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What if a big part of climate action in healthcare starts with putting things in the right bin?

On Earth Your While, Jack and Ellie talk to Rufus Henderson, Sustainability Director at NuGreen, a B Corp‑certified consultancy born out of NHS waste research.

In this episode, Rufus explains how NuGreen is helping hospitals, GP practices, schools and SMEs cut carbon and costs through better waste segregation, and how an Innovate UK project with Leeds Beckett University is transforming treated clinical waste into a low‑carbon construction material that could replace mined sand.

Topics covered include:

• How NuGreen grew from an NHS research project
• The process and promise of turning treated clinical waste into a sand‑like aggregate
• Why so much “infectious” clinical waste isn’t actually infectious
• What really happens to household recycling once it leaves your bin
• Behaviour, bin design and small nudges that change how people sort waste
• A realistic 10‑year vision for circular healthcare waste

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What if the key to cutting your carbon footprint is hidden in your bookkeeping… and your accountant is the one holding it?

On Earth Your While, Jack and Ellie talk to Kathryn Frimond, bookkeeper, carbon literacy trainer and founder of The Sustainable Bookkeeper. Kathryn shares how she moved from saying yes to any client to working mainly with purpose‑led businesses, and why that values‑driven niche actually made it easier to grow.

She reveals how day‑to‑day accounting data can be turned into a credible carbon footprint in minutes, why SMEs are quietly responsible for up to half of UK business emissions, and how upcoming reporting standards could see unprepared small suppliers losing contracts.

Topics covered include:

• The true impact of SMEs on UK emissions
• What UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and scope 3 mean for small suppliers
• Simple, often free sustainability wins such as energy tariffs, pensions and banking
• What carbon literacy training is and how it changes behaviour inside businesses
• The quiet power accountants and bookkeepers have to shift client decisions
• Drawing ethical lines on who you work with and why that can accelerate growth

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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The real power to tackle the climate crisis isn’t in shiny new tech. It is in how we design, use and discard everyday material.

On Earth Your While, Jack and Ellie talk to Sam Reeve, CEO of Resource Futures, an independent, employee‑owned sustainability consultancy that’s been reshaping how the UK thinks about waste for nearly 20 years. From grassroots recycling projects in Bristol and Leeds to becoming one of the UK’s leading circular economy voices and a certified B Corp, Sam shares how the company grew out of three small disruptors and why collaboration is baked into its DNA.

Sam unpacks what decades of waste composition analysis really show about our bins, why behaviour change is as critical as infrastructure, and how data can guide smarter policy and business decisions.

Topics covered include:

• How three grassroots recycling organisations merged into Resource Futures
• What waste composition studies reveal about our recycling habits and “wishcycling”
• Why behaviour change, communication and systems thinking matter as much as technology in circular economy
• The biggest misconceptions about the circular economy
• What the UK’s new EPR rules really mean for brands, costs and packaging choices
• Why some companies are scared to talk about their sustainability work – and how to avoid both greenwashing and greenhushing
• A realistic 10‑year vision for a more circular UK economy, and the role businesses, communities and policy all have to play

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What if becoming a parent is one of the quickest ways into poverty even with a “good” job or thriving business?

On Earth Your While, Jack and Ellie talk to Grace Carter, entrepreneur, founder of The Metamorphose Group and campaigner behind End Parenting Poverty. After her second daughter’s birth in 2023, Grace was running a 15‑person agency while facing debt, a mental health crisis and clients walking away… just as the government was talking up “female entrepreneurship” but still underpaying new mothers.

Grace exposes how the system labels maternity pay a “health and safety payment”, keeps it far below the national living wage, and bakes discrimination against mothers into contracts, student loans and pensions. From multiple miscarriages and isolation as a leader to petitioning Parliament and giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee, she shares the personal cost and the policy shifts needed to end parenting poverty.

Topics covered include:

• Why we shouldn't accept statutory maternity pay being below the national living wage
• The hidden debt, mental health impacts and loneliness behind "doing it all"
• How self-employed women and founders fall through the cracks of maternity support
• Why flexible work, real empathy and lived experience leadership are good for business
• What happened when Grace's petition hit 100,000 signatures and reached Westminster
• Practical steps employers can take to help end parenting poverty

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What if the most powerful climate work happening right now is buried in spreadsheets, smart meters and standards committees?

In this episode, Jack and Ellie chat with Andrew Griffiths, co-founder of the Carbon Accounting Alliance and Director of Policy & Partnerships at Planet Mark. Andrew lifts the lid on a fast-growing global community of carbon accountants who quietly underpin the net zero transition for more than 200,000 organisations worldwide.

From the Wild West of early carbon footprints to building shared standards, professional qualifications and automated data flows, Andrew explains why good carbon accounting is to climate action what financial accounting is to business survival, and why SMEs must be part of the story.

Topics covered include:

• What carbon accounting is and why it matters to every business
• How and why the Carbon Accounting Alliance exploded globally in 3 years
• The data headache: suppliers, smart meters and open carbon data
• Professionalising the sector with shared standards and qualifications
• Real-world stories: from knife-crime medals to low-carbon industry shifts
• How better carbon data unlocks green finance and de-risks businesses

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What if loneliness isn’t a personal failing, but a human signal we’ve all been taught to ignore?

In this episode, Jack and Ellie chat with Hannah Beatrice from Marmalade Trust, the award‑winning UK charity behind Loneliness Awareness Week. They explore what loneliness really is (and isn’t), why it’s not just “an old people at Christmas” issue, and how workplaces and communities can design for genuine connection.

Hannah shares the story of Marmalade Trust’s beginnings with one Christmas lunch in Bristol, how that’s grown into a global campaign reaching millions, and why understanding loneliness as a natural emotion, like hunger or thirst, is the first step to tackling it.

Topics covered include:

• What loneliness really is (and why it’s not the same as being alone)
• The stigma and shame that stop adults talking about feeling lonely
• Key life moments that trigger loneliness
• Why 16–24 year olds are now the loneliest age group in the UK
• How hybrid/remote work can impact connection and what helps
• Practical ways employers and communities can reduce loneliness

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What if real climate power isn't with politicians or protest groups, but with the millions of quietly worried people who don't know where to start?

In this episode, Jack and Ellie chat with Karen Jaques from the Climate Majority Project, an initiative on a mission to mobilise the silent majority into meaningful, local, collective climate action.

Karen shares how years working with business leaders, and watching climate risk creep into every supply chain, pushed her to focus on resilience, community and "don't try this on your own" climate action.

From neighbourhoods bulk retrofitting homes and building their own wind turbines, to teachers talking honestly with kids, to businesses asking to be more regulated, this episode explores a radically practical, deeply human approach to climate action.

Topics covered include:

• The “silent majority” who care but feel stuck
• How to depolarise climate action and welcome everyone
• The Safer campaign and people-led local projects
• Real UK stories: retrofit streets, community wind turbines
• Why facts alone fail and what to do with climate anxiety
• How local action builds pressure for national change

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.

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What does it take to build a genuinely sustainable drinks brand in a world still driven by price, convenience and big FMCG players? And can purpose, transparency and good sourcing really survive contact with supermarket shelves?

In this episode, Jack and Ellie chat with Will Englander, founder of The Root Co, a ginger-focused drinks brand on a mission to do right by people and planet.

Will shares how a near-death experience and a growing frustration with overly sweet, over-processed ginger drinks led him to create a simple, fiery ginger beer with just five ingredients.

From single-farm sourcing in Tanzania and cycling ginger beer around London, to negotiating with supermarket buyers and grappling with consumer behaviour, in this episode, Will offers a refreshingly honest look at what it really means to grow a purpose-led brand in an unforgiving market.

Topics covered include:

• Leaving consulting to build a ginger beer–ginger shot hybrid
• How a near-fatal accident reshaped Will’s life and risk-taking
• Building a single-farm ginger supply chain in Tanzania and Kenya
• Why The Root Co uses only 5 ingredients and no chemicals
• Competing with big FMCG while staying fair to farmers
• What shoppers and retailers really care about on sustainability

Music by Stock_Studio from Pixabay.