My standard activity on planes and long drives is to throw on some podcasts. Over the last couple of months I seemed to find myself travelling a fair bit, and as a result I got through quite a few. In a recent conversation, someone suggested I make a list – so here it is. I am definitely not committing to putting a list like this together on a regular basis, but here are a few that people who are interested in similar things to what I am interested in might enjoy:
99 Percent Invisible: Not Built for This series
I have been listening to 99PI for years. They cover a lot of ground in and around the build environment, and have some of the best production values going around. Their recent-ish six-parter looks at the impacts of climate change, particularly in the US. It covers things like the shifting insurance environment, the impact of heat in urban environments, and the battle of building back versus managed retreat. One of the clearest messages it seeks to put forward is that the impacts of climate change are not a future threat, but a current one. Another big through line is the fact that the those impacts tend to be worn hardest by the poorer and more vulnerable members of society.
Local Zero: Community Benefit Funds – what does success look like?
Local Zero is a great Scottish podcast and I was fortunate enough to meet with Professor Matt Hannon (who runs the University of Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable Communities), part of the team behind it, when I was in Glasgow earlier this year. The podcast is strongly focused on the ‘act local’ part of ‘think global, act local’. This episode is particularly good because it also includes Rachel Searle from Foundation Scotland (who I also spoke with as part of my Churchill). The Foundation Scotland model is a really interesting way to manage community benefits packages, especially for smaller communities who have limited capacity to do so – and might otherwise miss out on some of the benefits that projects in their vicinity could offer.
EmPOWER: Andrew Dyer – Better Practice Community Engagement in the Energy Transition
The team at The Energy Charter do some really good work bringing community and industry together around the energy transition. They also have a bunch of useful resources. Recently, this has grown to include a podcast, hosted by Wendy Agar. The inaugural episode features an interview with Andrew Dyer, the former Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, and author of the Dyer Report. It’s a great conversation with some practical thinking around supporting regional Australian communities through the challenges of the energy transition from someone who has spent a lot of time working through the issue at both a practical and policy level.
Energy Insiders: A civil war over renewables?
A more established Australian podcast focused on the energy transition, Giles Parkinson (the man behind Renew Economy, among other things) and analyst David Leitch generally combine both an interesting guest, as well as a run-down on recent energy news. This episode features both Rebecca Colvin from ANU and John Cole from USQ proving practical and academic takes on obtaining and managing community social licence. It looks largely at NSW and QLD examples, but still has some universally applicable messages about working effectively with communities through energy and economic transitions.
Redefining Energy: 139 The ESG label is outdated. What now?
For a (granted, somewhat Eurocentric) macro view of the energy transition, I enjoy Gerard Reid and Laurent Segalen’s analysis on Redefining Energy. The fact that they are, among other things, investment bankers, means there is often a fairly strong finance element to the show (which is important, as this is an economic transition as much as anything). What I particularly liked about this interview with Jean Jacques Barberis is that it has a crack at ESG – and the fact that, in many situations the E, S and G are treated as equal. And they’re not. They discuss the view that good ‘G’ shouldn’t be a shield for poor ‘E’ or ‘S’ – and think about how financial markets can, and in some places are, moving on from that past parity.
As an aside, I’m always looking for new podcasts to help explain and explore the energy transition. If you have any suggestions, please drop me a line.