Two Steps Forward — Sustainability Meets Business Reality

Joel Makower and Solitaire Townsend
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  • BUSINESS
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Being a sustainable business professional is both exhilarating and terrifying. Lots of steps forward…and back. To succeed you need deep insights, real experience, lots of inspiration, maybe a few laughs. Each episode, sustainable business veterans Solitaire Townsend and Joel Makower delve into the complexities of the moment and introduce you to provocative and inspiring people you need to know.

  1. 3D AGO

    What Interface still gets right about sustainability

    For much of the past decade, corporate sustainability has been absorbed into the machinery of management — metrics, disclosures, target-setting and compliance. Necessary work, certainly. But something essential has been lost along the way: the idea that sustainability is fundamentally about invention. That thread runs through the latest episode of Two Steps Forward, in which we talk with Liz Minné, who heads  global sustainability strategy at Interface, the floorcovering giant. Interface remains instructive not because it is perfect or singular, but because it demonstrates what happens when sustainability becomes part of a company’s identity rather than a program. Over time, that identity attracts employees, shapes culture and builds customer loyalty — reinforcing itself in ways no disclosure requirement can mandate.

    46 min

  2. FEB 2

    The biggest climate myth right now isn’t denial. It’s silence.

    For all the noise surrounding climate — the backlash, the culture wars, the political theatrics — here’s an uncomfortable truth: most Americans haven’t changed their minds at all. That’s the quiet bombshell from our recent podcast conversation with Yale’s Anthony Leiserowitz, founder and director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Despite a second Trump administration openly attacking climate science and policy, despitecorporate retreat and the rise of “climate hushing,” public concern about climate change in the United States has remained remarkably stable. Which raises an obvious question: Ifthe public hasn’t moved, why has business? The answer, he told us, has less to do with ideology than imagination. Or rather, a failure of it.

    43 min

  3. JAN 18

    Story as strategy: What writing climate fiction teaches us about communicating sustainability

    In this episode, we talked about Solitaire's remarkable new novel — but the most useful part of the conversation wasn’t about the book’s alternative Roman Empire or its sword-wielding heroine. It was about what writing fiction taught her about what makes any story actually work. Solitaire’s biggest takeaway is deceptively simple: Stories are not about issues, they are about people. Not systems, trends, frameworks or even impacts. People. That sounds obvious, until you look closely at most sustainability communications. We routinely aspire to tell stories when we’re actually merely presenting information: emissions trajectories, regulatory developments, technology roadmaps, ESG metrics. All are important. Most are necessary. And little of it, on its own, is storytelling.

    34 min

  4. JAN 5

    Sustainability Journalism: Reflecting on the Past, Navigating the Future

    In the first episode of our Two Steps Forward podcast for 2026, we reflect on the evolution of sustainability journalism. The occasion: Marking 25 years of covering sustainable business on Trellis.net (née GreenBiz.com). As sustainability has evolved, so too has the field of journalism. In the early days, sustainability was largely about environmental engineering — reducing waste or saving energy. Today, the issues are broader and more complex: climate justice, social equity, biodiversity and other topics. The challenge for journalists is translating these complex topics into something understandable and meaningful for the public. The growing use of insider speak — terms like “double materality” — has only added to the confusion. One big question for 2026: Can sustainability drive affordability?

    38 min

  5. 12/15/2025

    The unsustainable world of sustainability thought leadership

    What does it mean to be a corporate sustainability thought leader these days? In this episode Joel Makower and Solitaire Townsend delve into that question, confronting a paradox at the heart of corporate sustainability: At the very moment when business needs to step up and help shape the sustainability agenda, most companies have lost their nerve to talk about it. In an era of climate disruption, institutional distrust and political polarization, silence isn’t neutral. It’s risky.

    33 min

  6. 12/01/2025

    Siemens' Eva Riesenhuber on competing in an age of transition

    The sustainability landscape is littered with bold claims, ambitious targets and a widening gap between rhetoric and reality. Against that backdrop, Siemens AG presents a case worth examining — not because it declares itself a climate leader, but because it treats the climate transition as an operating constraint rather than a branding opportunity. Eva Riesenhuber, Siemens’ Global Head of Sustainability, is explicit about the forces shaping the moment. “We are in the middle of two transitions,” she told us — the energy transition and the emerging circularity transition — and “the business case for sustainability is very healthy.” That’s a confident assertion, but it raises a question: Is Siemens ahead of the curve, or simply well positioned to adapt to a world whose regulations and market forces increasingly leave companies little choice?

    36 min

  7. 11/17/2025

    Is COP30 a game-changer?

    What's going on at COP30? You wouldn't know much by reading the mainstream media, other than the relatively mild protests and the usual infrastructure problems nearly all COPs face. But what should companies know about the substance of the event? In this episode of our Two Steps Forward podcast, we take stock — Soli from inside the Blue Zone at COP30 in sweltering Belém, Brazil, and Joel comfortably ensconced at home. What emerges is a candid dispatch from inside one of the hottest and most complex COPs yet.

    33 min

  8. 11/10/2025

    Companies need a new way to measure impact. “Spheres of Influence” may be it

    What happens when the world’s dominant measurement system for corporate climate impact no longer reflects the world we’re operating in? And what should replace or supplement it?

    35 min
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Ratings & Reviews

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About

Being a sustainable business professional is both exhilarating and terrifying. Lots of steps forward…and back. To succeed you need deep insights, real experience, lots of inspiration, maybe a few laughs. Each episode, sustainable business veterans Solitaire Townsend and Joel Makower delve into the complexities of the moment and introduce you to provocative and inspiring people you need to know.

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