Sustainability: the courage to transform with Hannah Pathak

The Infrastructure Podcast

As the latest COP29 global climate change conference draws to a close in Baku, this podcast focuses on how the infrastructure sector can summon the courage to transform its approach to sustainability and ensure that the issue moves from niche to become business as usual in the mainstream at every level of the supply chain.

It's a potentially exciting time in infrastructure. The government’s £40bn infrastructure investment plan to get Britain Building is certainly ambitious and challenges all government departments, local authorities and the private sector to focus and prioritise around community and business need.

But the scale of what is required also means securing a genuine transformation in the way the industry plans, designs, constructs and operates new and existing infrastructure, so as to maximise the social, economic and environmental outcomes achieved – reducing carbon, reducing cost and creating better results for communities.

But how?

Well my guest in this episode is Hannah Pathak, international managing director at Forum for the Future and a long-standing champion for driving collaborative action across business to help accelerate this kind of required change in some of biggest challenges facing the globe today.

At Forum for the Future, Hannah works across a multitude of global sectors to help businesses understand and then achieve more sustainable business outcomes, using futures scenarios to understand the risks and opportunities and systems change practices to help navigate a route through the complex challenges.

I met Hannah recently at the FM Conway Collaborative Sustainability supply chain event where she gave a keynote address to describe the ideas contained in the Forum’s recent report The Future of Sustainability: Courage to Transform and where she challenged to audience to have the bravery to act.

Her words and ideas were certainly inspiring and very challenging – and I thought needed to be shared more widely. So let’s hear more!
Resources
Forum for Future website
Climate and Health Coalition
Future of Sustainability - Courage to Transform
FM Conway Sustainability strategy
FM Conway Collaborative Sustainability event
HM Government Budget 2025 to rebuild Britain