The FutureSeeds Podcast Cyprien Clerc

In Episode 29, we continue our conversation with Phil Preston on the topic of aligning business with purpose. This episode explores the connection between purpose and performance, as well as the relationship between purpose and well-being. We also delve into the significance of purpose for society as a whole. Finally, as always, our guest delivers a hopeful message to conclude the episode.

About Phil Preston Phil left a corporate career in 2007 where he was overseeing billions of dollars of investments to help businesses go beyond token and symbolic acts of charity to really making a difference – and purpose is central to that task.
Read more at: https://philpreston.com.au/keynotes/biography/

This episode is part of a series on purpose. 
In episode 28 we will be exploring a specific angle, the question of purpose through the business lens.
 My guest for this episode is Phil Preston. Phil used to work in the finance world, more specifically he was in the investment realm, overseeing 50 Billion dollars of global investments. But in 2007, he starting asking himself “Why am I doing this?”. This question lead him to build his current business two years later, in 2009, where he now a speaker a facilitator and a consultant, whose mission is to bring more purpose to the business world. We exchange on how businesses can embed purpose into their values, whether it is through their mission statement, their KPIs, or their culture, and generally what it takes to have a whole company following a purpose that is not simply “making money” but also having a cause, how to get the business to commit to that decision, and what are the challenges and rewards that such a business faces along the way.

The Great Unravelling has started and will be part of our story for the rest of our life. It is an ineluctable dismantling of the fabric of life as we know it, leading to rapid and at times violent, changes to human societies. It is the result of humans pushing the boundaries of our planet beyond sustainable levels, leading among others to climate change, but also rapid loss of biodiversity, pressure on freshwater, and more. We are currently going through an acceleration of the Great Unravelling due to the confluence of the environmental crises with other crises. While the 2020-2030 decade will be affected by disasters of unprecedented scale, it will also be the decade of unprecedented societal transformation as a way to adapt to these. In Australia, there has been an enormous wave of community activities that have sprung since the Black Summer bushfire season and Covid-19. The confluence of crises have led to a realisation that we can’t continue living the way we do. Mindfulness, resilience and regeneration are emerging as key ways to navigate the Great Unravelling. There is a thirst for social and environmental connection and as a result an innumerable amount of grassroots community initiatives are springing.
About Dr Jean S. Renouf Jean is an academic at Southern Cross University, a firefighter and a dad. Prior to this, Jean spent years implementing emergency relief projects in disaster zones and countries at war, including Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, etc. All of this informs his passion for climate change, community regeneration & resilience and non-traditional security, and led him to found Resilient Byron.

The Great Unravelling has started and will be part of our story for the rest of our life. It is an ineluctable dismantling of the fabric of life as we know it, leading to rapid and at times violent, changes to human societies. It is the result of humans pushing the boundaries of our planet beyond sustainable levels, leading among others to climate change, but also rapid loss of biodiversity, pressure on freshwater, and more. We are currently going through an acceleration of the Great Unravelling due to the confluence of the environmental crises with other crises. While the 2020-2030 decade will be affected by disasters of unprecedented scale, it will also be the decade of unprecedented societal transformation as a way to adapt to these. In Australia, there has been an enormous wave of community activities that have sprung since the Black Summer bushfire season and Covid-19. The confluence of crises have led to a realisation that we can’t continue living the way we do. Mindfulness, resilience and regeneration are emerging as key ways to navigate the Great Unravelling. There is a thirst for social and environmental connection and as a result an innumerable amount of grassroots community initiatives are springing.

About Dr Jean S. Renouf Jean is an academic at Southern Cross University, a firefighter and a dad. Prior to this, Jean spent years implementing emergency relief projects in disaster zones and countries at war, including Afghanistan, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, etc. All of this informs his passion for climate change, community regeneration & resilience and non-traditional security, and led him to found Resilient Byron.
 

Episode 25 was recorded live on stage during the first FutureSeeds event, on May 26th 2021.

Mara Bun is a true legend. She has been a non-executive director of Australian Ethical for the past five years. She was the founding CEO of Green Cross Australia, an organisation set up in 1993 by Mikhail Gorbachev to create a new approach to solving the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. In early 2018 it was also announced that she will become the first female President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.


Previously, Mara has worked for The Wilderness Society, Greenpeace Australia, CHOICE, the CSIRO and a number of financial organisations, including Macquarie Bank, Morgan Stanley, and as a director of Allen Consulting Group. Mara has also worked for The World Bank on an earthquake reconstruction project in Nepal. She was a Director on the Board of Bush Heritage Australia for ten years and a member of the NSW Sustainable Energy Development Authority Advisory Council for six years. Mara studied economics and political studies at Williams College, Massachusetts.

Video version available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGK7m3RBQeE&t=4s

Episode 24 is the second part of my interview with Donnie Maclurcan. In episode 23, we explored the roots of capitalism, its pros and cons, how money is created, what’s missing in economic models, and the problem that arises with too much privatization of wealth. Episode 24 focuses on the shift from a world ran by private individual for-profit businesses, to a world lead by non-for-profits organizations, and how this movement is already taking place worldwide. We also describe the believes and fear that make people hold on to misleading capitalist values, and how to discuss the benefits of shifting our economic system with a defender of modern liberal capitalism.
Donnie is an Affiliate Professor of Economics at Southern Oregon University and an Executive Director of the Post Growth Institute - an international organization exploring how people, companies and nature can thrive together, within ecological limits. He's taught at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, in Sydney, and at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, in Bristish Columbia