SUBSTANCE – Details, episodes & analysis

SUBSTANCE is a monthly podcast exploring the materials that shape our world. From hydrogen and plastic to fabric and fungi, each episode unpacks one essential substance — revealing its influence on our world and the surprising innovations that could redefine its role in our lives. In conversations with leading scientists and industry experts, host Joe Hanson offers fresh perspectives on how chemistry and innovation can help us tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges. Whether you’re a curious mind, a science enthusiast, or someone who simply wonders about the “stuff” all around us, SUBSTANCE tells the stories that matter — one material at a time.

Plastic is one of the most transformative materials of the modern age. It’s in our cars, our homes, and our clothes. Lightweight, durable, and endlessly moldable, plastic has revolutionized manufacturing and design across nearly every industry. But this material comes with a serious downside: it’s incredibly difficult to dispose of in the right way.

Researchers and companies around the globe are racing to tap into an invisible resource seen as a beacon of hope for achieving climate neutrality—hydrogen. Could the key to a green transformation lie beneath our very feet?

Plastics are everywhere – but can they ever be truly sustainable? In this episode, host Joe Hanson asks how plastics fit into a circular economy – a system designed to minimize waste and maximize resource efficiency. From the familiar mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle to innovative strategies that go far beyond recycling, this conversation dives into what it takes to create a sustainable future for plastics and how waste can become a resource.

In this episode of SUBSTANCE, host Joe Hanson explores the surprising power of fungi with artist-turned-entrepreneur Phil Ross and BASF scientist Dr. Birgit Hoff. Far from being just mold or mushrooms, fungi are nature’s recyclers and bio factories, capable of producing antibiotics, vitamins, and even sustainable materials for fashion, packaging, and construction.

Fabrics and fashion are deeply tied to sustainability – not least because the scale of production and consumption means huge volumes end up as waste or pollution. This episode of SUBSTANCE asks what it would take to “close the loop” and move fabrics toward a circular economy. Host Joe Hanson draws on perspectives from both the Hong Kong–based nonprofit Redress and BASF in his exploration of why circularity is a useful way to turn intent into action; from designing for durability, repair and recyclability to building the systems needed for collection and sorting.

In this episode, our host Joe Hanson discusses a SUBSTANCE that is literally vital: water. Former NASA expert, now entrepreneur Diana Yousef and BASF scientist Ligia Azevedo make it clear in their stories, that the economical use of clean drinking water is essential for our survival and how new technologies can help us preserve it.

CO₂ is one of the gases most closely linked to global warming, but it is also deeply embedded in how modern industry and cities function. In this episode of SUBSTANCE, host Joe Hanson explores what it will take to reduce emissions in two places that matter enormously for the climate: industrial production and urban design

Salt may be one of the most familiar substances in everyday life, but in this episode of SUBSTANCE, host Joe Hanson explores how a special class of salts could help decarbonize one of the most overlooked parts of the energy system: heat. With the help of experts Dr. Nils-Olof Born of BASF and Assistant Professor Silvia Trevisan of KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Joe Hanson looks at how so-called molten salts can store and deliver heat for industrial processes without relying on fossil fuels.