Transforming Tomorrow The Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business

We start our new series of episodes looking at meat farming in the UK’s Lake District by meeting the Lake District Farmers organisation. 


Jan and Paul travel to Ulverston – or Oolverston as Jan would have it – to meet LDF Head of Purpose and Sustainability Phil Scott and find all about the organisation and its work with farmers across the county of Cumbria. 


LDF work with a network of around 50 farmers who have native breed cattle, sheep, and pigs to process and selling high-quality meat. But how do they work together? How does this network benefit the farmers involved? Why do top chefs in London want their products? Why are they working with Lancaster University – and how? And what are the challenges facing the Lake District’s fell farmers? 

Over the next six weeks on Transforming Tomorrow, we will be taking a deep dive into the Towards Net Zero Meat Production project.


This is a collaboration between Lancaster University - including the Pentland Centre - and the Lake District Farmers organisation.


Jan and Paul will be speaking to experts in Lancaster, the Lake District Farmers, and farmers in Cumbria (on their farms) to find our more.


Take a sneak peek here.

Professor Henrik Österblom, Director of the Anthropocene Laboratory at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, comes to the podcast with possibly the best job title so far.


Henrik is one of Jan’s favourite super-scientists, and he joins Jan and Paul from Stockholm. But just what does Anthropocene mean, and how does it tie in with sustainability?


How is the world changing due to human activity? How have we affected the behaviour of animals – do frogs really eat lightbulbs? What are the empirics of hope? Are there positive signs that we can tackle the challenges we face? How does art and creativity fit into sustainability science? And just what is Henrik’s favourite seabird (and Jan and Paul’s)?


Find out more about the Anthropocene Lab and its work here: https://www.anthropocenelab.se/ 


 And you can discover the Sounds of Science book Henrik talks about here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780443152672/the-sounds-of-science 

We’ve discussed modern slavery on a global scale before, but now Dr Divya Jyoti joins Jan and Paul to bring the issue closer to home.


Divya’s research has taken her to the factory floor, and to the city of Leicester – where there were once claims of 10,000 people living in modern slavery – and has led her to shine a light on left-behind people, those often-forgotten people in our societies.


What has Divya learned from her work in Leicester? What have been the effects on the city of the allegations and investigations? Have people paid enough attention to the impacts on the communities?


Find out more about Divya’s work on modern slavery in the fashion industry here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/spotlight/modern-slavery/

In 2023, around 6.8 million people in the UK were in severely insecure work – little over a firth of the working population. Work Foundation Director Ben Harrison dials in from London to discuss the issue.


Ben tells Jan and Paul about how the Work Foundation works as it tries to influence policy across the UK. He covers issues of flexible working, how economic changes in recent years have affected working patterns, and the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic.


What are decent and insecure work? How does the Work Foundation’s Insecure Work Index function, and what does it tell us? Are particular groups and parts of the country more affected by insecure work? What responsibilities do employers have towards their employees during times of financial hardship?


Discover more about the Work Foundation’s research and activities on insecure work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/work-foundation/our-work/insecure-work/

Dr Joanne Larty joins Jan and Paul to enlighten them on her work with businesses in Cumbria on sharing best sustainability practice. 


Through Project INSPIRE, Joanne and her team are speaking to pioneering companies across Cumbria to discover how they are tackling sustainability challenges, how it ties into the history and landscape of the county, and how their practices can be spread. 


What issues do business face? How can they move to a new way of operating? And, most importantly to Paul, how do you really pronounce Furness, and why does everyone get it wrong? 


Discover more about Joanne’s work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lums/people/joanne-larty 


Read more about Project Inspire here: https://doc.your-brochure-online.co.uk/Lancaster-University_FiftyFourDegrees_Issue_19/14/