Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Episodi

• 
  Generation Is Not Delivery: The Grid Problem Behind Decarbonisation 16.09.2026 29min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Building more renewable generation is not enough if the grid cannot carry the electricity to where it is needed. Curtailment, connection queues and delayed infrastructure are turning grid capacity into a climate and competitiveness constraint. My guest today is Niklas Persson, CEO of Grid Integration at Hitachi Energy, with nearly three decades in electrification. We look at what happens as industry, transport and data centres demand more clean power while tr...
• 
  Solar, Batteries and EVs Are Turning Delay Into an Investment Risk 09.09.2026 31min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Solar, batteries and EVs are moving fast enough to change the risk calculus for energy investment. The bigger mistake may now be assuming today’s system, and its customers, will still be there tomorrow. I speak with Professor Ray Wills, Managing Director of Future Smart Strategies, who has been modelling technology adoption curves for years. We examine what accelerating clean-energy deployment means for capital allocation, electricity prices, new gas infrastr...
• 
  Long-Duration Energy Storage Is Ready. The Energy Markets Aren’t 02.09.2026 32min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Long-duration energy storage is increasingly ready to deploy. The harder problem is that electricity markets still struggle to value what duration actually provides - flexibility, reliability and power when the sun sets, the wind drops and demand peaks. My guest is Julia Souder, CEO of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council. She works across the policy, finance and deployment questions shaping this market, and brings a useful view of what is already happeni...
• 
  Buyer Pressure Helped Avoid 2 Million Hectares of Deforestation 26.08.2026 37min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Two million hectares of avoided deforestation is not a theoretical climate benefit. It is what Priscillia Moulin says can happen when companies stop treating supply-chain risk as somebody else’s problem. ClimateEpisode291.srtSRT Priscillia is Director of Strategy at MosaiX, working on deforestation-free commodity supply chains across palm oil and other high-risk materials. Her work sits at the intersection of traceability, satellite monitoring, supplier engag...
• 
  98% of a Construction Firm’s Emissions Sit in Its Supply Chain 19.08.2026 37min

  Get in touch - leave me a message At John Sisk & Son, up to 98% of company emissions sit in the supply chain. That changes the decarbonisation problem completely: the biggest levers are often not on the construction site, but in what gets bought. I speak with Keith O’Flynn, Group Supply Chain Sustainability Manager at Sisk, about what that means in practice for one of Ireland’s largest contractors. When concrete and steel dominate purchased-goods emissions, procurement decisions become cl...
• 
  Soil Is Becoming Infrastructure, and Finance Is Starting to Notice 12.08.2026 39min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Soil health is starting to look less like an environmental side issue and more like infrastructure. The real question is whether regenerative agriculture can improve resilience and economics without asking farmers to absorb years of financial pain. My guest is Tim Weaver of Holganix, working at the intersection of soil health, regenerative agriculture and measurable environmental outcomes. We look at the pressures farmers and companies already recognise: vola...
• 
  Cheap Solar, Batteries and EVs Are Breaking Fossil Fuel Economics 05.08.2026 44min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Cheap solar, batteries and EVs are no longer merely cleaner alternatives. Their falling costs are undermining fossil-fuel economics, and leaders may be misjudging the speed of that shift. My guest is Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and a long-time IPCC contributor whose work has focused on cities, transport and automobile dependence. We examine how China’s manufacturing scale is turning clean technology from a policy ambition i...
• 
  Measure First: Stop Spending on the Wrong Carbon Fixes 29.07.2026 55min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Carbon accounting can send companies straight at the wrong problem. A visible sustainability initiative may feel productive while the real emissions hotspot sits in raw materials, product design or the supply chain. My guest is John Beath, CEO and Chief Technical Director of John Beath Environmental, whose work in lifecycle assessment helps companies test assumptions before they commit money, engineering effort or supplier changes. The stakes are practical: g...
• 
  Battery Storage’s Biggest Risk Is Inaccurate Data 22.07.2026 44min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Battery storage is getting cheaper, but the data used to trade and operate it may be badly wrong. When forecasts miss, penalties stack, warranties get messy, and returns can quietly unravel. My guest is Ash Vats of 3E, who works on battery intelligence for utility-scale assets. We look at the gap between what a battery management system reports and what the hardware can actually deliver - a gap with direct consequences for grid reliability, revenue and asset ...
• 
  The Battery Isn’t the Bottleneck: Why Hydraulics Are Blocking Heavy Equipment Electrification 15.07.2026 37min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Heavy machinery can waste three quarters of the energy fed into it. The battery may not be the real electrification bottleneck. In this episode, I speak with Hiten Sonpal, CEO of Rise Robotics, about a neglected part of the energy transition: the hydraulic systems inside construction, mining, and port machinery. You’ll hear why conventional hydraulics are only around 25% efficient, how that forces manufacturers to install larger batteries, and why electric he...
• 
  AI Is Infrastructure: Its Water, Power, and Governance Costs Can’t Be Deferred 08.07.2026 42min

  Get in touch - leave me a message AI isn’t weightless. Every model, token, and workflow sits on land, water, power, heat, and governance choices. In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Sophia Mendelsohn, who leads SAP’s Global Sustainability Platform. We look at AI not as abstract software, but as physical infrastructure with real consequences for climate tech, decarbonisation, the energy transition, policy, and the businesses racing to use it. You’ll hear why data centres now si...
• 
  Australia’s Diesel Risk Is Turning Electrification Into Energy Security 01.07.2026 42min

  Get in touch - leave me a message What if electrification is no longer just a climate solution — but an energy security strategy? In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Gavin Mooney, an independent energy transition advisor working across utilities, electrification, and energy markets. We look at Australia as a live test case for the energy transition: a country rich in coal, gas, sunshine, and wind, yet still exposed through imported diesel, freight, mining, agriculture, and lon...
• 
  AI’s Energy Paradox: More Compute Could Cut Industrial Emissions 24.06.2026 41min

  Get in touch - leave me a message What if AI’s biggest climate impact isn’t chatbots, but cutting real energy waste in buildings, grids, and factories? In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Philippe Rambach, Chief AI Officer at Schneider Electric, to unpack one of the sharpest tensions in climate tech today: AI is increasing electricity demand, but used well, it may also be one of the tools we need for decarbonisation, emissions reduction, and a faster energy transition. You’ll ...
• 
  Animal Agriculture’s Stranded Asset Risk, and Why ESG Keeps Missing It 17.06.2026 41min

  Get in touch - leave me a message What if one of the biggest climate risks in your portfolio is hiding in plain sight — in food, land, methane, and animal-dependent industries? In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Claire Smith, founder and CEO of Beyond Investing, to unpack why climate finance cannot stop at fossil fuels. Claire has spent years building investment products that screen for animal use, climate impact, weapons, defence, human rights issues, and risks mainstream ES...
• 
  No One Wants to Ship Water: The Energy Security Case for Flow Batteries 10.06.2026 37min

  Get in touch - leave me a message No one wants to ship water around the world. That one line says a lot about the next phase of energy storage. In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Min Tang, Director of International Business at Rongke Power, one of the world’s leading vanadium flow battery companies. We get into why long-duration storage is moving from climate tech side-story to core grid infrastructure, and why that matters for decarbonisation, energy transition planning, net...
• 
  Traditional Sustainability Marketing Is Creating Greenwashing Risk 03.06.2026 40min

  Get in touch - leave me a message What if the biggest greenwashing risk isn’t bad intent, but business-as-usual marketing? In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Helen Neal, founder of HN Communications, to dig into one of the most under-discussed risks in decarbonisation: how companies talk about sustainability when regulation is tightening, public trust is fragile, and every net zero claim is being scrutinised. This matters because the energy transition will not be carried by t...
• 
  AI Disinformation Is Becoming a Bottleneck for Clean Energy Projects 27.05.2026 40min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Fake people. Fake comments. Real clean energy projects killed. This is what climate delay looks like in the AI era. In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Leah Qusba, CEO of GoodPower, an organisation working at the intersection of climate tech, culture, policy, and decarbonisation. We explore a hard truth about the energy transition: solar, wind, batteries, and electrification may be ready, but public trust, local permission, and disinformation ...
• 
  Carbon Data Is Becoming Permission to Sell, Not Just Something to Report 20.05.2026 35min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Carbon data is no longer just something companies report. Increasingly, it may decide whether products can be sold at all. In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Stephen Jamieson, Chief Marketing Officer for SAP Sustainability, to explore why sustainability is moving from the ESG report into the systems businesses use to run supply chains, finance, product compliance, and AI-enabled decisions. We get into what this means for climate tech, decarbo...
• 
  Solar Streetlights Are Resilience Infrastructure, Not Just Cheap Power 13.05.2026 35min

  Get in touch - leave me a message Streetlights sound boring. Until the grid fails and they’re the only lights left on. In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Liam Ryan, CEO of Streetleaf, a climate tech company rethinking one of the most overlooked pieces of public infrastructure: the streetlight. And yes, I know. Streetlights. Hardly the sexiest corner of the energy transition. But this conversation quickly becomes about something much bigger: resilience, decarbonisation, public...
• 
  Passive House Isn’t Niche Green Design. It’s Resilience Infrastructure 06.05.2026 35min

  Get in touch - leave me a message What if better buildings are one of the most practical climate resilience tools we already have? In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Darren Macri, Co-CEO of Wythe Windows and rising president of the Passive House Network. We talk about why passive house is not just a building standard, but a practical climate tech pathway for decarbonisation, emissions reduction, energy security, healthier homes, and a more resilient built environment. You’ll ...