Transforming Tomorrow

Hosted by The Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business

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140

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Sustainability is a key consideration for any contemporary business, from biodiversity to modern slavery, seabeds to factory floors. Transforming Tomorrow guides you through the complex, ever-changing and often exciting (yes, really!!) world of sustainability in business. Alongside members of the Pentland Centre, international research experts, and business leaders, we cover the theory and practice of mainstreaming sustainability into purposeful business strategy and performance. Whether you are leading change in your business, or just want to know more about how space weather, human trafficking or architecture may influence the future of sustainability, Transforming Tomorrow is the show for you. Taking you through it all, hosts Jan and Paul bring insight, perspective, and more than occasional disagreement to their topics. Professor Jan Bebbington is the Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University. Jan is an expert on accounting, benchmarking (to her co-host’s annoyance), and how business and sustainability intersect. She loves nature and wants to protect it – and hopes she can change the world (ideally for the better). She is also motivated to address inequality wherever it is found and especially to eliminate forced, bonded or child labour. Transforming Tomorrow is one small step on that quest. Paul Turner is a former sports journalist who now works promoting the research activities in Lancaster University Management School – a poacher turned gamekeeper as his former colleagues would have it. He has always been interested in nature and the natural environment – it comes from growing up in Cumbria – and has been a vocal proponent of the work of the Pentland Centre since joining Lancaster University. He does not like rankings and benchmarking, and is not afraid to say so. Join us every Monday to uncover new insights and become a little more inspired that you can make a difference in sustainability.

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60 recent

October 26, 2026Episode 240 min

Green Software and AI

The software and aviation industries have similar carbon footprints globally – and that was the case even before AI became the behemoth it is now. So, we really need to know more about how software and programming can change, and what we can do about our footprints. Software engineer Annie Freeman ups the Kiwi quota on the show as she joins us to share her experiences and knowledge working in sustainable IT, green software – and code pruning. We discover just what those terms mean, how software designers and programmers can influence their products’ impact on the environment, and how green ops and fin ops (but not special ops) fit into the picture. Annie tells us how more efficient software can lead to the need for fewer servers, and thus benefits both the bottom line for a business and the environment, and how webpages can be built to have a similar impact. We consider how AI can help with these tasks, but has also led to firms drawing back on commitments to reduce their climate impact, and the effects it has had on both coding and editing code. Plus, why did some airlines take a single olive out of each salad on board their planes? Why do data centres in Australia have different footprints from those in the USA? And what would happen if you were to get rid of that legacy code embedded deeply into your website? Discover more about Annie here: https://anniefreeman.co/ Find out more about the Green Software Foundation here: https://greensoftware.foundation/ And you can listen to our previous episode AI, Data Centres, and The Great Energy Problem here: https://pod.fo/e/3403ed Episode Transcript

October 19, 2026Episode 147 min

Conflict, Climate Change and Migration

‘Conflict is costly’ – yet we see it arising around the world on a constant basis. And climate change can create the conditions for conflict and violence. So, just how many of these conflicts are related to climate change and weather shocks – and why? And what can we do to break the climate-conflict cycle? Professor Jean-François Maystadt, from UCLouvain in Belgium and Lancaster University Management School, brings his expertise as an economist specialising in conflicts, natural disasters and forced migration to show us the connections. We learn that between 5% and 20% of all conflicts globally in the last century had a link to climate change, and see the regional variations in causality across South Asia, Africa and the Middle East in recent years, with some surprising revelations. We look at the effects of economic shocks in countries such as Somalia, low rainfall monsoon seasons in India, and drought in Syria. And we discover often it is those with more resources who are able to leave a region following a natural disaster, leaving behind those with little to begin with. We see how many countries choose to intensify practices rather than adapt when it comes to coping with the effects of weather and climate on agriculture and other industries; and come to understand how having nothing to lose can influence the actions of those entering conflict. JF explains the importance of strong national and regional institutions in helping to prevent conflicts arising, why some communities can cope with shocks when others cannot and collapse into violence, and the importance of agriculture in the big picture. Plus, how refugee camps can have a positive economic effect on the area around them, how farmers in Kenya benefit from weather-based insurance policies, and why Jan has inner conflict over doughnuts. Read more about Jean-François’ work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lums/people/jean-francois-maystadt Episode Transcript

October 16, 2026Episode 4933 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: AI and HI

We cannot expect the technology of tomorrow to be better than the humans of today. So, if we want Artificial Intelligence and other tech to be better, then we need to improve as people. Dr Cornelia Walther, from our hosts the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, joins us at the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University to discuss AI’s links to tipping points, and to the future of humanity. The complexity of AI makes it hard to know what’s to come, but Cornelia stresses the technology can be both good and bad. The problem is it operates on the garbage in, garbage out principle, when we need it to work on a values in, values out basis. If we want to see that change, we must alter our priorities. As the last of the analogue generations, living through the move towards a time of hybrid intelligence (HI) – mixing natural intelligence and AI – we consider the effects on our brains of delegating previously everyday functions to the phone in our pocket or the computer on our desk. Will it lead to us all having robot partners?! We find ourselves asking, how can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and take advantage of AI as a force for good? This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

October 15, 2026Episode 4833 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: The Power of a Good Story

We know language is key to getting the message across on climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and tackling global tipping points. So what do we need to talk about? Said Faisal is an advisor on disaster risk management, and the former Executive Director of the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre. He is also one of the MCs for the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University. As such, he has been in the perfect position to take in all the discussions and get a view of the whole picture. He joins us – with his Jerry Maguire references but without his rap group – to talk the importance of messaging, the need for business to look beyond profit, the power of a critical mass of people in moving us towards positive tipping points, and whether the Global South message has been ignored in the past and how important it has been to hear that voice at GTP 2026. We stack up logic, emotion and belief alongside climate, disaster and sustainable development, and take a ride across the whole conference agenda, from nature to culture and religion. This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

October 14, 2026Episode 4729 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: Positive Tipping Points

Not all tipping points are negative – and not all of them relate to the climate. So, what are positive tipping points? And how about social tipping points as well? Dr Steve Smith, Research Fellow at the Global Systems Institute and Green Futures Solutions at the University of Exeter, knows the answers. Steve was a lead author on the 2023 and 2025 Global Tipping Points reports, and is a leader in the field of positive tipping points for several years. He is with us at the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University in Malaysia to explain the concepts to us. We’ll find out about how positive tipping points might come about, what is needed for them to gain traction, and just how little of a country’s population is needed to get firmly behind an issue to affect real change. Steve will tell us about the drivers and barriers to change, the importance of groups of businesses to progress, and the role of keystone actors, and the technological, societal and environmental factors that come into play. This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

October 14, 2026Episode 4628 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: Finance and Governance

How can we build infrastructures to be climate and nature resilient? Do we sometimes focus too much on safeguarding and not enough on improvements when it comes to action? In the third part of our series from the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University in Malaysia, we are joined by Professor Erik Berglöf, Director of the House of Governance and Public Policy at Stockholm School of Economics, to look at the importance of governance and finance, and the nature of planetary health. We discuss the role of positive tipping points, how governance can encourage a tip over in the right direction, the importance of nature as critical infrastructure for all life on earth – and the global economy – and the need to enforce laws if they are to have an effect. We also look at how business, but most importantly nations, value nature, and the importance of placing a financial value on it if companies are to treat it seriously. This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

October 13, 2026Episode 4528 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: Nature and Business

How does nature fit into the tipping points framework? With so much focus on the climate in debates, nature can be forgotten. In the second part of our series from the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University in Malaysia, Tamara Singh, of The Nature Conservancy, joins us to talk about how business and nature fit together, where she has seen good practice in her work across many countries, and how finance fits into this dynamic. We discuss whether business is always the bad guy when it comes to tackling planetary challenges, what it can learn from nature, and how it can be valued on the balance sheet. This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

October 12, 2026Episode 4426 min

Global Tipping Points 2026: An Introduction

What are the global tipping points? What are positive tipping points? How can the world work together to stop one and produce the other? We are at the Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 at Sunway University in Malaysia to investigate these questions and many more. In this introduction to a special mini-series produced in conjunction with conference hosts the Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University, we look at the key issues being discussed by figures from government, academia, business, NGOs and many other groups and organisations. We will explain the key concepts, outline our initial impressions from the opening sessions, and look ahead to the future. Over the course of this series, we will speak to figures from across the conference on a wide range of topics. Keep an eye on the Transforming Tomorrow feed as episodes will land while the event is ongoing.

August 3, 2026Episode 4334 min

From Climate Change to Politics, Ideas, Ideals, Badgers, and more

As we wrap up season three of Transforming Tomorrow, we consider how the vast range of subjects out guests have brought into the studio are and attempt to tie these topics together. This brings us to issues of politics and the law, Artificial Intelligence, and the experiences of businesspeople and researchers that ties them to their subjects. Join us on a journey that takes us from courtrooms to boardrooms, government chambers to war zones, cotton fields to refugee camps, and it is amazing to see how things fit with each other, and how quickly change can come. We discuss the optimism and determination of our guests to make a difference, how personal experiences drive them, and how the compassion they have directed their work. We see how ideas and ideals have come together, think about what the next year might bring, and wonder some more about the next generation and rethinking how things work. Plus, can Jan pick out the ringer from a list of topics to have been discussed on the show over the last 12 months – the answer is not badgers, but is it the Moomins, Kevin Bacon, Logan’s Run or shampoo? And, to show us that things really are always changing, since recording this episode, Donald Trump has brought up his desire to control Greenland once again! We suspect we will be mentioning his name again in seasons to come.

July 27, 2026Episode 4236 min

AI as a Force for Good in Modern Slavery Reporting

We’re not the biggest fans of Artificial Intelligence on Transforming Tomorrow, but are our minds about to be changed? We are ready to discover how AI is being used to make a positive difference in the world of sustainability. Dr Mahmoud Gad, from Lancaster University Management School, returns to the show to talk to us about his work developing an AI platform that can analyse companies’ modern slavery statements both accurately and quickly. We find out what UK businesses need to do when it comes reporting and mitigating modern slavery in their operations and supply chains; what has changed over recent years as Mahmoud and his colleagues have worked in the area; and learn all about the AI platform he has been building – and why his team has done it. This podcast highlights the limits of the existing manual processes for reading and analysing reports and how the time such analysis takes limits the number of reports that can be analysed for any given study. We examine interpretation bias by both people and AI when it comes to such analysis. We also find out the importance of how the AI platform is built as well as who builds the platforms. Plus, Paul shocks Jan, Mahmoud and himself with AI’s description of their dazzling careers and achievements. Why is Paul irked today? And why does one of Jan’s colleagues never want to work on analysis with her again?!? Details of Mahmoud’s project can be found here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/data-science-and-artificial-intelligence/about-us/news/funding-for-lancaster-team-to-develop-ai-tool-to-improve-modern-slavery-reporting The platform he talks about is here: https://www.antislaveryintelligence.co.uk/ And evidence from a 2022 review of modern slavery reporting in the UK is in this report: https://media.frc.org.uk/documents/FRC_Modern_Slavery_Reporting_Practices_in_the_UK_2022.pdf Episode Transcript

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