Inconvenient Chats

What does it take to make respect for human rights more than a corporate commitment on paper? Kaisa is joined by business and human rights expert Salma Houerbi to explore how the field has evolved from debating whether companies have responsibilities to the much harder question of how to turn them into meaningful outcomes for workers and communities. We discuss the role—and limits—of the business case, why process and reporting are not the same as impact, and why context, power and the voices of rights holders matter.

In this episode, I sit down with Professor Markus Kröger, who has spent the past two decades researching the political economy of deforestation, resource extraction and global development, with extensive fieldwork in the Amazon and Latin America.

Scientists believe the Amazon may be approaching a tipping point — a threshold beyond which parts of the rainforest could gradually shift into a much drier savanna ecosystem. What's particularly concerning is that this could happen long before the entire forest is lost, with consequences that extend far beyond the Amazon by accelerating climate change and increasing the risk of other tipping points....

Today's guest is Sakari Säynäjoki, a doctoral researcher in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki who studies the interdependence between modern societies and fossil fuels. Sakari’s research revolves around how fossil fuels enable not only our material realities, but in addition, shape our culture, values and thinking. The consequence: the green transition is a cultural challenge at least as much as it is a technological one. Does the general understanding and discourse of climate change overlook this?

In this week’s episode of Inconvenient Chats we are joined by Fred Baker, a sustainability strategy consultant here in Denmark. We delve into our personal relationships with flying and the guilt that often accompanies it. Both of us have made attempts to reduce our carbon footprints when it comes to air travel. However, the struggle remains, and we find ourselves questioning whether we should feel guilty about taking flights at all.