The Good Energy Podcast

I’ve been exploring the economic forces that shape our world for a few years now and the more I learn, the clearer it becomes that underneath the many layers of economic and environmental crises is a kind of crisis of spirituality and of how we conceive of ourselves as human. I feel deeply honoured and excited to share this conversation with Pip Ranby, who is, among many other things, one of my favourite people in the world. Pip is both a spiritual teacher and a friend. I first came across her as my partner Rachel’s teacher in creative arts therapy. I got to know her when we asked her to be our marriage celebrant. She was an incredible comfort and guide as we navigated the difficult territory of working out what marriage meant to us as a queer couple and organising our love festival, which was amazing but stressful. Since then I’ve been seeing her regularly for what we call “spiritual accompaniment” sessions. She helps me make sense of life when I lose my way and has been an enormous support through the grief of losing my Dad and accompanying my Mum through her journey with dementia. I’ve attended many of Pip’s workshops, retreats and gatherings, and find them an enormous source of nourishment and peace in my life. I first had the idea to invite Pip for this conversation in 2023 at a workshop she facilitated on trauma and spirituality, which I attended straight after the annual conference of Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa. I was struck by how the wisdom and presence Pip was sharing spoke to the heart of the economic problems we’d been circling at the conference. I was struck by the way Pip dignified the struggle of trying to live within our economic system. She spoke about “industrial scale forces” that we experience intimately through our bodies. These forces are delivered through pervasive messaging which reduces women’s physicality to appearance, justifies sexual violence and silences voices of emotion and spirit. In this conversation Pip tells her personal story of trauma, loss and healing with incredible vividness and generosity. She shares her experiences of disordered eating, sexual violence and being helped out of the CTV building when it collapsed in the Christchurch earthquake. She speaks to the way these experiences of wounding and trauma opened her to the healing power of spirit and greater perception. Her story tenderly points to a pathway of healing that I believe lies at the heart of our economic regeneration. It reveals a more noble and generous idea of what it could mean to be human and the possibility of rebuilding practices, culture and economies from this more generous interconnected point of view.I hope you enjoy it.LinksTo find out more about Pip’s offerings visit her website: https://www.philipparanby.co.nz/She also mentioned the following people who have been inspirations and guides:* Cynthia Bourgeault: https://www.cynthiabourgeault.org/* Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms dance: https://www.5rhythms.com/gabrielle-roths-5rhythms/MusicThe music I’ve used in the interview is a glimpse of a song written by my wife Rachel (with a little contribution from me) and performed by the two of us. We haven’t shared the verses here, just the chorus. It’s called “Rising and Falling”. It feels special to share it in the context of this conversation with someone we both love and admire. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for ages! I first met Makerita Makapelu at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa conference in 2023. It was the end of a full day when I heard her presentation and I remember feeling instantly captivated by the joy and love which streamed from her as she described her work. Makerita is the Team Leader Innovation and Practice at Te Hiko, a community innovation hub in Cannons Creek, Porirua. It’s a vibrant diverse suburb, with a large Pacific Island community that suffers more than its fair share of injustices from an oppressive economic system. Te Hiko’s work is all about supporting people in the local community to realise their own capability. They do it by creating safe spaces where people can come together, relax and apply themselves to the challenge. Te Hiko’s vision is a local economy that allows people in Porirua to create from their own skills and local resources the abundance needed to live well. Over the last 18 years they’ve made significant progress towards this goal. They provide backbone support to a whole range of community initiatives. They facilitate a financial wellbeing programme and a savings pool helping people break the cycle of debt; they co-ordinate the Wellington Fruit and Vege Co-op which provides fresh produce at affordable prices, they facilitate a men’s group dedicated to reforesting the hills and a programme supporting people affected by or suffering from Methamphetamines. Talking to Makerita, I get the sense that anything is possible when people come together with love and respect around a purpose.In our conversation, we talk about her childhood and early career - her memories of Samoa before her family moved to Aotearoa, the challenges of growing up in Porirua and her discovery of theatre and dance, which started her on a healing journey. She speaks about the Samoan concepts of tautua (service) and Le Va (the sacred space between) and her vision for Aotearoa that we embrace our own indigenous wisdom. Makerita talks about the gap between the experience of real people on the ground and the policies intended to serve them and the work Te Hiko is doing to bridge that gap. She tells me about the Just Change Programme, which invites people who have a little extra money to spare to connect and grow meaningful relationships with people leading projects in the community. It’s not just about sharing money - it’s about understanding each other’s reality and building relationships of care. Te Hiko means “spark” in Te Reo and I got the sense of all these sparks being fanned to life by the loving support of Makerita and her team. Links Te Hiko websiteJust Change - connecting donors with community projectsHauora Kai: Wellington Region Fruit and Vege CoopGood Cents: Financial Wellbeing ProgrammeBig thanks to Casual Healing and Chur the Choir for the music!Makerita is a big fan of Bob Marley, so I’m delighted to be able to play this beautiful cover of One Love by local Paekākāriki musician Nikau Te Huki and Chur the Choir for letting me use this song. You can listen to the whole album here. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

“The economy is too important to leave to the economists!” That’s what Gareth Hughes says. After working for a decade as an MP in parliament he got thoroughly tired of the seesaw of short term policies and the arguments over the type of ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. He’s now grateful to be working on the cause of the problems rather than the symptoms. He leads the small team at WEAll (Wellbeing Economies Alliance Aotearoa). Their mission is to build a non-partisan, Te Tiriti led, people-powered movement to transform the economy around the wellbeing of our people and te taiao.“We often think about the economy like it’s a force of nature, like the weather,” Gareth says. “But actually it’s a human-designed machine and it can be re-designed to get the outputs we want to see.”Economics is a hard thing to talk about - it’s complicated, boring and mostly we forget it exists, like the air we breathe. But Gareth is seeing a groundswell of people across the political spectrum who are realising that something is broken and needs to change. “Cracks are showing everywhere,” he says. “People are realising it’s not working and are open to talking about system change. I’ve talked to conservatives who are voting National who are really concerned about social cohesion… They just know that you can’t continue to have a society where people are falling through the cracks.”The time is right for change and Gareth’s mission is to help people see the alternatives and to help uplift and connect the efforts of diverse groups around the country into one big movement for change. His small team are working with businesses, local councils, Iwi groups and community groups to uplift, connect and support their work to shift and change our systems. There is so much going on at the grass-roots level with businesses, iwi corporations, community groups and local government. The international community is excited about Aotearoa. The experience of working with all these people has cured Gareth of his cynicism and he’s feeling positive and hopeful about the future. This is a very positive and hopeful conversation about pathways open to us and the changes already brewing.Some helpful links* WEAll Aotearoa: https://www.weall.org.nz/* WEAll - the global organisation: https://weall.org/And here are some links to the organisations and initiatives Gareth mentions in the interview for your further exploration:* Tokona Te Raki - Ngai Tahu hub for social innovation and Māori futures. * The Workshop - Narrative research and communication advisors - who suggested Gareth do a listening tour instead of a speaking tour.* Sophie Handford, WEAll Aotearoa’s new Future Generations Lead.* Neoliberalism - leave it in the 80s video.* He Ara Waiora - a framework to help Treasury understand Māori perspectives on wellbeing and living standards* Te Takarangi - a Tūhoe Māori reimagining of the doughnut economic model.* Wakatū Incorporation - An Iwi owned entity with a 500 year vision* Amotai - National registry for Māori and Pasifika owned businesses* Article on Taranaki Maunga attaining legal personhood Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

I’m excited to share this conversation with Paul Tapsell (Te Arawa, Tainui) whose book Kāinga: People, Land, Belonging inspired my focus on homes and kāinga this year. It was very special to be invited to Paul’s ancestral home in Tapsell Road, Rotorua, where we met in the beautiful architecturally designed space shown in the photo above. Paul and his whānau envisioned and built this new home to replace the crumbling old house, built by their father. Back before the days of potatoes and colonisation, this site was a kumara garden and a foundation for the local economy. Now it sits amongst suburban houses, holding precious threads of culture and acting as a hub for the community as well as a home.Historic amnesia and the illusion of our harmonious bicultural societyIn our conversation, Paul painted a picture of a cultural divide ‘as wide as the grand canyon’, which we pretend doesn’t exist. “On one hand colonisation has dispossessed 780 kāinga communities of their economic base and on the other hand an incoming settler community from Great Britain has come to control that economic base but are living in what my academic mentor used to call historic amnesia.”Paul spoke about his great great grandmother who was bayoneted to death by British soldiers who were later given their ancestral land to farm for free. He described a Māori community, still living in poverty on the land they were forcibly removed to in 1869, while Pākeha farmers make millions on the land they were dispossessed from.Somehow, we have manifested a story of a harmonious bicultural society - the nation we call New Zealand. But this illusion is preventing us from facing the scale of trauma and disconnection and finding ways to heal.Paul’s hope, in writing the book, was to bring to light the forgotten stories and help bridge the cultural divide.Chasing pinpricks of light in the darkI was struck by Paul’s approach to facing these hard truths. “I problematise everything, almost to the point of depression, until I’m surrounded by this darkness. Then I step back and see where the little pricks of light are coming through - just these little pinpricks. Like going down a tunnel, I chase that light and see where it takes me.”Paul has found pinpricks of light in the fact that young Māori, whose whānau have lived in cities for generations, are wanting to reconnect with their ancestral kāinga. When that relationship between tangata and whenua is restored, there is hope for healing and true leadership. Young Māori give Paul hope.He also has hope in Pākeha and tauiwi. He shared a story of two Pākeha farmers who fell in love with the whenua and have dedicated their lives to restoring the health of the waterways. They are now working with Paul to connect with an impoverished Māori community living downstream, in the hope of sharing the ecological wealth they’ve helped to restore.“I think most reasonable non-Māori citizens of this country, if they understand the history, are more likely to respond proactively and create that bridge across the canyon and meet halfway.”We’re all complex. Let’s stop judging and listen to each other.Paul and I shared stories of ancestors who crossed the cultural divide and how their decisions have shaped our lives now.My great grandmother was Māori, born in Te Kaha in Te Moana-a-Toitehuatahi (Bay of Plenty). She moved to Auckland, married a Lebanese businessman, had a family then died. From that point our family has been disconnected from our Māori whakapapa. I have inherited material wealth through the family business but none of the wisdom of my Māori ancestors.Paul’s grandmother came from Ireland where generations of her family had been dispossessed of their land by the English. Her brothers and sisters settled in Auckland where their families now own large chunks of the waterfront! Paul’s grandmother married a Māori man, found belonging with her new whānau and embraced their culture as her own. Apparently she was known as “the black sheep” of the family. From his Māori elders Paul inherited precious ancient taonga which he is striving to preserve.It struck me that the hau kāinga who stayed with their whenua and preserved the taonga have carried a huge burden for us all. They have taken a massive hit to protect these lifelines, which are now hanging by a thread.I found our conversation incredibly helpful for making sense of my own complex feelings and my role now. It’s not about pointing fingers or laying blame, it’s about being prepared to learn and listen, to feel the darkness and follow the pinpricks of light.Find out more about Paul’s projects and research https://www.takarangi.co.nz/https://www.maorimaps.com/Music creditWaiata koauau ki Te Papa-i-ōuru Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

When Simone Woodland dreamed up the idea of creating a co-housing village, she didn’t imagine she’d have to become a developer to make it happen. Simone moved to Aotearoa from the UK in 2018 as a Sir Edmund Hillary Fellow, on a visa programme specifically designed for social entrepreneurs like her. Her initial vision was to build a community that looks after burnt out social entrepreneurs. When Sarrah Jayne heard about Simone’s idea she was captivated. She gave up her job in Pōneke Wellington and jumped on board the mission. Together with some friends and supporters, they found a plot of land in Takaka, Mohua Golden Bay and started the journey. The core team was made up of three women, each of whom was pregnant and gave birth during the project. One of the secrets to their success, they say, was the incredible support and understanding they offered each other through these huge life events and the massive challenges of the job.Their aim from the outset was to create a community - to make it possible to live well together, forge deep bonds with neighbours, share resources, offer mutual support in tough times and tread lightly on the earth.But stepping into the process was a bit like jumping in a river - the system has a force of its own. It’s designed for large developers to build individual houses and it took a huge amount of energy and determination to hold to their values and create something affordable, communal and ecologically sound. The easiest way to navigate the system, was to start a development company - thus they became developers. It was a race against time and money as COVID struck, building costs soared and they held tight to the trust and life savings of the 30 or so groups who took a leap of faith to join the project. Some ideas - like composting toilets and tiny houses - had to drop away so they could get the job done in time. Explaining the concept of co-housing to banks, councils and lawyers was hard work. But they made it! Now the first of three clusters of houses has been completed and the villagers have moved in. The plan is to build two more clusters of houses to complete the village.In our conversation, Simone and Sarrah reflect on the ups and downs of the journey so far, what it’s like to see their vision realised and their hopes and dreams for the future. They see themselves as part of a nationwide movement to make housing more communal and accessible and less commercial. There are so many passionate people working hard around the country on similar kaupapa. They hope their efforts will help to strengthen the pathways in our systems for these important projects to succeed. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

Charlotte Shade is a friend of mine and I’ve watched with interest and admiration as her group of housemate/friends have bought a house, had babies and brought them up together in a loving non-nuclear family group.In this conversation Charlotte and I explore where the idea of buying a house with friends came from, how her group made it happen and what they’ve learnt in the process. Being a lawyer, Charlotte has a unique perspective and set of skills. She created this legal agreement, which enables the group to navigate potentially difficult situations like someone wanting to leave. They have made this agreement open-source so that other groups can use or modify as needed. I was particularly struck by one thing that Charlotte said: “I’ve realised that you can just do things differently if you want. You just have to do it. It's not necessarily going to be plain sailing, but when is life ever plain sailing? It's hard. There's going to be difficult things. So why not do something different?”It struck me that these different pathways are open to us if we have the curiosity to look for them and the patience and confidence to navigate the challenges. It was clear from talking to Charlotte that the gains of energy, time and connection far outweigh the challenges of owning a house with friends. She call her and her partner “time millionaires” and she feels profoundly grateful for her situation. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits and challenges of co-buying and how to go about it, Charlotte’s house-mate Rupert has written some excellent articles: This article describes the process they went through to find their house. This article provides details on the legal and financial side of the process. This article describes the process of coming up with shared values.And this article is about having a baby while buying and co-owning a house. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

I’m very excited to share this conversation with 19 year old activist and student, Anika Green. She grew up in an inner city Christian community called Stillwaters in Te Whanganui a Tara which aims to provide a space of belonging, transformation and faith for anyone who needs it. In her childhood home she was surrounded by all kinds of people who loved and cared for her, including homeless people, gang members, sex workers and refugees. She never learnt to view these people through a lens of difference. By hearing their stories and sharing in their grief and joys she learnt about issues of poverty, discrimination and injustice in a very personal and immediate way. By the age of four she was already a passionate advocate for social justice and her commitment has only grown since then.I used to visit the Stillwaters community when I was at university for the dinners and services they hosted every Friday and Sunday evening. I remember feeling like I’d come across a warm cave in a bleak landscape when I stepped inside. I was moved by the warmth and generosity with which everyone came together to eat, sing, laugh and chat. The experience cut through a sense of isolation in my life. It was refreshing and nourishing to get out of my bubble.In this conversation with Anika we explore the economics of her childhood home - how they afforded to feed so many people every week, where the energy and resources came from and how they balanced the needs of their family with those of the community. She told me about the home she’s creating for herself with other young students and her vision for how homes with open doors could provide the belonging and dignity people need to thrive.I was particularly struck by one thing Anika said: “When you know you’re loved and belong, it’s easy to be selfless.”To me, this statement speaks to the heart of economic system change. The Good Energy Project has taught me that alternative economic systems which honour the planet and people are possible - but they require a profound shift in the way we relate to each other. As Bryan Ines pointed out in our conversation last year, we need to re-learn how to work together. Talking with Anika, I had the sense that she lives in a wider field to other people. She has a huge capacity for service and connection because she receives so much from the people around her. She lacks the barriers, fears and indoctrinated ideas that cause other people to shut down. This conversation spurred some deep reflections of my own sense of belonging and my capacity to open my door and welcome people in. This has been both inspiring and confronting. I don’t think I could live in a home with an open door as Anika does at this stage. I don’t feel I have the capacity, the skills to establish healthy boundaries or a deep enough sense of belonging to draw on. But I feel deeply inspired by the openness and generosity Anika shows and I want to engage in the slow work of opening up and connecting across difference.It strikes me that unless we find pathways to belonging and ways to heal our own sense of displacement and shame, we won’t have the capacity to show up for each other or the planet. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

I’m really pleased to be able to share this conversation with Max Rashbrooke - journalist, author, academic and expert on economic inequality and democratic renewal. I’ve seen Max around for years in Wellington. I’m pretty sure I remember him at parties a decade ago having rigorous political conversations. I’ve been stoked over the past year to get to know him and bit more.I loved this conversation! We went right back to Max’s childhood in Eastbourne and learned about his teenage love of sci fi, his core belief that another world is possible and the values of generosity and reciprocity which he holds dear. We explored the connections between poverty and climate change and Max’s vision for the future.I was struck by the resonances with my last conversation with Hemi Hireme (& Part 2) - the idea that forty years of market economy has stifled our imagination for what’s possible and eroded our faith that government initiatives can make a real difference in people’s lives. As a result many of us feel overwhelmed and fear that nothing works. Max talks about the importance of being able to connect with people across society and have real conversations about the things that effect us. He says we need real examples of how alternative approaches actually work - not just visions and values. And that these real-life stories are out there - we need to start sharing them more.“Now is the time for new ideas and frameworks to bubble up,” he says. “Are we building a nurturing society? And what would it take to make New Zealand genuinely the best place to bring up a child?”I love these questions. It was a hopeful conversation and a remedy for the overwhelm and hopelessness I frequently feel. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

This show is going to be a bit different. Instead of interviewing Hemi I decided to share the conversation we had over Zoom when we first met. It felt so rich I wanted to share it all with you. It was also quite long (2 hours) so I’ve broken it up into two parts. I’ll post the second half in a couple of weeks.I met Hemi through Marceline and Tur at the Quatro Trust. As well as supporting The Good Energy Project, Quatro are supporting Hemi to create a book and an online course. Max Harris, who I interviewed a month ago, also recommended I speak to Hemi and admires his work.Hemi is on a mission to re-establish the Māori philosophy of Ranginui (Sky father) and Papatūānuku (Earth mother) as a foundation for our society. He has researched deep into the history of capitilism and colonisation and pulls stories and ideas from across the centuries and around the world. He’s also deeply steeped in his own Māori cosmology and is passionate about sharing the richness of this, especially with other Māori who have lost contact with their own tradition. Hemi has a vision of re-establishing marae as the political, economic and social centres of our communities and seeding a culture that celebrates difference while finding belonging and connection in the land.Hemi got in touch with Marceline after reading Tur’s guest blog post and hearing my interview with him. He wanted to express his excitement and support for Tur’s idea that Aotearoa could take a lead in reducing energy-use and waste through nurturing the pride and diversity of our communities. Along with his email, Hemi attached an article which he recently wrote for the Spinoff called “The Sunday Essay: Two waka, three iwi, three hapū”. It was reading this article that first drew me to Hemi. I was intrigued by the story he tells of his childhood, moving between worlds that had been touched to a different extent by colonisation. There was Waiotapu, the small forestry village near Rotorua where he lived, Whakatane, where he spent holidays with his cousins and a place called Pāraeroa in Te Urewera (or “up the river” as he called it). This was the spiritual home of Ngai Tūhoe, his mother’s whanau and the place that spoke most deeply to his soul. A place where he says: “Capitalism and the notion of private property had not arrived”.In Pāraeroa, Hemi describes, “there seemed to be no barrier between adults and children, horses and dogs, whānau and whenua… Everyone and everything came together as one world. Our world. In this world, the connections to the land did all the speaking.” I was so taken by Hemi’s description of Pāraeroa and the way it seems to have called to him as a beacon throughout his life as he’s come to terms with our history and the effects of colonisation. Hemi talks about how our modern world is dominated by a European philosophy which separates us from the natural world and from each other. He suggests that the Māori philosophy of Ranginui and Papatuānuku offers a remedy to the crises we face and a spiritual foundation to bring our country together with hope, pride and diversity.I was moved by how generous and inclusive Hemi was and inspired by his ideas. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

I was up in Auckland last week and was lucky enough to catch an hour with this lovely human - Max Harris. The conversation was recorded in his living room with snacks and tea. There's many things I could say to introduce Max. He was born in London and grew up in Wellington. He's a lawyer and an activist. He was a Rhodes Scholar. He almost died once and his brush with death unexpectedly led to him winning a very prestigious fellowship from Oxford University to spend seven years on a research project. His research culminated in him writing a book called The New Zealand Project, which I thoroughly recommend.It's about rediscovering New Zealand's lost direction and establishing a new foundation for our economic system and culture based on the values of care, community, and creativity. Max talks about the way the reforms of the 1980s and 90s (commonly known as Rogernomics and Ruthanasia) drained our public life of values and narrowed our collective imagination of what’s possible. He shares some of his ideas for how we could blow our sense of vision and possibility open again. In particular, he focuses on how our central government could embody the values of care, community and creativity. They could introduce regulations that protect things we hold sacred (like healthcare and education). They could reform the tax system to address inequality and they could steer our collective action towards missions that serve the greater good.Max shares his vision to reinstate an organisation called the Development Finance Corporation (a government development bank), which could support the growth of new industries and innovative ideas. We briefly talked about how quantum technology and other seemingly random specialities of New Zealand’s scientists could help reinvigorate our economy.Max also shared why he’s excited about decolonisation and what he feels could be possible if we learn and from Māori perspectives and knowledge that is grounded in this place.Max is obviously very smart, but what I admire most about him is his optimism about who we are as people and what we could be. He seems to be able to maintain a lack of cynicism while facing up to the stark truths of the world. He speaks up for things like care and kindness, which I think can be hard in our intellectual and outcomes-focused world.I hope you enjoy the conversation too! Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

It was a real delight to catch the train from Wellington to Carterton to spend the day with Helen Dew last week. I was treated to a full tour of her tiny incredibly abundant garden and given lots of inspiring reading material on the history of money, the rich life inside soil and other topics.This podcast is a small selection of the rich conversation we had. Helen has spent the past 30 years dedicated to promoting local currencies across the country. She’s a passionate advocate for re-localising our economies and lives. She’s also a co-founder of the Living Economies Educational Trust. You can read a bit more about her and the trust here: https://livingeconomies.nz/Helen is also a passionate and accomplished gardener. She manages to largely feed herself from her tiny backyard garden shown here in its slightly subdued winter form. Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe

Sometimes, in moments of lazy thinking, I’ve lumped business in with capitalism and assumed they’re both part of the cause of our environmental crisis. But Tur has spent his life working in business and he sees the value good companies can bring to their communities and the planet.He describes a company as “a community of people trying to achieve something together” - not too unlike a sports team trying to win. In this conversation he describes the qualities of a good company (taking responsibility, looking after people and sharing the value it creates) compared to a bad company where everyone is looking after their own interests and money rules. He celebrates the qualities that good companies foster - ingenuity, hard work and pride - and he suggests we encourage and applaud good companies just like we do sports teams.Tur spent his career helping companies that were on the brink of failure to get back on their feet and succeed (originally for the Development Finance Corporation and then with his own investment company). His job was to support the management through this recovery period - helping to clear the time and space they needed to understand the problem and figure out how to solve it. Although this was often an incredibly challenging time, there was also something incredibly exciting about it. “It’s hard work but it creates an enormous amount of pride,” Tur says, “You find yourself part of close relationships. It creates trust and respect and generates so much value.”Tur observes that the answer to companies surviving these “near-death experiences” was usually to get smaller and fairer - cut unnecessary costs, focus on core business, value relationships, share the load across the company and lower expectations till the business is back on track. It was hugely satisfying when it worked, which it often did.Now that he’s retired, Tur has turned his attention to the macro scale and the relationship between our economic system and the climate crisis. He sees a strong parallel between the plight of humanity on planet earth and that of a failing company - we’ve over committed ourselves and need to consolidate, work together and make our whole enterprise smaller and fairer. He doesn’t offer concrete answers but provides a way of thinking about the problem that is illuminating in itself. The conversation has given me a more nuanced and inspiring view of the role of business in navigating a safe path into the future.Here are some links Tur refers to in the conversation: * Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics Blog* Susan Krumdieck’s Global Association for Transition Engineering* Development Finance Corporation Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe