

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

Jun 23, 2021 • 35min
Sea-level rise - what's coming, and how business can help minimise it - a chat with Prof Maureen Raymo
Send me a messageOn this 30th episode of the podcast, I'm honoured to be joined by renowned climate scientist Professor Maureen Raymo. Maureen is Co-Founding Dean of Columbia Climate School, and Director at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University.Here is a sample paragraph from her bio on the Columbia Climate School Leadership page:Prof. Raymo is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, The Geological Society of America, The Geological Society of London, and The Explorer’s Club. In 2014 she became the first woman to be awarded the Wollaston Medal, The Geological Society of London’s most senior medal previously award to Charles Lyell, Louis Agassiz, and Charles Darwin. She was awarded the Maurice Ewing Medal by the AGU and U. S. Navy “for significant original contributions to the ocean sciences” and the European Geosciences Union, upon recognizing her accomplishments with the Milankovic Medal, wrote, “Maureen E. Raymo’s work has given names to critical, foundational ideas: the ‘uplift-weathering hypothesis’, the ‘41-thousand-year problem’, ‘Pliocene sea level paradox’, and ‘the Lisiecki-Raymo δ18O Stack’ are all central themes in palaeoceanography that appear in textbooks and have their roots in Raymo’s research and intellectual contributions.” Maureen’s work, firmly based on observations and data, has shaped our understanding of Earth’s natural climate variability and her many landmark papers have influenced a generation of climate scientists. So you can see why it is such a great honour to have Prof Raymo (or Maureen as she asked me to call her) come on the podcast.We had a fascinating conversation, which although it started out bleak discussing sea-level rise, ended on a very optimistic note, I'm delighted to report.As always, I learned loads (including how to correctly pronounce Pliocene 🤦🏼♂️), 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 ForumSign 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.

Jun 16, 2021 • 26min
Making the world run better, and improving people's lives - a chat with SAP's Gunther Rothermel
Send me a messageIt has been a while since I had anyone from SAP on the podcast, and since SAP recently held its SAP Sustainability Summit, I wanted to catch up with the team to see how things are progressing.For this episode I invited Gunther Rothermel to come on the show. Gunther leads the Sustainability Engineering teams at SAP, so he's the perfect guy to let us know how things are shaping up. And given most of the world's business transactions use an SAP system, enabling SAP customers to more easily make sustainable choices is a major imperative.I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation being the total electro-head that I am and could have kept talking for another forty minutes. I hope you enjoy it 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.

Jun 9, 2021 • 42min
Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team Lead Ian James Talks Electric Motorsport and the Importance of Data
Send me a messageA couple of week's back on this podcast we chatted with Alejandro Agag, the founder of the Formula E World Championship - the electric motorsport racing series. This week I managed to convince Ian James, the Team Lead and Managing Director for the Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team!We had a fascinating conversation around electric cars, the Formula E championship, the benefits to Mercedes of participating n the championship, and the importance of data to the Mercedes EQ Formula E team, and so much more.I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation being the total electro-head that I am and could have kept talking for another forty minutes. I hope you enjoy it 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.

Jun 2, 2021 • 22min
Reducing agriculture's footprint - a Chat with BayWa CIO Tobias Fausch
Send me a messageBavarian agtech company BayWa AG was recognised recently as one of the Top 50 Global Sustainability and Climate Leaders for all the work they do not just reducing their own emissions, but crucially helping their customers in the agriculture space to reduce their emissions too. I reached out to their CIO, Tobias Fausch to invite him to come on the podcast to talk about some of their many extremely innovative initiatives aimed squarely at emissions reductions. He readily agreed and we had a fascinating conversation, I learned loads. I hope you enjoy it 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 JuniperSupport 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.

May 26, 2021 • 25min
Zero Carbon Electric Motorsports Formula E and Extreme E - a chat with Alejandro Agag
Send me a messageA few months back I hosted Rodi Basso on the podcast where he talked about the E1 Electric Powerboat racing series and it was an excellent episode so, I decided to invite his co-founder Alejandro Agag to come on the podcast to talk about Formula E, and the new extreme off-road electric racing motorsport series Extreme E.Formula E, if you are not familiar with it is a zero carbon motorsport series, akin to Formula 1 except the cars are 100% electric. There are some more differences that Alejandro goes into in the episode which make it very cool to watch and/or attend.Then there's the new Extreme E off-road series. The first leg (Desert X Prix) of which took place a few weeks ago in Saudi Arabia. I watched several of the races on their YouTube channel and they were breathtaking. The second leg (Ocean X Prix) is this coming weekend (May 29-30th) in Dakar Senegal and will be shown live on may television channels, as well as on the Youtube channel.As interesting as the racing is, more interesting again is the thinking behind Extreme E, and its legacy program - both of which Alejandro talked about also on the episode. Check it out.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. ThanSign 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.

May 19, 2021 • 36min
Deloitte and climate emissions reductions - a chat with Marc Van Caeneghem
Send me a messageDeloitte, one of the largest professional services companies in the world announced recently its World Climate Commitment. Given who Deloitte are, I was keen to know more, so I invited Marc Van Caeneghem to come on the podcast. Marc is a member of Deloitte's Executive Committee and is their Global Climate and Sustainability Leader. Marc and I had a fascinating conversation, where we talked about Deloitte's aims to reduce its own emissions, and crucially how it helps clients reduce their emissions. 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.

May 12, 2021 • 44min
Climate repair? A chat with Prof Sir David King
Send me a messageMy guest on the podcast this week is Prof Sir David King. An incredibly accomplished scientist with over 500 papers to his name, he has also been Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government, the UK Government's Special Representative for Climate Change, and in May 2020 he formed and led Independent SAGE amongst other accomplishments. You can see more about his life's work on his Wikipedia page.More recently he founded and Chairs the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge which aims "to achieve ambitious action on climate repair, supported by scientific research and robust evidence".I was delighted that he agreed to come on the podcast. When I asked Prof Sir David King how he'd like me to address him on the podcast he said "You can call me Dave"! Dave and I had a fascinating conversation, and 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.

May 5, 2021 • 31min
What are Green Bonds and how are they helping companies with their sustainability strategies? A chat with Shrey Kohli
Send me a messageThe world of finance is a black box to me. I don't have that money gene. But it is an area that is starting to play an increasing role in the world of climate. The podcast I published two weeks ago with David Harris about how the investment world is shifting towards sustainable finance, went down really well, so I decided to have a follow-upIn this episode I talked to Shrey Kohli, Head of Debt Capital Markets and Funds at London Stock Exchange Group and we discussed Green Bonds. Many people are familiar with shares but will possibly know less about bonds (I certainly fell into that bucket before this episode). Bond markets are far bigger than shares. In fact, you normally see 14 -15 trillion dollars of bond issued annually, and that far exceeds the amount of capital that you see raised in equity markets.Now we're seeing the rise of Green Bonds. - these are bonds which link the issuers financial activity to their sustainable strategy thereby funding sustainable activities. Over $500bn of Green Bonds were issued in 2020 and that number is increasing year on year.This was a fascinating episode, and 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, 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.

Apr 28, 2021 • 45min
A Chat with Bill McDonough - How Design Can Help in the Fight Against Climate Change
Send me a messageOver on the Climate 21 Forums I created for discussions about this podcast a user called Siobhán commented that "I would love to hear how design can help in the fight against Climate Change..."When you think of design and sustainability one name stands out - William (Bill) McDonough. Bill is an internationally renowned architect, designer, and co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. I reached out to Bill and he graciously agreed to join me on the podcast. We had a fascinating conversation, I learned loads. I hope you enjoy it 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.

Apr 21, 2021 • 31min
The Power of Climate Benchmarks - a chat with David Harris, Group Head of Sustainable Business at the London Stock Exchange Group
Send me a messageThe investment world is changing. Investors are realising that regulations are increasingly mandating for lower carbon products and services which has a knock on effect on organisations with higher emissions, and consequent risks for any money invested in those companies.I invited David Harris, the Group Head of Sustainable Business at London Stock Exchange Group & FTSE Russell to come on the podcast to dig into this in more detail. I warned David in advance that finance is not my forte so he needed to keep it simple enough for me to comprehend, and in fairness he did an excellent job.We had a fascinating conversation, I learned loads. I hope you enjoy it 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.


