

Climate Confident
Tom Raftery
Climate Confident is the podcast for business leaders, policy-makers, and climate tech professionals who want real, practical strategies for cutting emissions and building a resilient low-carbon future.Every Wednesday at 7am CET, I sit down with the people doing the work, executives, engineers, scientists, founders, and policymakers, to unpack what’s actually driving climate progress across energy, transport, industry, supply chains, food, finance, and more.This isn’t about vague pledges or greenwash. It’s about what’s working, what isn’t, and what leaders need to understand now to make better decisions faster.Expect conversations on:scalable solutions in energy, mobility, food, industry, and financethe politics, markets, and policies shaping the transitionthe technologies and tools improving climate accountability, resilience, and risk managementhard truths, hidden bottlenecks, bold ideas, and real-world success storiesSubscribers also get Bonus episodes, including highlight reels, analysis, emerging themes I’m seeing across conversations, and other subscriber-only extras.You can still listen to the most recent episodes for free, and if you want to go deeper, subscription gives you more Climate Confident in your feed.Want to shape the conversation? Drop me a line anytime at Tom@tomraftery.com, whether it’s feedback, a guest suggestion, or just a hello.Ready to stop doomscrolling and start climate-doing? Hit follow and let’s get to work.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Nov 24, 2021 • 37min
The Sustainability Imperative With Tom Raftery
Send me a messageWelcome to the 50th episode of the Climate 21 podcast. In this instalment, due to a scheduling snafu, I was without a guest, so I took the opportunity to talk about a recent keynote talk I have delivered now a few times to phenomenal feedback - The Sustainability Imperative.In this talk I go through the roots of my passion for sustainability, the factors making action on sustainability increasingly important, progressive happening in the fields of Energy, and Transportation, and practical steps you and/or your organisation can take to reduce your emissions.Hopefully this was an interesting episode of the podcast and you learned some. Next week back to our regular interviewee podcast :) If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Nov 17, 2021 • 45min
Battery Electric or Hydrogen Fuel Cell? The electrification of transportation - A Chat With James Carter
Send me a messageWelcome to another joint Digital Supply Chain and Climate 21 podcast episode. The reason this is a joint podcast is that today's topic - the electrification of transportation is relevant to both podcasts.Today's podcast guest is James Carter. James is a Mobility Futurist, Thought Leader and Influencer, and he is the Principal Consultant at Vision Mobility.We talked in the podcast about the climate implications of the electrification of transportation, whether hydrogen has a place in transport, and why electrification is coming to fleet vehicles. This was a truly fascinating episode of the podcast and I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Nov 10, 2021 • 35min
How Much Did The Fossil Fuel Companies Know About Climate Change, And When? A Chat With Ben Franta
Send me a messageStanford doctoral candidate Benjamin (Ben) Franta (aka @BenFranta on Twitter) has a degree in Applied Physics from Harvard, a Law degree from Stanford, and is currently working on his Ph.D. from Stanford on the history of climate science, climate denial, and the fossil fuel industry.I came across him when I heard about his most recent paper where he and two French researchers showed how French fossil fuel company Total were aware of harmful global warming impacts since at least 1971 but instead of doing anything about it, they engaged in overt denial of climate science. This was the way fossil fuel companies decided to deal with the issue.That this was standard practice for fossil fuel companies is something I've been aware of for some time, but I decided to invite Ben to come on the podcast to talk about not just this but also the potential legal ramifications of this behaviour.This was a truly fascinating episode of the podcast and I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Nov 3, 2021 • 46min
Carbon Budgets, Carbon Bubbles, And The Risk To The Financial Sector - A Chat With Carbon Tracker's Mark Campanale
Send me a messageI first came across the Carbon Tracker Initiative about 8-9 years ago when they posted a cool short video explaining the concept of a Carbon Budget.I follow the Carbon Tracker Initiative's Founder and Executive Chairman Mark Campanale on LinkedIn so I reached out to him to see if he'd be willing to come on the podcast to explain it. We had a fascinating conversation about what the carbon budget is, the implications of these stranded assets for pension funds and financial markets in general, COP 26, and what we hope to see come out of that, and practical steps any of us can take to move the needle on this.This was a truly fascinating episode of the podcast and I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Oct 27, 2021 • 51min
Sequestering Carbon, Increasing Biodiversity, And Alleviating Poverty - A Chat With Rebalance Earth's Walid Al Saqqaf
Send me a messageA few weeks back I had IMF Assistant Director Ralph Chami on the podcast talking about how he came up with a way to put a monetary value on the ecosystem services performed by keystone species such as whales in the wild initially and subsequently also by forest elephants. If you haven't heard that podcast, do check it out, you will not regret it.In today's episode, I invited Walid Al Saqqaf, co-founder with Ralph of Rebalance Earth, an organisation working to operationalise Ralph's work of putting a financial value on keystone species, starting with forest elephants in Gabon.We had a great conversation about how Rebalance Earth is using a private blockchain to track the flow of funds to ensure the integrity of the system, how they're using sensors to track the species and paying the sensor owners (thereby turning conservation projects into money-making ventures), and how they're opening up their platform for others to introduce more keystone species. This was a truly fascinating episode of the podcast and I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Sign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Oct 20, 2021 • 28min
A Chat With Capgemini's Global Head Of Sustainability Dr James Robey
Send me a messageWith a workforce of almost 300,000, Capgemini is one of the world's largest global IT Services and consulting companies.Curious to know what their sustainability story is, I reached out to Capgemini's Global Head of Sustainability Dr. James Robey and invited him to come on the podcast. We had a great conversation about how Capgemini are becoming more sustainable, how they are helping their clients with their sustainability journey, and where we need to go from here. I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Oct 13, 2021 • 33min
SAP's October Sustainability Summit - A Chat With Anita Varshney
Send me a messageWe in SAP held our first Sustainability Summit in April of this year and it was a resounding success. So much so, that we're holding a follow-up Sustainability Summit on October 28th. It is a virtual event and you can find more details here. To find out more about the event, and why you should attend I invited Anita Varshney, Global Vice President for SAP's Sustainability Strategy.We had a great conversation about the context behind the event, what to expect from the event, the upcoming COP 26, and reasons to attend the Sustainability Summit. I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Oct 6, 2021 • 1h 12min
Using Finance To Protect And Enhance Biodiversity While Simultaneously Sequestering Carbon - A Chat With Ralph Chami
Send me a messageIn previous episodes of this podcast, both Prof Sir David King of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair and Rob Gardner of St James' Wealth Management mentioned the role of whales, elephants, and biodiversity in general in sequestering carbon. Interested to know more I came across Ralph Chami, Assistant Director at the International Monetary Fund and co-founder of Rebalance Earth whose seminal paper on placing a financial value on the carbon sequestration of whales (initially) kicked off this whole field. I invited Ralph to come on the podcast to talk about these exciting new findings and how we can use finance to protect and enhance biodiversity while simultaneously sequestering carbon. It was a fascinating conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Sep 29, 2021 • 34min
Saving The Planet Is Now A Communications Challenge - A Chat With Dedlyne Co-Founder Huw Bunn
Send me a messageThere's a lot of talk these days about targets - be it Net Zero targets, SDGs, or other targets, but how do we measure progress against those targets?Dedlyne is a startup based in the UK which aims to help out here by offering a dashboard with a very easy-to-understand interface - a simple date, which is articulated in a dial, which is red, Amber, or green, depending on how well an organisation is doing.I invited Dedlyne co-founder Huw Bunn to come on the podcast to explain their proposition. We had a fascinating conversation around sustainability, targets, and communications. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, I learned loads as always, and I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Sep 22, 2021 • 35min
Is ESG Investing Impactful And/Or Profitable? A Chat With Ken Pucker
Send me a messageThere is a strong appetite in the investment community right now for sustainable funds to invest in but does that investment lead to sustainable outcomes, and also important - is it a sound investment?I read a couple of fascinating articles recently by Ken Pucker which addresses these questions so I invited him to come on the podcast to talk this through. Ken is the former COO of Timberland, is an Advisory Director at Berkshire Partners, and is a Senior Lecturer at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The two articles of Ken's that I read were:The Trillion Dollar Fantasy: Linking ESG Investing with Planetary Impact andHeroic AccountingYou should check them out.This was a truly fascinating episode of the podcast and as always, I learned loads, I hope you do too.If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - feel free to leave me a voice message over on my SpeakPipe page, head on over to the Climate 21 Podcast Forum, or just send it to me as a direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn. Audio messages will get played (unless you specifically ask me not to).And if you want to know more about any of SAP's Sustainability solutions, head on over to www.sap.com/sustainability, and if you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show. Thanks.And remember, stay healthy, stay safe, stay sane!Music credit - Intro and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna JuniperSign up to Climate Confident+ for deep dive analysis of the major climate and energy stories of the day.Support the showPodcast subscribersI'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing subscribers:Anita KrajncCecilia SkarupaBen GrossJerry SweeneyAndreas WernerStephen CarrollRoger ArnoldAnd remember you too can Subscribe to the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one, as well as give you access to the entire back catalog of Climate Confident episodes.ContactIf you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on LinkedIn. If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.


