Climate Rising

Climate Rising

Climate Rising is about the impact of climate change on business. It brings business and policy leaders and Harvard Business School faculty together to share insights about what businesses are doing, can do, and should do to confront climate change. It explores the many challenges and opportunities that climate change raises for managers, such as decisions about where they choose to locate, the technologies they develop and use, their strategies with respect to products, marketing, customer engagement, and policy—in other words, the full spectrum of business concerns.

Episodes

September 10, 2025 44 mins
Microsoft’s Brian Marrs, Senior Director of Energy and Carbon Removal, and Chestnut Carbon CFO Greg Adams share their perspectives as a major buyer and developer of carbon removal credits. Their 2025 deal is one of the largest carbon removal deals in the U.S. and seeks to deliver 7 million tons of nature-based carbon credits over 25 years.  Brian explains Microsoft’s carbon negative strategy and targets, and the role of carbon rem...
Mark as Played
Ashley Fill, Global Director of Sustainability at P&G Home Care joins Climate Rising to discuss how consumer behavior and innovative technologies can reduce household carbon and water footprints. Ashley shares how life cycle assessments reveal that 87% of the emissions in P&G’s Home Care portfolio come from product use, particularly dishwashing. She describes how their products are engineered to deliver superior performance while r...
Mark as Played
ClimateAi co-founder and CEO Himanshu Gupta explains how his company uses machine learning to forecast extreme weather and help businesses adapt to climate volatility. Himanshu shares his journey from rural India to co-founding ClimateAi while he was an MBA student. He describes how ClimateAi's "biophysics-driven AI" combines limited weather and crop yield data to inform procurement, logistics, and planting decisions for a quarter ...
Mark as Played
This episode is another in our series on Climate Resilience featuring Alex Berkowitz, Founder and CEO of Coastal Protection Solutions (CPS), a startup developing nearshore infrastructure that reduces wave energy and enhances climate resilience. Alex shares how her personal experience with Hurricane Sandy in her hometown of Rockaway Beach led to the creation of the Wave Breaker—an innovative floating barrier designed to protect coas...
Mark as Played
In this Climate Rising episode in our series on climate resilience, Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen shares how impact investing is agriculture is helping smallholder farmers build climate resilience. Jacqueline shares insights from two decades of investing in poverty alleviation that includes climate resilience and adaptation social enterprises engaging in agriculture and off-grid solar.  She explains how Acumen us...
Mark as Played
This episode, part of the Climate Rising series on climate resilience, features Sarah Russell, General Manager of Project Bellwether at X, The Moonshot Factory at Alphabet (formerly Google X). Sarah shares how geospatial data and artificial intelligence can help communities and businesses anticipate and respond to climate risks. Sarah shares insights from her work building predictive wildfire risk models using satellite imagery, AI...
Mark as Played
Patrik Frisk, CEO of ReJu, joins Climate Rising to discuss his company’s mission to recycle textile waste and build circular supply chains for apparel made of polyester fabric. Patrik brings his prior experience leading Under Armour and other global brands across the textile and footwear industry for over 35 years.  Patrik describes how ReJu turns discarded apparel made of polyester blends into new polyester, and how it tackles th...
Mark as Played
James Reinhart, CEO of ThredUp, one of the largest online resale platforms for secondhand clothing. James co-founded the company while he was a Masters’ student at Harvard and has spent the last 15 years scaling a national logistics and digital infrastructure platform for resale.  In this episode James describes why the company decided to handle physical goods rather than act as a pure marketplace, how ThredUp helps brands run the...
Mark as Played
In the latest episode of Climate Rising from Harvard Business School, Karen Pflug, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ingka Group (IKEA), shares how IKEA is embedding circularity throughout its business model.  She discusses how IKEA is redesigning iconic products like the Billy bookcase to make them easier to disassemble and repair, how secondhand retail pilot programs at IKEA stores are reaching new customers, and how investments l...
Mark as Played
Lauren Rodriguez, who leads partnerships at Circular Services, a Closed Loop Partners company, joins host Mike Toffel to discuss building the infrastructure and investment models needed to scale the circular economy. Lauren explains how Closed Loop Partners supports the transition from a linear to a circular economy through capital management, innovation initiatives, and operating companies like Circular Services. She shares how...
Mark as Played
Fabian Barthel, Co-Founder of Vytal, a circular economy packaging-as-a-service startup, joins host Mike Toffel to explore the innovation, behavioral science, and regulations shaping the market for reusable containers for take-out food and beverages.  Fabian shares how Vytal is tackling packaging waste by building a reusable container system for restaurants, canteens, and major events. He explains why deposit-based systems often fa...
Mark as Played
In this bonus episode of Climate Rising, we share an episode from Harvard Business School’s Cold Call podcast, featuring HBS professor Mike Toffel and Duncan van Bergen, Co-Founder of Calyx Global. The discussion focuses on Mike’s recent HBS case study, Calyx Global: Rating Carbon Credits, which explores how the company is helping improve transparency and credibility in the voluntary carbon market. Mike and Duncan join host Brian K...
Mark as Played
Luke Leslie, Co-Founder and CEO of Key Carbon, joins Climate Rising as part of our series on voluntary carbon markets. Luke has spent over 20 years in carbon markets and finance, working in investment banking, private equity, and structured finance.  Luke explains how Key Carbon is financing high-integrity carbon projects and how new overlaps between the voluntary and compliance carbon markets are at the center of their investment...
Mark as Played
Alexia Kelly, Managing Director of the Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative (CPMI) at theHigh Tide Foundation, joins host Mike Toffel for the fifth episode in our series on voluntarycarbon markets. Alexia has worked for nearly two decades atthe intersection of carbonmarkets, policy, and finance, with roles spanning government, private industry, andnonprofits. In this episode, Alexia discusses how voluntary carbon markets are evolv...
Mark as Played
Amy Merrill, CEO of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) joins host Mike Toffel in this fourth episode of the Climate Rising series on voluntary carbon markets. Amy has extensive experience in carbon markets, including leading negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and advising on global carbon finance.  Amy explains how ICVCM uses a multi-stakeholder approach to enhance the integrity of carbon c...
Mark as Played
This episode, the third in our series on Voluntary Carbon Markets, features Mark Kenber, Executive Director of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI). Mark has worked in carbon markets and climate finance for nearly three decades, with experience at organizations like WWF, The Climate Group, and Fundación Natura in Ecuador.  Mark describes VCMI’s mission to provide guidance for companies and other non-state actor...
Mark as Played
Our second episode on the voluntary carbon market is a bonus episode of a panel discussion recorded at Harvard Climate Action Week in 2024. Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joe Aldy moderates this discussion with Nat Keohane from the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Donna Lee from Calyx Global, UC San Diego Professor David Victor, and Carolyn Weinberg, formerly of Blackrock. Together, they bring perspectives from policy, bu...
Mark as Played
Dr. Jennifer Jenkins, Chief Science Officer at Rubicon Carbon, joins our host Mike to talk about the critical role of voluntary carbon markets in achieving net-zero goals. Dr. Jenkins shares insights on how Rubicon Carbon is advancing the integrity and scalability of carbon credit through tools like the Rubicon Carbon Integrity Framework (RCIF). The conversation explores the lifecycle of a carbon credit, the challenges of managing ...
Mark as Played
Logan Ward, Deputy Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, joins host Mike Toffel to discuss how AI is transforming the discovery process for new materials in grid-scale batteries. Logan explains Argonne’s research on improving energy storage solutions, why AI plays a critical role, and the partnerships between national labs and the industry. He also shares his outlook on the future of AI in climate science and offers career advi...
Mark as Played
Dr. Alyssa Whitcraft is a professor at University of Maryland and a leading expert in agricultural remote sensing and climate adaptation. Dr. Whitcraft discusses her journey from co-founding NASA Harvest, a global program addressing food security with satellite data, to leading NASA Acres, which focuses on U.S. agriculture. She explains how AI and satellite technology are changing the agricultural sector, offering solutions ranging...
Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

    Stuff You Should Know

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    The Charlie Kirk Show

    Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.