A bold and challenging conversation with Robert McLean, retired newspaper editor and host of the podcast Climate Conversations, explores one of the most deeply held assumptions of modern life: that progress depends on ever-increasing work and consumption. Robert makes the case for a four-hour work day as a practical response to climate breakdown, arguing that people in wealthy countries need to become financially poorer in order to use less energy, slow material throughput, and reduce the risk of the worst climate impacts. The discussion moves through what this shift could mean for transport, everyday consumption, and the texture of community life, while also reflecting on why big ideas can sound impossible until we decide to take them seriously.

Robert McLean is a retired newspaper editor and former editor of The Shepparton News in northern Victoria. After a long career in community journalism, he turned to podcasting to amplify conversations about climate change and the systemic choices that drive ecological harm. He is the creator and host of Climate Conversations, where he speaks with a wide range of thinkers and organisers, including voices from degrowth, universal basic income, and other new economy movements. Robert is also the convenor of ABC Friends Goulburn Valley, occasionally writes columns for his former newspaper, and regularly attends public lectures in Melbourne.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

When we talk about the future, many of us can describe a dystopia in vivid detail – climate chaos, social breakdown, rising costs of living – but struggle to imagine a future that is safe, regenerative and worth living in.

In this episode of Voices of the New Economy, Tiyana speaks with Carmen Stewart, regenerative futures practitioner and lead of Imagine Northern Rivers. Carmen has been working with communities across the Northern Rivers region to ask a deceptively simple question: what kind of future do we want for a child born today – and what would it take to get there?

Together they explore Joanna Macy’s framing of “business as usual”, “the great unravelling” and “the great turning”; why language and story matter for systems change; and what emerges when diverse locals – from farmers to church groups to activists – imagine their shared future in place. Carmen shares early insights from the Imagine Northern Rivers project, including strong community calls for local food systems, circular and nature-based economies, and deeply connected neighbourhoods.

This conversation is for anyone feeling stuck between doom and business-as-usual, and wondering how to begin the work of regeneration where they live.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

What does degrowth actually mean, and why are so many organisers and researchers treating it as a key pillar of the new economy? In this episode of Voices of the New Economy, Tiyana speaks with community activist and degrowth organiser Anisa about re-imagining an economy built on enough, rather than endless “jobs and growth”.

Drawing on years of grassroots climate and justice organising, Anisa explains degrowth as a planned reduction in the material and energy throughput of wealthy economies, alongside a deliberate expansion of care, equity, and collective wellbeing. The conversation moves from global supply chains to local food, from Adani blockades to degrowth festivals, and from overwork to the practical and emotional realities of becoming “less employed”.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

In our very first episode of NENA’s ‘Voices of the New Economy’ Podcast, Tiyana sits down with Henry Coleman from Local Futures to explore one of the most important — and misunderstood — ideas in the new economy movement: localisation.

Henry shares why he believes the future of a thriving, fair and ecologically healthy economy must be rooted in place. Rather than a single blueprint, localisation is a direction we can move towards — one that shortens the distance between producers and consumers, rebuilds community connection, restores biodiversity, and supports genuine wellbeing.

Reflecting on his own journey into systems change work, with clear explanations of how globalisation has shaped our lives, Henry offers a hopeful and practical introduction to localisation as both a movement and a mindset. Whether you’re completely new to the ideas or already part of the localisation movement, this episode gives you a grounded, inspiring and common-sense guide to why relocalising our economies matters — and how we can all take the first step.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au