Exploring the "Why" Behind The Resilience Report

Hi everyone, and welcome to our very first episode of The Resilience Report!

To get started, I wanted to provide a bit of the “why” behind creating yet another podcast, when there are already so many out there.

I have spent the last 10 years working in sustainability / cleantech, and a number of years prior to that working for different social causes. And I know that, sometimes, the world can just feel overwhelming.

When you layer on top of that all of the daily news and what is going on with our planet and our environment, it can really just genuinely feel like too much.

And we know that, often, the reaction to just feeling like you can’t quite find the solution to a given problem or that whatever we do is not just enough, the reaction is actually inaction. Or just completely shutting down.

I personally experienced this a couple of months ago when I was reading the newspaper and story after story was about everything that was going wrong with the climate and the environment. And I just felt like, even as someone who cares so deeply about sustainability, “what is the point? Is what I am doing on a daily basis enough?”. As I was questioning that, I turned the page and there was an article about a business and individuals within that business who were coming up with the most creative solutions to the problems that we have been having. And it pulled me out of that state of helplessness like that.

And I realized that it is really in sharing stories like this that we are going to be able to help move the needle.

Because it is almost counterintuitive for those of us work in sustainability who share the dire stats and facts and figures on a regular basis because we are trying to go and create a reaction in the world to go get more people involved in the solution.

And yet what we are finding is that, as we are being bombarded by this information, it really is having that climate anxiety effect where we feel like we can’t actually do anything.

So, we really need to be able to find those stories, and this is my intent with The Resilience Report – being able to highlight what is possible.

So why a podcast?

Well, I have also spent the last 15 years working in marketing and communications and understand the value of a good story.

More specifically, when we can see tangible proof points of an individual finding creative and innovative solutions to a problem, that can absolutely pull us out of a state of helplessness. 

My intent with The Resilience Report podcast is to amplify the voices of these very individuals and what they are doing to move the needle.

And I want to be really clear that my intent is not only to celebrate their actions, but to generate a reaction by inspiring others. Because there is a compounding effect of doing good.

And this platform is going to highlight two types of profiles. We are going to have ecopreneurs and lighthouse leaders coming to have conversations on The Resilience Report.

If you’re not familiar with these terms, that is completely ok. These are just two profiles of those individuals that I truly believe are having a positive impact within the business community on the environment.

• Ecopreneurs are those special individuals who identified gaps in the market and are creating new businesses or services to solve environmental challenges.
• Lighthouse Leaders, on the other hand, are those (whether in startups or Fortune 500 companies) that are shining a light on innovative, new approaches that can really have a positive impact on the environment.

So why share these stories?

Well, for one thing, when we are in that state of helplessness that I described earlier, we can sometimes feel that things are absolutely impossible if we cannot see tangible proof points.

A great example of this, and outside of the world of business but commonly referenced, is that of the four minute mile.

For years, we felt like it was absolutely impossible to run one mile under the four minute barrier. This was the case until first done in the 1950s when one individual did so. And then, within just a few months, somebody else did. And within that next year, several people did. And we now

Know that, professionally, this is a very achievable task.

On the other side, I wanted to highlight specifically businesses and individuals withing those businesses who are having a positive impact.

Because, well, for two different reasons.

The first is that we are all very quick to point the finger (and rightfully so) at businesses when we say that they/corporations are the ones that have had such a negative impact on the environment over the past few decades. And this is true.

However, I have really been able to see firsthand that, as big of that negative impact is possible, there is also this huge opportunity to address the very problem that we have seen be created.

And to be completely honest, and this is the second point, when I was growing up, I had always assumed that, in order to move the environmental needle, I would have to work for either a charitable or a governmental organization. And yet I have seen firsthand by working for some of these companies that we can have such a positive impact at scale by creating these changes within organizations.

This is by no means a mechanism to downplay the role that companies and humans have had on the climate crisis or to even downplay current serious situation that we find ourselves in.

However, the intent of the Resilience Report is to highlight the brilliant minds and businesses that are trying to tangibly find solutions to the problem.

The hope is to then, by sharing these stories, spark further engagement so that we can go beyond just business as usual or sustaining the status quo to one where we can be truly resilient.

We have some amazing conversations lined up, and I genuinely believe that by you tuning in and helping to share these stories, we have the opportunity to have a positive ripple effect on our businesses, our communities and beyond.

Because we all play a role in our collective resilience.