A Prediction That Has Fully Arrived

In 2002, Baroness Onora O’Neill used the BBC Reith Lectures to predict a coming crisis of institutional trust. A decline, she argued, in belief in leaders, governments, businesses, media, and ultimately in each other.

A July 2026 article by Gavin Esler in The National argues the prediction has now fully arrived.

The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026, which Esler cites, found that seven in ten respondents globally report unwillingness or hesitance to trust someone with different values or backgrounds.

In Japan the figure is ninety percent. Germany, eighty-one. The UK, seventy-six. The US, seventy.

The Reuters Digital News Report 2026, also cited in the article, found that roughly forty percent of people now practise news avoidance.

Only thirty-nine percent get news from ideologically different sources at least weekly.

Aimee Rawlins read the article and found both statistics significant.

Fake News as a Feeling, Not Just a Fact

Aimee is a freelance editor and writer covering sustainability, land use, and climate for Time and The Guardian. Before that she was Senior Editor for the Impact section at Fast Company, managing a team covering climate, clean energy, and ESG. Her journalism career began at CNNMoney and CNN, covering finance, technology, and startups.

She brings a precise diagnostic to the trust problem. The issue is not simply that more false information is in circulation. It is that people now believe all information might be false.

Reuters found, she notes, that two thirds of respondents believe a foreign adversary could be inserting falsehoods into national media. Once distrust extends to the source rather than to specific claims, it becomes indiscriminate. A story that does not align with an existing worldview is assumed suspicious regardless of its accuracy.

“The challenge right now is that it’s not just that there is more fake news. It’s that people think news is fake.”

What Local News Deserts Actually Do

Aimee’s most structural observation connects the trust data to the decline of local journalism, particularly in the United States.

Research she references consistently finds that in communities that have lost local news sources, polarisation increases and social capital decreases.

Local journalism provides something national and partisan media cannot: a shared factual foundation for people who disagree about everything else.

A corrupt city council member. A planning decision. A business closing. These stories are not ideologically contentious. They give communities a common reference point.

When that disappears, the vacuum is filled elsewhere. “Instead of having a shared source, a shared truth of sorts, people look for it elsewhere, and that is not in a community-oriented place.”

What the Trust Crisis Means for Accountability

For sustainability journalism the implications are specific. Accountability reporting depends on readers who trust independent sources enough to engage with complexity and unwelcome findings.

A readership that practises news avoidance, that believes all media might be corrupted, that encounters only confirming information, is not a readership capable of distinguishing genuine transparency from sophisticated greenwashing.

The information environment in which sustainability claims are made and scrutinised is the same one in which trust is failing.

The accountability mechanism that gives responsible business its commercial value depends on an information ecosystem with enough trust in it to function.

Giving Enforcement Power to a Body That Currently Has None

Aimee’s magic wand would give the US National Labor Relations Board enforceable teeth: the legal authority to impose monetary penalties on companies for union busting and unfair labour practices, not merely order reinstatement or back pay.

“There’s zero incentive for companies not to engage in terrible practices, illegal practices.”

A Gallup survey found trust in unions currently stands at sixty-eight percent in the United States. The institution has public confidence. The regulatory body designed to support it cannot meaningfully act. The gap between the two is, in miniature, the same gap Esler’s article documents at civilisational scale: institutions that exist but cannot enforce create the appearance of accountability without its substance.

Esler closes his article with a line from O’Neill, drawn from Confucius. Three things are necessary for good government: weapons, food, and trust. If forced to choose what to relinquish, give up weapons and food first.

“Without trust we cannot stand.”

Legal Promises, Operational Failure

Britain makes commitments to the people it sends to serve. A 2026 report, After Service: The Hidden Costs of Britain’s Military on its Veterans, documents what happens next. The legal promises exist. At the moment people leave the forces, they break down.

Ten percent of service leavers struggle to find employment in year one. A further fifteen percent need what Jim Holland calls “a hand up, not a hand out” in the first two years.

The support architecture that exists on paper does not reliably materialise in practice. The transition point is where the system fails. Jim knows this because he lived it.

Barnsley, a Town Centre Pub, and Three Missing Things

Jim Holland served thirteen years as a Weapons Engineering Artificer in the Royal Navy. He left at thirty. He went back to Barnsley, where male unemployment was high and the economy had not moved much since the late eighties. He bought a town centre pub.

“Potentially not the best decision I ever made as a thirty-year-old single man,” he said. “It was certainly a lesson in economics.”

What he did not understand at the time was the nature of what he had lost. “I hadn’t realised that I was missing three things: my forces family, my purpose and my identity.”

He eventually got a hand up into Vodafone from a manager named Michael O’Connor, a moment he describes as a genuine inflection point. A corporate career followed in telecoms, aviation, and finance. He lost his position at Manchester Airport Group during the pandemic. He used the time to build something that addressed the problem he had lived through.

The Mechanism: More Trees, More Veterans

Carma, short for Carbon Karma, pairs corporate climate action with veteran employment. The logic was handed to Jim by Andy Steele, a former Royal Navy colleague who had built the Green Task Force in Hull: an organisation providing employment pathways to veterans and service leavers through nature-based work.

The mechanism is clean. “The more trees we get to plant, the more veterans and service leavers we can help back into employment.”

Tree planting creates jobs. Veterans do the planting. They receive vocational qualifications in horticulture as a minimum. Those with PTSD receive nature-based therapy. Employers are then engaged to bring them into wider employment.

For the corporate client, the value proposition stacks three ways.

“When you plant a tree, three wonderful things happen. First of all, you create jobs. Secondly, you get net biodiversity gain. And finally, a tree breathes in CO₂ and breathes out oxygen.”

The model currently serves clients including Leonardo, Leidos, and GoCardless.

Why Hiring Managers Misread Veterans

The report’s findings about broken support systems extend into the employment market. Jim’s reading of why veterans are underemployed is precise. It is not about trauma, though the media noise around that is significant. It is about misreading.

Veterans leaving service are highly adaptable, resilient, and structured. Hiring managers, Jim suggests, sometimes perceive that structure as a threat. The concern is not that a veteran cannot do the job. It is that they might do it too well.

“When you perceive someone as a threat, the loyalty that you will command off that person is almost immediate.”

Veterans, he argues, want to be led. They want structure and purpose. An organisation that provides those things will get extraordinary returns.

Climate Action as a Price We Have Never Paid

Jim’s magic wand is a reframing. He would remove the word cost from how businesses think about climate action and social value.

“People see climate action and social value as a cost in business. On a personal level, I see it as a price that we’ve never had to pay before.”

The argument that follows is commercial rather than moral. Legislation is coming. Governments do not have the funds to solve the problem themselves. They will eventually require businesses to act. The companies moving now are ahead of that curve.

“Companies that do it now are stealing the march. They’re being pioneers. They’re being thought leaders in this space, not reacting to legislation.”

The businesses that wait will face compliance costs, reputational lag, and a workforce and customer base that has already moved on.

What the System Has Not Solved, the Market Is Being Asked To

The deeper tension in the episode is structural. Britain’s veteran support system carries legal obligations it does not consistently meet. Carma is a market-based attempt to address what that system leaves behind. It works by attaching veteran employment outcomes to corporate ESG spending, making the intervention fundable through budgets that already exist.

Whether a commercial model can durably substitute for a state obligation is a question the episode does not resolve. Jim’s answer is pragmatic: the state is not doing it, the money for it sits in corporate sustainability budgets, and the outcomes are real.

“Never before has it been so important to bake into your business practices doing good, helping people, and helping the environment. People make the distinction of the human race and nature. We’re all one.”

The model is growing. The gap it is filling is not.

Her entry point wasn’t a runway or a flagship store. It was the gym. “I was carrying my sweaty kit in single-use plastic bags,” she recalls.

“I thought: we can make something better.”

That “something” became a range of reusable, stylish, and functional bags — designed to outlast trends, survive a decade of use, and replace the endless churn of plastic and low-grade polyester.

The Unsexy Side of Sustainability

This episode is refreshingly light on green-washed marketing language. Rouch doesn’t promise to “save the planet” with a tote. Instead, she talks about the unglamorous, often hidden layers of responsible production:

• Working with mills that meet strict environmental standards

• Manufacturing in small runs to avoid excess inventory

• Designing for durability so replacements aren’t needed every season

It’s the side of sustainability that doesn’t get Instagram likes — but actually moves the needle.

Luxury’s Dirty Secret

Having spent years in high fashion, Rouch knows the industry’s contradictions. The luxury sector markets permanence but thrives on novelty; it tells stories of craftsmanship while quietly overproducing to maintain shelf presence.

“The most sustainable thing you can do is make something people want to keep,” she says.

That philosophy runs through La Pochette’s entire model: timeless designs, repairable hardware, and materials chosen for both performance and longevity. In a culture obsessed with ‘newness’, it’s a direct challenge to fashion’s growth logic.

Small Brand, Big Responsibility

For a founder, leading responsibly means wrestling with trade-offs daily. Scaling production could cut costs but increase waste. Moving manufacturing overseas might improve margins but lose oversight. “Every decision has a sustainability cost,” she admits.

“You have to know your red lines.”

It’s a principle she believes applies beyond fashion: responsibility isn’t just about the material you use, but the model you build.

The Real Question

The Responsible Edge asks whether it’s really possible to lead responsibly in today’s commercial world. For Rouch, the answer is yes — but only if you define success on your own terms. That means rejecting the idea that growth must be infinite and accepting that “luxury” should mean not just high price, but high principles.

Because sometimes leadership isn’t about scaling up. It’s about knowing when not to.

It’s a startling image, and a potent reminder: our baseline for environmental degradation shifts quietly, generation by generation. Today, she’s a documentary producer with Cornwall Climate Care, but it’s this early, tactile confrontation with pollution that laid the groundwork for her uncompromising approach to environmental truth-telling.

From Tabloid Stings to Truth-Telling

Claire’s path wasn’t linear. A former international journalist, she cut her teeth in the ethically murky waters of 1990s tabloid journalism — wiretaps, stakeouts, and all. One assignment required her, aged 25, to go undercover with a hidden mic to entrap a man allegedly dealing drugs. He wasn’t. “He was a lovely man,” she says.

“That was a huge wake-up call. I didn’t want to be part of that world.”

What followed was a redirection, not just away from journalism’s darker corners, but toward a more constructive, values-led mode of storytelling. Reporting stints in the Philippines and Venezuela exposed her to the vast chasm between natural abundance and human deprivation — insights that now inform her climate work.

Microplastics, Macro Awakening

Returning to Cornwall years later, it wasn’t oil but plastic that struck Claire.

“The whole beach looked like it was covered in confetti — except it was microplastics,” she recalls.

The scene catalysed her founding of Rame Peninsula Beach Care, a local clean-up group that grew into a movement. “You can’t clean a beach on your own,” she says — a phrase that could double as a metaphor for climate action.

But it was a scientist’s despair at a marine plastics conference that triggered her shift to climate filmmaking:

“He said, ‘Plastic is terrible, but the real issue is climate change — and we’re not talking about it.’”

That comment became the seed for Cornwall Climate Care, which now produces powerful documentaries on how climate change affects local communities.

No Voiceovers, No Preaching — Just Real People

Claire’s films are pointedly non-preachy. They’re fronted by “real people” — a farmer, a fisherman, her own hairdresser — to break down social and political polarisation.

“We interviewed a climate sceptic for our latest film. He was lovely. We agreed on far more than we didn’t,” she says.

That intentional dismantling of echo chambers is part of her ethos. In a media landscape often soaked in outrage and binary conflict, Claire’s approach is quietly radical: listening.

The Power and Peril of Film

The tension between storytelling and impact looms large.

“Film is powerful, but it can also greenwash,” Claire warns.

Referencing a recent Mintel article and Hollywood’s reluctance to mention climate change even in disaster films, she calls it “a cowardly, commercially driven neglect of artistic duty.”

But she’s not naïve about the industry’s carbon footprint either. Disney’s “Snow White”, she notes, had higher emissions than the latest “Fast and Furious”.

Her team uses electric vehicles and rechargeable kit — modest measures, perhaps, but ones that reflect her core belief: if you’re going to critique the system, you’d better examine your own house first.

The Real Risk: Not Being Fair

When asked what she’d change with a magic wand, Claire doesn’t hesitate: “Fairness.” She believes climate action fails not due to facts, but because people sense — often rightly — that the burden will fall on those least able to carry it. “People at the bottom are told to give up things, while the wealthy fly private,” she says.

“We need to tax the rich, and tax the corporations dodging responsibility.”

It’s not just a moral point. It’s a strategic one. “You can’t build a movement on resentment,” Claire suggests.

“But you can build one on fairness.”

A Vision Worth Watching

For Claire, the antidote to fear-based messaging is not false optimism — it’s agency. Her screenings aren’t just passive viewings; they’re catalysts for discussion, community action, and change. “Don’t just tell people it’s all terrible,” she insists.

“Give them something they can do.”

Whether or not climate cinema can “save the world” may be an open question. But in the hands of people like Claire, it can certainly make us want to.

The guests—Kate Humphreys (Chief Communications Officer), Edouard Minc (ESG Director), and Alma Santo (Format Manager and Banijay Green Co-Chair)—represent the rarely-aligned triangle of strategy, storytelling, and systems. Together, they reveal how one of the world’s most prolific entertainment firms is tackling ESG not as a comms challenge or compliance box, but as a cultural operating system.

“We produce 17,000 hours of content a year. That comes with serious responsibility.” — Kate Humphreys

🎬 The Real Battleground for ESG? Behind the Camera

Banijay’s influence spans over 70 countries and household names like Big Brother, Survivor, and MasterChef. But the ESG frontier, as Edouard Minc points out, doesn’t lie in splashy climate specials. It’s embedded in format bibles, carbon audits, and the design of studio kitchens.

From measuring emissions across hundreds of decentralized productions to embedding welfare guides in every format package, the company is building what Minc calls a “dual ESG strategy”: one for behind the scenes (decarbonisation, compliance, HR policies), and one for what appears on screen (storylines, casting, subtle norm-setting).

“Calculating emissions was step one. But our biggest challenge now is decarbonising how we create.” — Edouard Minc

🧠 Beyond Greenwashing: Authenticity as a System, Not a Slogan

The team’s approach to greenwashing is refreshingly clear-eyed. Rather than dodging the term, they interrogate its causes: stakeholder pressure, disconnected comms, and a temptation to lead with ambition instead of truth.

For Humphreys, the key is radical internal transparency—communicating internally before externally, and ensuring every campaign is “earned through action.” For Santo, that means making sustainability desirable and routine. Not every message needs a megaphone. Some should feel as normal as putting leftovers in the fridge.

“My utopia? That sustainability no longer needs to be said. It’s just how we do things.” — Alma Santo

🌍 Local Markets, Global Impact

With 23 countries and wildly diverse regulatory and cultural contexts, Banijay’s ESG strategy isn’t a top-down playbook. It’s a patchwork of locally tuned initiatives: from e-waste drives in Spain, to mandatory bibles that ensure green practices in unaffiliated production houses.

This decentralized model isn’t just practical—it’s philosophical. It reflects the media itself: local in flavor, global in influence.

“We’re not just a production company. We’re part of the media ecosystem that shapes norms. That comes with power—and pressure.” — Kate Humphreys

🪄 If They Had a Magic Wand…

• Minc would make cross-industry ESG collaboration mandatory: “You can’t decarbonise in isolation.”

• Humphreys wants companies to honour their values under pressure: “Authenticity is when you stick to your position even when it’s hard.”

• Santo dreams of sustainability so embedded it no longer needs a name.

Katie is the co-founder of enough., a new venture launching later this year that aims to empower survivors of sexual violence with a revolutionary new form of reporting. But this isn’t just a tech solution. It’s a design rethink of the power dynamics, pain points, and psychological weight that survivors face—often alone.

“The problem is not a lack of awareness anymore,” she explains. “We’re asking people to take on so much responsibility in a broken system. What if we redesigned the experience instead?”

🧩 Reframing the Challenge

Katie’s path to enough. wasn’t linear. She built her career in brand strategy, helping global firms innovate, position, and grow. But it was her own lived experience—and deep frustration with the status quo—that inspired her to step away from client briefs and into system-level change.

“This isn’t about replicating what exists or trying to make institutions slightly more efficient,” she says. “It’s about meeting people where they are, especially in moments of trauma, and creating something radically more human.”

With enough., survivors can document their experience in a way that feels safe, supported, and non-linear. The platform is built around behavioural science—acknowledging that trauma affects memory, decision-making, and timing. Reports can be time-stamped but held until a survivor is ready to act.

It’s not just empowering. It’s preventative. If a survivor chooses to release their report, the tool can alert others who have reported the same perpetrator, creating a network of patterns and protection.

🛠 What Happens When You Design For Survivors?

Katie describes how much of the current system is built around protecting institutions—from HR departments to law enforcement. But her lens, honed from years in innovation consulting, flips the script.

“I wanted to create something that protects survivors instead,” she says. “We can use design as a form of justice.”

Her approach is iterative, not prescriptive. During beta testing, Katie and her co-founder worked closely with a diverse group of users to prototype features, gather feedback, and refine their tone and timing. One insight? Survivors often want to share their experience—but not necessarily with authorities. So, enough. supports anonymous documentation, giving survivors a form of control even when they’re not ready to pursue action.

It’s a reminder that systems aren’t just broken because of bureaucracy—they’re broken because they weren’t designed with the user in mind.

🔮 What Would It Look Like to Shift the Culture?

Katie’s work intersects with a broader reckoning across sectors—from business to media—around how power operates. But what makes enough. stand out is its unwillingness to wait for cultural change. Instead, it builds micro-actions that could shift the ecosystem.

“We talk about ‘culture change’ all the time,” Katie says, “but culture is made up of small systems, actions, and choices. If you change the experience, the culture will follow.”

As her team prepares to launch in October, Katie hopes the platform can become both a tool and a statement. That we don’t need to wait for institutions to evolve—we can create new tools, new language, and new rituals for justice.

And if we’re serious about responsible business, perhaps this is what responsibility really looks like: not just acknowledging harm, but designing systems that make it harder to do harm in the first place.