​Scene and Context

Urban sprawl rarely announces itself as a failure. It arrives as a solution. Land is cheaper on the edges. Construction is simpler. Political risk appears lower. New suburbs promise affordability and space, even as they quietly lock in car dependence, long commutes, and costly infrastructure that must be maintained for decades.

What remains largely absent from these decisions is a full accounting of consequence. Pollution. Health outcomes. Social isolation. The erosion of community life. These costs sit beyond election cycles and balance sheets, yet they define how cities perform over time.

For more than forty years, Alec Tzannes has argued that the choice between sprawl and density is not only technical or economic. It is cultural. Cities spread, he suggests, when people no longer believe that dense urban life can be desirable, humane, or beautiful.

Formation: Seeing Systems, Not Objects

Alec’s thinking took shape early. As a student in the 1970s, he encountered the Club of Rome’s forecasts on planetary limits and found them unsettling. At the same time, architecture offered a way to combine his interests in engineering and art. Yet he quickly became uneasy with what he saw as the direction of the profession.

By the mid-1970s, modern architecture, once a social project, had hardened into style and commodity. “It had become self-referential,” he recalled, detached from the environmental and social systems it affected. He began looking elsewhere for intellectual grounding.

Landscape architect Ian McHarg’s Design with Nature and urbanist Ed Bacon’s work on cities mattered more to him than iconic buildings. So did thinkers like Buckminster Fuller. He became sceptical of what he called “anthropocentric thinking” and increasingly interested in systems that placed the planet, not the individual object, at the centre.

“I became interested in dealing with the planet as a subject,” he said, “not dealing with the person as the subject.”

A Practice Built on Endurance

In 1982, a competition win altered his plans to work overseas. He stayed in Sydney and founded what would become Tzannes Associates. The practice emerged from architecture but refused to stay within its limits.

Alec prefers the term “designers.” The studio works across buildings, urban design, public spaces, monuments, and furniture. It also designs frameworks that are never built. The aim is coherence across scales, and durability across time.

Today, the practice is heavily engaged in high-density housing, including affordable rental and social housing, alongside commercial and civic work. Longevity is central. Buildings are designed to last physically, but also emotionally. A structure that people value is less likely to be demolished. Its environmental cost is amortised across generations rather than repeated.

“We try to create enduring places and enduring artefacts,” Alec said, “that will last a very long time to ameliorate their costs to the environment.”

Beauty as a Sustainability Principle

One of Alec’s most consistent arguments is also one of the least quantified. Sustainability begins with attachment. If people love where they live, they protect it. If they feel nothing, replacement becomes easy.

“The first principle of sustainability,” he said, “is make it beautiful.”

This is not aesthetic indulgence. It is practical. Buildings that are admired are maintained. Neighbourhoods that people identify with resist erasure. Beauty, in this sense, becomes infrastructure. It supports continuity, memory, and care.

“It’s not in the science textbook,” he added, “but it’s in the beauty textbook.”

This idea reframes density. Poorly designed density produces resentment and flight. Thoughtful density, with light, ventilation, access to nature, and public life, produces loyalty. Without that loyalty, policy and planning struggle to hold.

Where Density Works

Examples exist, including in Sydney. Over roughly two decades, former industrial land near a major rail hub was redeveloped into a dense neighbourhood comparable in density to parts of Manhattan. It includes parks, schools, shopping, and strong public transport. Despite early scepticism, it has become highly desirable.

The lesson is not novelty, but execution. Density works when daily life works. When people can walk to parks, cross streets comfortably, access schools, and live without constant car use, resistance fades.

Older cities demonstrate the same principle. Paris, Rome, London, and parts of New York show that density can coexist with identity and civic life. These places are not free of inequality or displacement, but they demonstrate what sustained investment and design coherence can produce.

Why Sprawl Persists

If density can work, why does sprawl continue? Alec points to cost, governance, and culture. It is cheaper in the short term to build outward than to repair and densify existing urban fabric. Political cycles reward visible delivery, not long-term stewardship. Meanwhile, the detached house remains a symbol of success.

There is also failure in precedent. Too many dense developments of the past were hostile places. They taught generations to associate density with discomfort and neglect. Reversing that memory requires visible success, not theory.

“We have enormous amounts of urban land that are underperforming,” Alec said. “Why do we need to go out when we’ve got so much we can do with what we’ve got?”

Containment as Responsibility

Given a hypothetical “magic wand,” Alec’s answer is blunt. Stop expanding. Contain cities within their existing footprints. Improve what already exists. Make it livable, beautiful, and productive. Do not consume more land simply because it is easier.

The challenge is not technical. It is political and cultural. People must believe that dense urban life can offer safety, pleasure, and opportunity. Only then does governance follow.

“Stop the spread,” he said. “Contain the footprint.”

Closing Reflection

Urban sprawl persists because it feels affordable, familiar, and politically safe. Its real costs arrive later, dispersed across infrastructure budgets, health systems, and ecosystems. Density, by contrast, demands care. It demands design quality, patience, and trust.

The choice cities face is not between growth and restraint. It is between expansion without responsibility and improvement with intention. The latter is slower, but it is the only path that preserves land, community, and future choice.

Scene and Context

Businesses in many sectors are finding that traditional sustainability is no longer enough. Insurance firms are pulling out of high risk regions. Food supplies are exposed to soil decline. Heat and flooding are disrupting infrastructure. These patterns frame Hannah Pathak’s article Beyond Sustainability: Businesses Embrace Regenerative Systems Thinking.

Hannah sets out a clear shift. Sustainability often meant doing less harm. Regeneration means strengthening the systems that companies rely on. She links this to Doughnut Economics and highlights examples in farming, construction and energy that show how restored systems create more stable value.

On the podcast, Zoe put it plainly.

Regeneration requires seeing how “health systems, economic, energy, food, social and planetary systems” are connected.

Formation and Early Influences

Zoe traces her worldview back to an experience at eleven, when she lost her father.

He had been “a serial entrepreneur” who once drew the praise of Bill Gates as “the most dynamic man he’d ever met.”

There was a cost behind that drive and his early death shaped her sense of limits and purpose.

A health scare later in life led her to pause her career and travel Europe in a campervan. She described learning “how to be more in tune with my body” and understanding that energy is finite.

These experiences influence how she works. They give her a sharp awareness of the tension between ambition and wellbeing, something she now sees across the sustainability field.

Turning Point

Zoe spent nearly eight years at Mott MacDonald in climate, ESG and strategy roles. Her LinkedIn profile shows work on net zero coalitions, ESG strategy and digital change before moving into climate risk and industry collaboration.

Her major turning point was contributing to the leadership of the second iteration of the Physical Climate Risk Appraisal Methodology (PCRAM), an industry first methodology, translating physical risk into a compelling case for investing in resilience.

Zoe was proud to have been involved in industry leading collaborations.

She said launching PCRAM at London Climate Action Week “gave me the confidence to start my independent practice.”

It showed her the power of shared methods and the value of collaboration across investors, engineers and policymakers.

The Work She Is Doing Now

Zoe now runs her own climate and sustainability advisory practice and is co founder of Overstory Earth, which helps city residents reconnect with nature.

Her focus is regenerative strategy. She stresses that regeneration does not rely on waiting for new technologies, but re-balance existing systems and practices.

“We have all of the tools already today.”

Hannah’s article supports this view with concrete examples. Regenerative agriculture restores soil health and improves yields. Energy companies shifting from fossil fuels to renewables are strengthening long term resilience. Construction firms using nature based materials are improving water retention and air quality.

Zoe gave a direct example from farming. Years of monocropping and tilling have caused “mass desertification” in parts of the United States.

When yields fell and the impact hit “the livelihoods” of farmers, many turned to regenerative practices.

The result was healthier soil and more reliable output.

The Tension

The largest challenge is time. Most organisations still operate on short cycles. Quarterly targets, investor expectations and internal promotion systems all pull leaders toward near term decisions.

Zoe captured the tension clearly. Businesses that want to exist “in fifty or a hundred years time” need to think on that scale.

Hannah’s article points to the same pressure. Regeneration depends on soil health, supply chain strength, stable communities and long term assets. These conditions do not fit neatly inside current reporting models.

A further tension sits inside the work culture itself. Zoe said that stepping into independent practice revealed a generous community of founders and freelancers.

“People are so generous with their time,” she said.

This collective mindset aligns more closely with regenerative thinking than the competitive structures found in many large organisations.

Closing Reflection

Asked what she would change about the commercial world, Zoe said she would give decision makers “goggles to really see into the future.”

The image is simple but sharp. Regeneration depends on choices made before systems fail. It requires clear sight of consequences and a willingness to act early.

Pathak’s article argues that regeneration is already within reach. Zoe’s experience shows what it looks like in practice. The question now is whether organisations can adjust their time horizons fast enough to match the pace of change around them.

Decarbonisation at ground level

Across South Asia, many garment factories sit at the centre of the global climate conversation. They produce for well known brands with public targets, yet they face a very different reality. Energy costs move quickly. Margins are tight. Access to capital can be difficult and in some markets the cost of borrowing is high. Many small and mid sized manufacturers do not have the resources or visibility to manage large scale change.

This is the landscape explored in this episode. Charlie is joined by Jamie Rusby, co founder of Generation 1, a platform that supports decarbonisation in fashion supply chains. The aim is to help factories move from ambition to action through planning tools, local delivery partners and investment that removes the need for upfront capital. Jamie describes it as a practical way to support manufacturers who want to move but face structural barriers.

The conversation builds on a recent World Economic Forum article that calls for new forms of supply chain finance. The idea is that isolated projects are not enough and that companies will need long term, structured investment across a portfolio of suppliers. It is a clear argument, yet the real conditions inside factories and procurement teams show how complex that shift can be.

A career shaped by long supply chains

Jamie’s view of the problem has been shaped by more than twenty years in sustainability roles. He began his career at Forum for the Future, CoreRatings and Context Group before joining the IKEA Group in 2012. At IKEA he worked on policy, strategy and communication during a period of major organisational change.

One moment from that time stands out. IKEA had proposed that all wood used in its products should come from certified or recycled sources. Many believed the company could not reach one hundred percent. Jamie recalls the internal debate. He says,

“If you set a goal that is fifty percent, then you can decide which side of the fifty percent you are on. But if you set a hundred percent goal, then there is no unclarity around where you sit.”

The target was eventually met, and the experience shaped his view that many limits are practical rather than fixed.

Later, as Group Director Sustainability at VELUX, he worked on material decarbonisation and long term science based targets. During that period VELUX removed plastic from its packaging and shifted to a cardboard based solution. The climate impact was small, but the organisational impact was significant. Teams from design, manufacturing and marketing worked together and saw that change at pace was possible.

Jamie describes this shift in perspective as a personal journey too. He says,

“I used to describe myself as frustrated but optimistic, but now I describe myself as determined.”

The change reflects his belief that the core barriers to decarbonising supply chains are real but solvable.

Turning climate ambition into something operational

Generation 1 was founded to help brands and factories act on the ground. The model combines planning, implementation and finance into one service for manufacturers and consumer goods brands.

The planning stage helps factories identify practical options for reducing emissions. It also helps brands build a clearer picture of their supply networks. The delivery stage relies on local partners in Bangladesh and Nepal who install and maintain equipment. Rooftop solar is often the first step because it offers predictable savings and works well with garment production schedules.

The finance stage is designed to remove barriers for manufacturers. Many factories hesitate to invest because orders shift and capital is expensive. Jamie and his co founders partnered with an impact fund to provide affordable investment that does not require upfront cost. This creates the conditions for long term planning while keeping cash flow positive from the start.

Jamie explains why this matters. He says,

“These companies have many priorities. They employ thousands of people and need to meet customer needs. Decarbonising becomes another priority, so it needs structure for it to move.”

This structure allows brands and suppliers to work across multiple projects rather than one at a time.

Finance, power and the reality inside factories

The World Economic Forum article argues for programmatic supply chain finance. It suggests that buyers should form large portfolios of supplier projects in order to attract institutional investors. Jamie agrees with the ambition but questions whether most companies have the leverage or internal capacity to adopt such a model.

He notes that many factories operate under significant pressure. Some employ thousands of people and produce millions of garments each week. They prioritise stability, employment and customer expectations. Adding complex decarbonisation projects without support can feel unrealistic. Jamie says,

“They see the risks of climate change, but for it to be a priority you need a strong customer who can help drive it forward as part of a program.”

Trust is also a recurring theme. Years of cost pressure and short term purchasing have shaped relationships between brands and manufacturers. Jamie’s view is that responsibility begins by understanding this context. Manufacturers want to decarbonise, but the system often gives them few options. Brands carry targets but may lack visibility into lower tier suppliers. Programmatic finance can only work if both sides see value and if the structure feels fair.

A quieter form of determination

As the conversation closes, Charlie asks what gives Jamie confidence that large scale change is possible. Jamie returns to the idea that the barriers are less about technology and more about coordination. He says,

“These are not insurmountable barriers, but they are real barriers because we have got used to a way of working that we need to change.”

His hope is that more organisations will adopt collaboration as a practical tool rather than a slogan. He believes progress will come from long term partnerships, clear goals and shared structures. The moral thread is quiet but present. Real responsibility grows from understanding conditions on the ground and designing solutions that fit them.

Closing reflection

Fashion supply chains have become a central arena for climate action. Manufacturers operate under pressure, yet they control many of the levers needed to cut emissions. Brands hold public targets but depend on suppliers for delivery. The path forward will require finance that supports long term action and programs that help teams build trust across the value chain.

This episode suggests that responsibility is not theory. It is a sober understanding of what is possible when teams work with the real conditions in front of them. Decarbonisation becomes more credible when ambition meets structure, and when change is designed to work for the people who must carry it.