The Best Sustainability Podcasts
Turn on, tune in, discover ways to counter the climate crisis. Easy, right?
The world feels extremely on fire right now. It can all be a bit overwhelming, what with the deforestation and rising ocean levels and lakes turning into deserts (take a deeeeeep breath in). But things aren’t hopeless. And a little knowledge can go a long way to making you feel more in control – as well as empowering you take steps that will actually make a difference.
These podcasts offer everything from practical tips to greening up your life, to deep dives into how we got here and who’s to blame. Helpfully, they also come with a healthy serving of optimism about how we might fix things.
Outrage + Optimism
With a name that perfectly sums up how we tend to feel about the climate crisis hour-to-hour, this pod is hosted by the architects of the landmark Paris Agreement, Christina Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. As such, it goes deep – recent episodes have dissected the latest IPCC report and explored whether the Ukraine war could signal the end of peak oil – but without ever getting overwhelming.
Generation One
This relatively new pod from University College London expands on UCL’s Generation One concept – that we are “not the last generation, but we will be the last to accept complacency when it comes to the realities of human impacts on earth. Because this isn’t the end of the climate story; it’s the start.” Each episode tackles a different Big Topic, from diets to fashion, to figure out how it’s harming the earth right now and what we should be doing differently.
The Slow Home
One for anyone who’s ever felt exhausted simply by existing. Oz-based couple Brooke and Ben McAlary are all about slowing down, taking stock and focusing on the things that actually matter (like their dogs, their kids and their chickens). Even if it doesn’t make you decamp to the countryside to build your own composting toilet.
How to Save a Planet
This pod, hosted by a crew of climate nerds, provides exactly what it promises: tangible and inspiring ways to avert climate catastrophe, offered up by the folks at the leading edge of eco innovation. It’s equal parts worm’s eye and bird’s eye view – one episode will school you in techniques for talking to your family about the environment, the next will explore how economists are linking damaged ecosystems to GDP predictions.
The Wardrobe Crisis
Fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries. But we all need clothes, which means that we need to find a solution to its ills before it eats up our entire carbon budget. Hosted by ex-Vogue sustainability editor, Clare Press, this pod covers everything from digital clothes to the brands who are making a genuine difference.
Climate of Change
In which the Oscar winner gets curious about how we might actually fix this mess we’re in, so speaks to the people driving innovation in everything from clean energy to emission reductions. It is, unlike a lot of chat around the Enviroggedon™, pretty hopeful. It may even convince you that we can invent our way to safety.
Sustainababble
The climate crisis isn’t always a barrel of laughs. Sustainababble is. Hosted by Dave and Ol, who both work for climate charities, it does the interviewing-people-who-know-what-they’re-talking-about thing, only makes it funny, rather than taking the usual path of either blind panic or hushed awe.
The Minimalists
A blog-turned-bona fide media empire (now encompassing documentaries, books, seminars and, naturally, a podcast) the Minimalists are all about doing more with less, both literally and figuratively. Ironically, this show about having less of stuff has now been downloaded more than a million times, perhaps because it’s actually very far-reaching, with episodes touching on everything from our pets to finding the perfect minimalist birthday gift (and no, the answer isn’t ‘a hug’).
