Good Future

John Treadgold

A podcast about the business of sustainability. John Treadgold interviews business leaders in sustainability, ESG and impact investing who are re-defining economics and building companies as a force for good.

  1. 09/01/2025

    Linda Romanovska: Taxonomy opportunities; a global perspective on Australia’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy

    Throughout almost 100 episodes of the Good Future podcast we’ve traced the evolution of the sustainable investment sector. But now we’re entering a new era of sustainable finance, where climate risk reporting, impact measurement and climate-tech innovation have become core parts of investment management. Sustainable investing has matured, and that’s in large part due to a global push to define precisely what it means to be ‘sustainable’, with a huge contribution being made by the development of sustainable finance taxonomies all over the world. Last month we saw the launch of Australia’s very own Taxonomy, and today we’re joined by the perfect guest to help us make sense of it all., and that’s Linda Romanovska. She helps us understand why it’s important, how we can use it, and how it compares and interacts with other global models. Linda is a global taxonomy expert, she’s contributed to the development of sustainable finance taxonomies in the EU, South Asia and right here in Australia. At the same time she’s worked as a senior sustainable finance advisor working with boutique consultancies as well as the Big4. And if that’s not enough to keep her busy, she’s also doing a PHD exploring the intersection of nature and sustainable finance. I learned so much in this episode, and I hope you do too. Linda’s insights are really practical, breaking down the nature of a taxonomy within the global context, highlighting sectors where it has the potential to make an impact, and, how it fits within the broader sustainable finance roadmap in Australia. Also, we’ve produced a One-page Taxonomy FIELD GUIDE. Outlining the key opportunities of aligning a portfolio with the Australian framework, and how it compares globally.Find it on my website at www.Johntreadgold.com While you’re there you can find all the show notes for the episode, and you can sign up for my newsletter where I share regular impact insights, plus, you’ll be the first to know about new podcast episodes as they drop. Enjoy!

    36 min
  2. 06/04/2024

    Clara Barby: Just Climate and the $1.5B climate strategy decarbonising heavy industry

    Today’s guest is Clara Barby. She’s been a central player in the impact investment sector for decades. Early on she worked at Acumen, she then moved on to Bridges Fund Management, and she’s currently Senior Partner at Just Climate which was spun-out of Generation Investment Management, the sustainable investment firm launched by none other than Al Gore. Along the way she’s also helped develop standard setting organisations like the Impact Management Project (the IMP) and the global sustainability accounting body, the ISSB. Clara’s resume really is quite staggering. There were lots of avenues and tangents that we could have gone down, so we really just scratched the surface today. We speak about the advancements in the world of ‘Climate-impact investing’ in terms of both the climate-tech companies that are creating disruptive new industrial technologies. But we also get really practical as we explore the emissions measurement models they use at JustClimate to look forward, and forecast, the ‘emissions avoidance’ potential of a company. This moves beyond the typical approach of relying on backward looking measures of scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. It represents important progress in GHG accounting, and has huge potential as a driver of returns as it unearths exciting new leaders in the new climate-led industrial revolution. You can find all the show notes and links on the website at www.Johntreadgold.com Plus, that’s where you can sign up to my newsletter, your regular feed of impact investing and climate-finance news, as well as fresh startups and investment deals. Sign up, and follow along. Enjoy!

    1h 10m
  3. 10/02/2023

    Nigel Sharp: A pioneer in the business of biodiversity, farmer, impact investor and conservationist

    Today we’re approaching the topic of investing in biodiversity, by speaking to Nigel Sharp, he’s a farmer, but he’s also a businessman and a fund manager. And over the past two decades he’s been a pioneer in the ‘Business of Biodiversity’. Nigel is a pioneer in this space, the Tiverton investment vehicle has developed a whole range of agricultural projects on land holdings all over Australia, and all with the regeneration of biodiversity at their core. But that’s not all. He seeded the Dragonfly venture fund, to support early stage climate-tech and regen-ag startups. And, he founded the Odonata Foundation, an environmental charity working to save species from extinction. Now before we dive into the episode I want say a big thank you to the sponsor of this series, and that’s GreenCollar. GreenCollar is a developer and innovator of environmental market solutions, they recognise the power of putting a financial value on nature, as an incentive to drive sustainable land management, cleaning up our waterways and avoiding further loss of biodiversity and animal species. Since launching more than a decade ago, the company has become Australia’s largest developer of nature-based carbon credit projects, and they’re pushing the market forward with schemes like ‘Reef Credits’, which target improved water quality at The Great Barrier Reef. And their latest innovation is NaturePlus, a new form of biodiversity credits that aim to protect and restore ecosystems around the world. They’re measuring biodiversity outcomes on the ground, with a scientifically rigorous and verifiable methodology, that puts a value on natural capital, to enable investment in the conservation of high value ecosystems. Reach out to the team at www.GreenCollar.com.au to find out more. Plus, you can find all the show notes and links on the website at www.johntreadgold.com. And you can also sign up to the newsletter, to get the notifications on the latest podcast episodes, as well as practical insights about the evolution of impact investing. Enjoy!

    28 min
  4. 09/19/2023

    Tony Goldner: TNFD launch, nature disclosures, and corporate action on biodiversity loss

    The past decade has seen huge progress in the way companies analyse their exposure to carbon emissions, but far less effort has been put into understanding the complex interactions companies have with nature, and the risks this poses for investors and the health of our environment. If we’re to have a hope of reaching net-zero, we need to reverse the trends of biodiversity loss and incentivise companies to assess the risks and opportunities around natural-capital. On the podcast today we have the perfect guest to discuss this topic, I’m joined by Tony Goldner, he’s the CEO of the TNFD, the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, an organisation that was established to try and solve this very problem. The big news is that this week Tony and his team have published the final version of the TNFD Recommendations. It’s a framework that will give companies and investors alike a clear and uniform model for putting nature on the balance sheet. Tony’s worked at the helm of the TNFD since it was founded two years ago. He’s originally from Australia, he now lives and works in Europe, and he’s had a fascinating career that spans foreign affairs with DFAT, he’s worked in global finance, he’s been a consultant, and now he’s pulling it all together to convene a mix of stakeholders across the globe and across industries. It really was a thrill to speak to Tony on such a big week for the TNFD, the recommendations have only been live for a few days, and so in this conversation I did my best to offer a broad overview of the final recommendations, and practical actions to help us integrate them. And of course this episode is part of a broader series that’s exploring how we can shift our economy to be ‘nature-positive’, so be sure to subscribe so you can follow along. And a company that’s been central to the ‘nature positive’ mission is GreenCollar, which has come on board to be the sponsor of this series. GreenCollar is a developer and innovator of environmental market solutions, they recognise the power of putting a financial value on nature, as an incentive to drive sustainable land management, cleaning up our waterways and avoiding further loss of biodiversity and animal species. Since launching more than a decade ago, the company has become Australia’s largest developer of nature-based carbon credit projects, and they’re pushing the market forward with schemes like ‘Reef Credits’, which target improved water quality at The Great Barrier Reef. And their latest innovation is NaturePlus, a new form of biodiversity credits that aim to protect and restore ecosystems around the world. They’re measuring biodiversity outcomes on the ground, with a scientifically rigorous and verifiable methodology, that puts a value on natural capital, to enable investment in the conservation of high value ecosystems. Reach out to the team at www.GreenCollar.com.au to find out more. And, you can find all the show notes and links on the website at www.johntreadgold.com. And that’s where you’ll also find the Good future newsletter. Your source of insights and updates about the world of impact investing. You’ll stay up to date on trends, you’ll get access to the latest podcast episodes, and you might just get an early lead on the most exciting and high impact companies and funds. Enjoy the episode!!

    39 min
  5. 11/09/2022

    Sarah Gelfand: Measuring impact investment performance with BlueMark

    In today’s episode we’ve got Sarah Gelfand on the show, she’s Managing Director of BlueMark, an impact verification business that was spun-out of consulting firm Tideline. She works with the world’s leading impact investors, to verify their impact results across both their management practices and their impact performance. And most recently she authored a report called ‘Raising the Bar’, which attempts to improve the quality of impact reports, which is vital, as there’s more being published than ever. Sarah has her finger on the pulse of leading practice in impact measurement and management. Her clients are some of the world’s leading impact players, and as a consultant she gets to ‘look under the hood’ of all sorts of investors that are all at different stages of their impact journey. She offers lots of great insights in this conversation, helping us understand how various impact frameworks fit together, the importance of being guided by a central strategy, as well as her hopes for the emergence of more reliable impact data to help us move beyond rhetoric and to drive better impact performance. This was the second episode in my series of discussions exploring the current state of Impact Measurement and Management, and how the harmonisation of leading frameworks represents a powerful inflection point. I’ll pull all of the key insights together into a special report that will be released in due time. To be sure you don’t miss it, sign up to my newsletter on my website www.johntreadgold.com that's where you’ll find the show notes, as well as more details about me and my business. Enjoy the episode!

    31 min
5
out of 5
13 Ratings

About

A podcast about the business of sustainability. John Treadgold interviews business leaders in sustainability, ESG and impact investing who are re-defining economics and building companies as a force for good.