Episode 1
By Jonathan Riggall – Director of Energy and Natural Resources, Stantec
On December 14, Cratus and Stantec produced the inaugural webinar What has the environment ever done for us?
The webinar series, recorded live monthly, will be a series of conversations centred around the climate and biodiversity emergency we find ourselves in, tuned towards how this affects the development sector.
With a monthly running theme and nominations for: Policy of the Week, Climate Hypocrite and Climate Hero of the Month, the team of environmental specialists (no mung beans in sight) and political analysts discussed the complexities of responding to Government rhetoric and the realities of what that means.
The opening podcast discussed the merits of the Government’s Christmas release of the Energy White Paper, with the conclusion that much seasonal television has a significant number of repeats, but we all love the classics, don’t we?
The team was also joined by the wonderful special guest Jonathan Smales. With his illustrious 35-year career spanning Greenpeace and the Earth Trust to his strategic development business Human Nature, Jonathan gave insights into what Sustainability actually means, his views on Government’s performance in 2020 on the environment and some wise words for the future.
Wrapping the session up, BrewDog was December’s Climate Hero of the Month with their dedication to brewing climate passive beer.
Whilst seeming rather contentious, Hypocrite of the Month is more about having an open conversation about the juxtapositions everyone finds themselves in. Flying to go on holiday, buying a new 4×4 car, spending £27.4 billion in new road schemes, they all have climate hypocrisy within them somewhere.
With the Christmas break soon upon us, we look forward to hosting January’s edition of What has the environment ever done for us? No doubt, a range of policies will find their way into circulation the week commencing December 28. If they’re world leading, we’ll hear about them, if they’re not, we will let you know.
