The Responsible Edge Podcast

Some businesses may be protecting models that no longer have a viable future. EdenLab founder Leo Rayman calls them "zombie companies". Charlie Martin speaks with Leo about why climate resilience may not be enough for industries facing structural change. They discuss the financing of domestic solar installations, the limits of economic evidence and a food industry conference where almost everyone anticipated severe disruption, but few were confident in their response. Leo also explains antifragility and why adapting may mean replacing established business models rather than preserving them. "The real adaptation is we have to adapt ourselves." Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week. Article discussed: https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/sustainability/investing-in-climate-adaptation

Kelly Harrison and Sebastian Wood on Aviva's warning that around 115,000 new homes are set to be built in flood zones. This week on The Responsible Edge, why the harder question is how homes are designed rather than only where, why cooling demand is a bigger electricity problem than data centres, and how alpha puts a financial value on building better so long-term investors can finally see it. Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.

In May 2025, Kenya suspended Rainforest Alliance tea certifications. The audit costs were falling on factories and farmers, while UK buyers who required the seal were not funding it.Zahra Afshar, General Counsel at Ahmad Tea, joins Charlie Martin to examine the structural problem and what one brand decided to do about it. She explains how certification has become a compliance exercise that serves the buyer more than the farmer, and describes Ahmad Tea's Handpicked Profit Share programme, which sends digital bonus payments directly to tea workers' bank accounts."tea is undervalued," she says. "If we're paying for, you know, a hundred tea bags for something like 2.99. I mean, it doesn't it doesn't make any sense."A grounded conversation about cost, power and what individual action can and cannot fix.Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.

Chris Pratt on the CBS article naming rage bait marketing as the dominant communication tactic of 2025 and asking what it really costs. This week on The Responsible Edge, why algorithmically-amplified outrage is pushing climate discourse to the fringes, why the CIPR’s 2026 State of the Profession found 52 percent of PR practitioners are pulling back from taking public positions, and why green hushing is not the answer. Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.

Can a business invest in its community and still leave people worse off? In this episode of The Responsible Edge, Charlie speaks with Thomas Abuhanian Neto, co-founder of Social Impact in Brazil, about the gap between corporate good intentions and genuine social impact. Drawing on examples of poorly designed initiatives, they explore why listening to communities matters, how conventional measures of success can conceal unintended consequences, and whether businesses can build lasting trust without improving people's lives. Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.

Philippa Hann on the Ethico article arguing that most misconduct is committed by ordinary people, not calculating bad actors.This week on The Responsible Edge, why good people know when they are crossing a line and rationalise it anyway, why ethics training misses the moments that matter, and how Paradigm Norton is building an emotionally healthy firm to catch problems early.Sponsored by truMRK.New episodes every week.Most compliance programmes assume misconduct is the work of calculating bad actors. Philippa Hann spent 20 years suing financial advisers, wealth managers and banks. She found something else. "This isn't a bad person problem. This is a good person problem."Philippa is now chief executive of Paradigm Norton Financial Planning and co-author of The Fault Lines of Finance. On this episode of The Responsible Edge, she joins Charlie Martin to discuss an Ethico article on behavioural science and ethical failure.She agrees that wrongdoing usually starts small. She disagrees that people do not know they are doing wrong. "We do. It's just that we clock that and we justify and we rationalise."The conversation covers why ethics training rarely reaches the moments that matter, and the four stages of ethical decision making. It includes the story of a junior adviser who deleted a client's email and lost his job. It also looks at how hierarchy can shut down a difficult conversation before it starts.Philippa explains how Paradigm Norton runs 15-minute weekly training sessions, a weekly 30-minute one-to-one for every member of staff, and an anonymous survey asking whether people see colleagues getting away with things. She is candid about the power a chief executive holds. "I control people's wages and whether they keep their job."Her one change for the commercial world is simple. "Your emotions are neither good nor bad, but they are telling you something."Listen to the full conversation on The Responsible Edge.#BusinessEthics #FinancialServices #Compliance #Leadership #BehaviouralScience #TheResponsibleEdge

Andrew Horsfall on a 2026 Entrepreneur article arguing radical transparency is the new competitive advantage, written by the CEO of an online reputation management firm, with no data to back the claim. This week on The Responsible Edge, why risk mitigation drives disclosure more than trust-building does, and whether the correlation between transparency and commercial trust outcomes has ever actually been proved. Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.A May 2026 article in Entrepreneur, written by Paul M. Wilson, CEO of online reputation management firm NetReputation, argues that radical transparency is the new competitive advantage. Openly sharing information, the article contends, builds deeper trust, faster decision-making, and stronger customer loyalty than confidentiality can.The article contains no data to support the claim.In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin discusses the article with Andrew Horsfall, who has just completed an MSc in Global Health, Food Security, Sustainability and Biodiversity at Royal Holloway, and formerly served as a practising attorney and Assistant Dean of International Programs at Syracuse University College of Law.Andrew arrives at the article from two directions at once. His legal background taught him that confidentiality can be currency and disclosure can lead to liability. "Dance like there's no tomorrow. Email like it may one day be read aloud at a deposition." His recent postgraduate study in sustainability has been actively revising that instinct.The conversation identifies the real driver for proactive disclosure in practice: not trust-building, but risk mitigation. Charlie draws on conversations from his work at the Anti-Greenwash Charter and truMRK. Organisations are disclosing proactively so they can point to due diligence when challenged, not primarily because they have evidence that transparency builds commercial advantage.The hypothesis is sound. The proof does not yet exist. "I've seen loads of research on the value of trust," Charlie says. "What I haven't seen is anything that shows the correlation between radical transparency and trust outcomes."Andrew's magic wand: give nature legal personhood, the same legal imagination applied to creating corporate personhood, and watch what it does to commercial decision-making.If your work touches sustainability communications, disclosure strategy, or environmental governance, this episode is worth your time.#RadicalTransparency #SustainabilityCommunications #ProactiveDisclosure #EnvironmentalGovernance #TrustInBusiness #TheResponsibleEdge

Andy Last and Gareth Brown on the Anti-Greenwash Charter's 2026 roundtable with nine purpose-led brands. This week on The Responsible Edge, how responsible sustainability communication builds commercial trust, why precision creates competitive advantage, and how the Charter and truMRK make independent verification achievable today. Sponsored by truMRK.New episodes every week.In the summer of 2026, the Anti-Greenwash Charter brought together nine purpose-led brands to examine how organisations communicate sustainability well. The brands spanned food, drink, household goods, personal care, and grocery. Several are certified B Corporations. All have built reputations for doing the work.The question the roundtable set out to answer was simple: what are the leading brands learning, and what does their practice look like?In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin speaks with Andy Last, co-founder of salt communications and author of Business on a Mission, and Gareth Brown, marketing director and roundtable facilitator, about the resulting report: Trusted Communications for Purpose-Led Brands.The findings are practical and commercially specific. Brands with a strong, consistent record of responsible practice build resilience: when limited issues arise, credibility carries them through. Precision creates competitive advantage: a fully substantiated product-level claim can be defended where a sweeping one cannot. And radical transparency about limitations builds more durable trust than a polished surface."Sustainability is a lever of trust," Andy says. "And that is only as strong as the last piece of communications you've made."Both guests arrive at the same magic wand: independent verification of sustainability claims as the market standard. "If customers turn away from brands that aren't verified," Gareth argues, "the commercial advantage flows to brands that have invested in getting it right." The Anti-Greenwash Charter and truMRK are introduced as the infrastructure that makes that standard achievable today.If your work touches sustainability communications, brand trust, or claims governance, this episode is worth your time.#SustainabilityCommunications #GreenClaims #AntiGreenwash #PurposeLedBrands #BrandTrust #TheResponsibleEdge

Benjamin Thiele-Long on the PA Future article arguing ESG investing has a governance problem. This week on The Responsible Edge, why the G is not the poor cousin of ESG but its precondition, why "may be" and "can" are doing the wrong work in an argument that should commit, and what it means to move ESG from the bottom line to the top.Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.A July 2026 article in PA Future argues that ESG investing has a governance problem. Investors and media fixate on environmental and social issues while governance, the foundation that makes all other ESG commitments meaningful, is routinely overlooked. The article calls for standardised governance reporting, executive pay linked to investor engagement, and board structures integrated explicitly into risk management.In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin discusses the article with Benjamin Thiele-Long, barrister at Drystone Chambers and formerly SVP and Chief ESG and Communications Officer at Petco.Benjamin agrees with the premise. He is considerably less patient with the execution. The article argues governance "may be" the most important ESG letter and that investors "can" focus on board composition to drive change. His position is direct: "If you're going to say it is, it either is or it isn't." And on investor action: "Not can. Must. Just must."He also notes that the article is published by someone who describes themselves as an evidence-based investor. It contains no data points. "There's tons of research about how good governance is the cornerstone. Let's put our money where our mouth is."The conversation covers Benjamin's parallel careers as barrister and communications executive, why governance is not the poor cousin of ESG but its precondition, and why the sustainability function being "tucked away eating granola bars" is a governance failure as much as a communications one.His magic wand: move ESG from the bottom line to the top. Frame it as a revenue driver, not a cost. Give the ESG team the same data the board sees, and the same seat at the table."There is no right way or wrong way to do ESG. But there is a right way or wrong way to talk about it."If your work touches ESG strategy, investor relations, or the governance of responsible business, this episode is worth your time.#ESGGovernance #CorporateGovernance #ESGInvesting #ResponsibleBusiness #BoardAccountability #TheResponsibleEdge

Aimee Rawlins on the trust crisis Onora O'Neill predicted in 2002 and the Reuters and Edelman data confirming it has arrived. This week on The Responsible Edge, why fake news is now a feeling as much as a fact, what local news deserts are doing to communities, and why giving the NLRB enforcement teeth is one structural response to an accountability system that cannot act.Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week.In 2002, Baroness Onora O'Neill used the BBC Reith Lectures to predict a coming crisis of institutional trust. A July 2026 article by Gavin Esler in The National argues the prediction has now fully arrived.The Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 found that seven in ten people globally report hesitance or unwillingness to trust someone with different values or backgrounds. The Reuters Digital News Report 2026 found that roughly forty percent of people practise news avoidance. Only thirty-nine percent get news from ideologically different sources on a weekly basis.In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin discusses the Esler article with Aimee Rawlins, freelance editor and writer covering sustainability and climate for Time and The Guardian, and formerly Senior Editor for the Impact section at Fast Company, where she managed a team covering climate, clean energy, and ESG.Aimee's first observation is precise. The problem is not just that more fake news exists. It is that people now believe all information might be fake. Reuters found that two thirds of respondents believe foreign adversaries could be inserting falsehoods into national media. Once distrust extends to the source, it becomes indiscriminate.The conversation moves into what happens when local journalism disappears. Research consistently finds that in communities that have lost local news, polarisation increases and social capital falls. "Instead of having a shared source, a shared truth of sorts, people look for it elsewhere, and that is not in a community-oriented place."Aimee's magic wand: give the US National Labor Relations Board enforcement powers. Monetary penalties for illegal labour practices. Gallup found sixty-eight percent trust in unions. The institution has the public's confidence. The regulatory body cannot act. "There's zero incentive for companies not to engage in terrible practices."The episode closes with Esler's closing line from Confucius, via O'Neill: without trust we cannot stand.If your work touches trust, media, or corporate accountability, this episode is worth your time.#MediaTrust #InstitutionalTrust #LocalJournalism #SustainabilityJournalism #Disinformation #TheResponsibleEdge