgen and Guy Jubb.

Professor Guy Jubb, Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School, talks about how sustainability reporting standards have developed, what he believes legislators should prioritise in corporate governance policy, the role of assurance in reporting, as well as why private equity and management and internal controls are two important governance-related issues for companies to consider.

Professor Guy Jubb is an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Co-Director of the Conference Board's European Corporate Governance Council. A chartered accountant, Guy is a corporate governance pioneer, having worked on investor stewardship and ESG issues since the early 1990s. 

In this episode, Guy talks about being one of the first people in the UK to have 'governance' in his job title, why he feels 'stewardship' as a concept is a sustainability cornerstone, and why remuneration and greenwashing are two important governance-related issues for companies to consider.

Genica Schaefgen from Ecosia talks about how customers' privacy is at the core of the business, how Ecosia is the official "planting partner" of debit card company TreeCard - which dedicates 80% of profits earned from merchant transaction fees into planting trees, why the company is very careful who it partners with, and Genica's work with the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany, which helps raise the visibility of socially-focused companies to politicians and other stakeholders.

Genica Schaefgen is Head of Ecosia Germany, a Berlin-based tech company best known as the "search engine that plants trees". In this episode, Genica explains how using Ecosia contributes to its global tree-planting projects, enabling a tree to be planted "every 1.3 seconds", why Ecosia positions itself as a social business and takes a holistic approach to its biodiversity projects, and how the company aims to hold itself accountable by publishing their financial reports every month.

Mari Granström from Origin by Ocean talks about scaling up and reimagining an algae processing value chain, how she feels about EU and global climate and oceans policy, developing collaborative partnerships, and the advice she would give to anyone thinking of setting up a company with a bio-based focus.

Mari Granström is the CEO and Founder of Origin by Ocean, a Finnish start-up building a business ecosystem based on farmed and harvested algae, which is turned into ingredients used in the production of everyday consumer goods including in food, cosmetics, detergents, agriculture, textiles and packaging. In this episode we discuss why Mari decided to focus on the processed algae market, how Origin by Ocean uses biorefinery technology to tackle the problem of marine eutrophication and the company's partnership with Finnish brand Marikmekko.