Two Steps Forward — Sustainability Meets Business Reality

About Two Steps Forward — Sustainability Meets Business Reality

Being a sustainable business professional is both exhilarating and terrifying. Lots of steps forward…and back. To succeed you need deep insights, real experience, lots of inspiration, maybe a few laughs. Each episode, sustainable business veterans Solitaire Townsend and Joel Makower delve into the complexities of the moment and introduce you to provocative and inspiring people you need to know.

Publisher

Joel Makower and Solitaire Townsend

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 May 2025

Latest episode

28 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

30 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Sept 2026

   At Climate Week NY, the audience asks us anything

   Recorded live at Solutions House during Climate Week NYC, this special episode turns the mic over to the audience. In an ask-us-anything session, Joel and Solitaire field questions from the crowd on AI, regeneration, misinformation, recycling myths, and intergenerational blame. They also cover how to talk with people who disagree with you, and how to stay hopeful when climate impacts hit close to home. The episode opens with the hosts asking each other questions: their regrets, their guilty pleasures, and how they handle the stage fright that never quite goes away.

2. 

   6 Sept 2026

   A new political coalition may be forming — what sustainability professionals need to do

   What do data centers, energy shocks, extreme weather, Flock cameras and anti-oligarch anger have in common — and could they add up to something new? Joel Makower and Solitaire Townsend dig into whether the public is starting to connect a handful of "wild card" events, what history's unlikely coalitions (and its failed ones) can teach us about how this could go, and why sustainability teams need to get back to being an early-warning system instead of just a reporting function.

3. 

   24 Aug 2026

   The tangible intangibles of sustainability events

   Sustainability conferences are expensive, exhausting, and logistically brutal — so why does everyone keep going? Joel Makower and Solitaire Townsend dig into the real business case for in-person events: not the keynotes or panels, but the peer connections, chance encounters, and hallway conversations that never show up on an expense report. They talk through what a recent industry report gets right about event value, how the sustainability events calendar has changed shape, and why "intimacy at scale" might matter more than perfect programming.

Who has been a guest on Two Steps Forward — Sustainability Meets Business Reality

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Rebecca Marmot
• Ann Tracy
• Ellen Jackowski

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 33 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

28

Social presence

0

YouTube

63

Engagement

32

Contact Two Steps Forward — Sustainability Meets Business Reality

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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