​Scene and Context

The UK presents itself as a climate leader. Territorial emissions are falling. Targets are being met. Progress appears measurable and controlled.

Sarah does not dispute the reductions. What she questions is what those numbers omit.

Current UK climate targets focus on emissions produced within national borders. They do not account for emissions embedded in imported goods. As manufacturing moves overseas, emissions fall at home while consumption remains constant.

“It’s not just an impact to our emissions,” Sarah says. “It’s an impact to our jobs.”

Behind the national figures sit factory closures, shrinking workforces, and growing reliance on imports produced under weaker environmental standards.

Formation and Origins

Sarah trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. She grew up in a farming family, where land, work, and income were tightly connected.

At thirteen, she lost her father to suicide after a farming contract collapsed.

“That understanding that life is fragile,” she says, “also that the work we do really should matter.”

In her early twenties, Sarah and her husband left London for the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. They lived off grid, homeschooled their children, and worked with natural materials including clay and lime.

“It was unconventional,” she says. “But it taught me resilience, creativity and the importance of thinking outside of the box.”

The experience reshaped how she understood systems, limits, and responsibility.

A Turning Point

Returning to the UK, Sarah moved into roles that connected architecture, manufacturing, and industry advocacy. She worked at the Brick Development Association, representing clay manufacturers across the UK and Ireland, before joining Michelmersh Brick Holdings.

Today, Sarah is Group Innovation and Sustainability Director, with responsibility extending across innovation, sustainability, marketing, technical strategy, product development, and procurement.

“I’m very busy,” she says.

Michelmersh is the fourth largest brickmaker in the UK, producing clay bricks, pavers, architectural terracotta, and prefabricated masonry products. Its work appears on Battersea Power Station, the British Library, the V&A, and Harrods.

But size does not protect an industry from structural pressure.

The Work Being Done Now

Since 2016, Michelmersh has reduced its emissions intensity by just over ten percent per tonne of product. Across the UK ceramics sector, absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions have fallen by more than fifty percent since the early 2000s.

Sarah is precise about what that reduction represents.

“Twenty-four percent reduction is the intensity reduction per tonne of product,” she says. “The remainder is totally attributable to closures of factories.”

Decarbonisation has occurred. But so has de-industrialisation.

The sector now employs around 17,500 people. Around forty percent of manufacturing sites have closed since the turn of the century. Imports from non-EU countries continue to rise.

During the energy crisis following the war in Ukraine, some manufacturers experienced energy price increases of “seven to eight hundred percent”.

“That is just going to break most businesses,” Sarah says.

The Tension Inside Climate Policy

Sarah’s concern is not climate ambition. It is how progress is measured.

The UK reports territorial emissions under the Paris Agreement. Consumption-based emissions remain largely invisible in public reporting.

“We are effectively offshoring manufacturing products to other countries,” she says. “But we’re still consuming those products.”

The result, in her view, is misleading.

“We’re kind of greenwashing all of the people of the UK into believing that we’ve reduced our emissions,” Sarah says. “Which is not the case.”

The effects reach beyond carbon.

“We’re losing skills in this country,” she says. “And we’re also beholden to other countries.”

Closing Reflection

Sarah does not argue for retreat. She argues for clarity and pace.

“We are decarbonising all of these industries,” she says. “But we’re not doing it at a pace that can keep these industries alive.”

Her focus remains practical. Reduce energy use first. Improve data. Optimise processes. Build circularity incrementally.

Asked what she would change if she could alter one thing, her answer is not technical.

“I would change the culture of greed,” Sarah says.

It is not framed as ideology. It is an observation formed inside factories, supply chains, and balance sheets.

​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. 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.

Why This Conversation Matters

Tree planting has become a favourite climate habit. It feels simple. It feels hopeful. But this simplicity can hide a harder truth.

Derrick Emsley, co-founder of Tentree and Veritree, sees the gap between planting a sapling and restoring a living forest. He worries that tree planting can distract from deeper climate work when it is not done with care. As he put it,

“Tree planting is an input in pursuit of an outcome.”

That one line sets the tone. A forest is the outcome. Planting is just the start.

How the Story Begins

Derrick grew up in Saskatchewan. His first business began when he was sixteen. He and his brother planted trees on farmland because it felt like a direct way to help.

He remembers that early thinking clearly.

“We thought okay, you know, trees take carbon out of the air. We have a lot of marginal farmland. Why don’t we just plant trees on farmland?”

The idea had energy, but not expertise. They soon learned how complex restoration really is. Land, species, partners and long-term care all matter. Their first venture did not last, but it opened their eyes to the power of restoring nature.

They did not fall in love with carbon markets. They fell in love with reforestation.

The Turning Point

Tentree came next. The model was simple. For every product sold, ten trees would be planted. But the promise brought new pressure.

Derrick recalls the questions that kept coming up.

“Did the tree get planted? Did anybody else claim that same tree? Did it survive and was it even the right tree in the first place?”

The team struggled to find clear answers, so they built their own tools. They mapped planting sites. They checked survival. They built a system to track every project. The tool later became Veritree, a platform for monitoring and verification.

This shift from planting to proving changed how the work was done.

What Real Action Looks Like

Restoration projects now run through a full life cycle inside Veritree. Assessment. Design. Planting. Monitoring. Verification. Reporting. Inventory.

The goal is simple. Evidence. If a company says it supported a forest, there should be clear proof that the forest exists and grows.

Not every partner is accepted. Derrick shared why.

“We have said no to a ton of partnerships where we don’t believe the organisation is interested in doing this for the right reasons.”

Short-term tree planting is not enough. Long-term care matters. Many partners now commit for three to five years or more. A forest cannot be built on one-off gestures.

The Moral Tension

Tree planting sits in a tight moral space. It can help the climate. It can also distract.

Derrick described a pattern he sees across the sector.

“Tree planting as itself, if all we are doing is just putting sticks in the ground, that is performative.”

Performative planting creates numbers. Transformative planting creates forests. The difference is intention, method and time.

Derrick is also clear about the wider climate picture. Cutting emissions still comes first. Tree planting cannot be an excuse. It must be a support.

Why There Is Still Hope

Despite political noise around climate, support for nature is strong. Derrick shared research he heard during Climate Week.

“People were asked, do they feel we need to be restoring nature and restoring natural places. Ninety percent said yes.”

Nature still unites people. It offers a shared starting point when climate conversations feel divided. This gives restoration work a rare chance to grow.

Inside companies, the work is steady even if the public conversation is uneven. Many organisations are building nature strategies quietly and consistently.

The Takeaway

Tree planting became popular because it feels hopeful. The responsibility now is to keep that hope honest.

For Derrick, the future depends on one idea.

“If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to embed nature as infrastructure in every dollar we spend.”

Real restoration needs steady funding, long partnerships and honest reporting. It needs projects that put forests, not numbers, at the centre.

Trees can help the climate. But they only help when we treat them with care, patience and truth.

Responsibility begins with reality.

Two people, one promise: if they were going to make rum in Devon, it would not damage the planet. That promise is at the heart of Two Drifters, the carbon negative distillery started by Russ and Gemma Wakeham. In this on site episode of The Responsible Edge, we walked through the warm, sugary air of their working distillery to learn how science, data and storytelling come together in a bottle of British rum.

The Origin Story

Their journey with rum began long before it became a business. Their first date was at a rum tasting in Bristol. Their honeymoon was in St Lucia, where, as Gemma remembers, rum was “cheaper than water.” After years of moving for Russ’s chemistry career, from Vancouver to Wales, they wanted to raise their daughter back home in Devon. That choice collided with a bigger idea: build a distillery that makes rum from scratch in Britain, not just blends it, and do it in a way where growth does not mean more emissions.

“It won’t be my business that hurts the planet,” says Gemma.

“If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it with everything we have, without adding to global warming.”

From Why to How: Making Carbon Negative Rum

Russ looked at the challenge as a scientist. The first step was to measure everything. They carried out a full life cycle assessment, looking at every stage from sugar cane and molasses to pallets, couriers, bars, ice cubes, and glass recycling. The results were eye opening. Sugar inputs carry a big share of the impact. The use phase matters too. And global sugar supply chains are hard to trace.

The solution is not a slogan, it is a system. First, reduce impacts wherever possible. Then, remove what is left through permanent carbon removal. The distillery works with direct air capture so removals are real and can be checked.

“You build the business so that cutting comes first, because removals are expensive, and you only remove what you cannot cut,” Russ explains.

Credibility Over Hype

The couple are honest about trade offs. Gemma recalls turning down a tempting London Underground ad campaign after learning that the posters used laminated plastic and paper with a heavy footprint.

“You can’t talk about sustainability on an unsustainable platform,” she says.

These choices are easier when carbon has a real cost inside your business plan. Russ calls it an in house carbon price: a simple way of thinking that pushes every choice, from bottles to transport to advertising, toward lower impact.

And they don’t expect customers to buy for the planet. “First bottles are earned on taste and quality,” Gemma says.

“But the second bottle? That’s where our story helps.”

Tours often turn curiosity into loyalty. Visitors leave having seen the science and the ethos up close.

Storytelling That Stands Up

This episode looks at The Power of Climate Storytelling, and Two Drifters is a live case study. Gemma’s role is to keep the story joyful and clear. Russ focuses on the data, making sure it would survive a scientist’s review. Their advice for other founders: pick one issue you really care about, measure it properly, be honest about the gaps, and start now. If you use sustainability only as a marketing tool, it will backfire. If you design the business around it, the marketing will take care of itself.

The Big Vision

When asked about the future, Gemma dreams of a destination distillery where visitors can see carbon systems in action, pedal to make power, and learn why certain bottles or closures are used. In her words, it should be sustainability made visible and fun. Russ wants the numbers to add up at scale. He sees a challenger brand that proves internal carbon pricing and credible removals can build profit and force the big players to react.

“Make it profitable, and change follows,” he says. “Price carbon properly, and the market will do the rest.”

Closing Takeaway

Two Drifters is not selling virtue. It is selling excellent rum built on a system that refuses to pass hidden costs onto others. That is the responsible edge here: lead with product, back it with proof, and make the tough choices clear. If more founders did this, climate storytelling would not need to sugarcoat the message, it would simply tell the truth.