What is to be done?

About What is to be done?

We know we can’t stay on the current path. We roughly know what needs to change, but we don’t yet know how. This podcast takes that question as its starting point. We’ll talk with people from business, politics, academia, and activism who can help us see new ways forward, people whose experience, perspective, and courage might help us answer that question. With this podcast, we want to begin mapping out and inspire others to map out, strategies and action plans for greater speed and force in the transition toward sustainable development. We ask ourselves, and our guests, the same question: What is to be done? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

Carolina Sachs, Sasja Beslik och Joel Lindefors

Category

business · government · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

25 Nov 2025

Latest episode

17 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

17 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   17 Sept 2026

   Catalytic Capital with Cilia Holmes Indahl

   Catalytic capital is like the first layer in a lasagna. Funders are increasingly stacking their financing in different layers, to collectively tolerate more risk, and help money reach places it never used to flow. That image comes from Cilia Holmes Indahl, our guest for the first episode of season two of What Is To Be Done? Six years ago she was handpicked to lead the EQT Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the investment firm EQT. Rather than run it as traditional philanthropy, she built it into a platform for long-term systemic change, providing catalytic capital to early-stage companies that tackle problems the market has not learned to price. She was recently named to the World Economic Forum's list of Young Global Leaders. We talked about the transformative potential of private equity, Gro Harlem Brundtland's argument that progress needs both radical and pragmatic forces, John Fullerton's regenerative economics, and why Cilia believes people change best when they feel good. The views and opinions expressed by Cilia Holmes Indahl in this episode are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of EQT Foundation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   15 Jun 2026

   Season Wrap Up

   Joel, Sasja and Carolina reflect on the season's 15 episodes, which have explored growth and economic systems from widely different perspectives -- from techno-optimists to advocates of an entirely new economic system. They conclude that the series has succeeded in keeping the tension between different viewpoints alive, but that they want to meet more entrepreneurs in the next season. The conversation moves through several themes: AI's dual role as both resource drain and potential solution; the financial system's short-termism as a structural barrier to transition; the need for political reform (including around corporate law and quarterly reporting); and a new report associated with Piketty on global justice and concrete steps toward a more equitable world within planetary boundaries. They also highlight the weakening of democracy as a deeply troubling parallel process, alongside the climate crisis, the AI boom and demographic shifts, and want to explore this further next season. Other topics flagged for season 2 include rewilding, religion and social development, Buckminster Fuller's systems thinking, and AI from multiple angles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   3 Jun 2026

   Regenerative Economics with John B. Fullerton

   We spoke with John Fullerton, author of Regenerative Economics and former top banker, about why the economic system isn't broken and working exactly as designed. And that's the problem. His core argument: we built the economy like a machine. But life doesn't work like a machine. And no amount of carbon taxes or ESG reporting will fix a design flaw that deep. What would it look like to build an economy like a living system instead? That's what this conversation is about. Background John spent nearly 20 years at J.P. Morgan before leaving in 2001. The September 11 attacks, which he witnessed firsthand, prompted a deep personal search for meaning. He began reading widely outside finance, including Limits to Growth, and eventually developed the framework of regenerative economics. The Core Problem: Economy as Machine The root of today's economic crisis lies in how neoclassical economics was founded: 19th-century mathematicians deliberately modeled it on Newtonian physics, treating the economy as a machine rather than a living organism. Two critical errors followed, ignoring the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) and assuming time is reversible. The Nordhaus Nobel Prize, which deemed a 3.5°C temperature rise acceptable, is a product of this flawed thinking. Regenerative vs. Other Economic Frameworks Environmental economics (Nordhaus) uses externalities, useful as a concept, but inadequate because not all harms can be priced or fixed with money. Ecological economics (Herman Daly) was a major leap, re-embedding the economy within the biosphere, but still frames things as a trade-off between growth and sustainability. Regenerative economics goes further, treating the economy as a living system governed by emergence, adaptive cycles, and self-organization, not top-down management toward preset goals. Co-Inherited Wealth and the Commons Drawing on Peter Barnes' work, John argues that natural resources, the internet, mathematical knowledge, and accumulated technological progress are all co-inherited wealth, shared assets that the private sector currently uses for free. He estimates that privately owned wealth represents only about 13% of total real wealth. A proper institution of the commons, similar to Norway's oil fund or Alaska's oil trust, could govern these shared assets, generate universal revenues, and make the economy self-fueling. Practical Pathways Rather than one grand plan, John points to many existing examples: The Mondragón cooperative in Spain, managing 80 businesses as a single ecosystem for 80 years Bioregional movements and decentralized food systems The opportunity presented by the "silver tsunami", as aging baby boomers exit their privately owned businesses, there's a chance to buy and reorganize half the global economy into place-based regenerative ecosystems On AI and Energy John believes the current AI boom is likely a financial bubble. That said, the massive energy demand it creates is already spurring engineering innovation in efficiency, the challenge is directing that ingenuity toward systemic health rather than billionaire-making. The Path Forward John sees this as fundamentally a re-education and paradigm shift project. Drawing on Ilya Prigogine's mathematics, he argues that when systems are far from equilibrium, small "islands of coherence" can shift the whole. His online community (withlife.net) is one such island. The transformation may happen suddenly and unexpectedly, like the fall of the Berlin Wall or through painful collapse first. Either way, he believes the regenerative economy is already emerging, even if we can't fully see it yet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

4. 

   13 May 2026

   Seduce, Don't Preach with Olly Lawder from Revolt

   This week we sit down with Olly Lawder, a strategist and storyteller with extensive experience in sustainability communications. We trace the arc of sustainability communication from its origins in corporate philanthropy and early CSR, through the rise of ambitious net zero targets and "rock star CEOs," to the more cautious and compliance-driven moment we find ourselves in today. Along the way, we ask an uncomfortable question: did the movement win over the corporate world while losing voters and consumers? Olly has spent 20 years helping major global brands figure out how to make sustainable choices genuinely desirable, not as a moral duty, but as something people actually want. The closer sustainability gets to the real reason someone buys something, the more powerful it becomes. Nobody buys a perfume for the recycled packaging. But if the sustainably sourced vanilla makes it smell more complex, more unique, more seductive? We dig into why terms like "net zero" and "degrowth" leave people cold, what the fossil fuel industry understands about communications that the sustainability movement still doesn't, and why the pendulum will eventually have to swing back, because none of the fundamental problems have gone away. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

5. 

   30 Apr 2026

   Post Growth Pensions with Steve Rocco

   In our latest episode of What is to be Done, we sat down with Steve Rocco, co-founder of the Arketa Institute, to talk about one of the most fundamental challenges of our time: the gap between modern science and the economic theories that still govern our financial systems. What makes Steve's perspective particularly striking is where it comes from. He has spent his career inside the financial system, from trading desks at Bank of America and Goldman Sachs to impact investing, green bonds and private placements. It is precisely that experience, he argues, that made the contradictions impossible to ignore. His argument is straightforward but radical. The neoclassical economics that dominates our institutions, business schools and financial markets was built before much of what we now know about the biosphere and planetary boundaries. Ecological economics offers a different framework, one where the economy exists within nature, not alongside it. A central theme in the conversation is the concept of multi-capital, the idea that wealth cannot be reduced to financial capital alone. Social capital, natural capital and community are not soft add-ons but fundamental components of a functioning and sustainable economy. The episode also digs into what a post-growth pension system might look like in practice. Steve makes the case that pension funds are not just a financial instrument but a political one, and potentially a powerful lever for change. Pensioners sit on boards of trustees. They are also voters. That combination, he argues, is deeply underestimated. The episode does not offer easy answers, but it reframes the question in a way that feels both urgent and, oddly, hopeful. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

6. 

   15 Apr 2026

   Business transformation in Japan and migration with Joel & Sasja

   While the rest of the world debates whether to take sustainability seriously, Japan is quietly getting on with it. In this episode, your co-host Sasja takes centre stage. Based part-time in Tokyo, where he manages Japan's first domestically-run mid-cap impact fund, Sasja brings four years of on-the-ground experience to one of the world's most underreported sustainability stories. We explore the physical reality of climate change hitting Japan right now, why Japanese companies are building ESG equity stories that outpace Europe, and what a warming world means for the one thing no politician wants to talk about: mass migration. The future won't wait. Neither should you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

7. 

   2 Apr 2026

   Regenerative Business Models & Growth Potential with Joel & Carolina

   In this episode, Joel and Carolina explore the green transition from a growth perspective. From China's record-breaking solar installations to India's emergence as a global scaling platform for climate technologies, the shift toward a cleaner economy is accelerating, just not where most people are looking. We also dig into why Western economies remain stuck in fossil fuel dependency despite the obvious strategic and economic case for renewables, and what it will take to break free from legacy thinking. At the heart of the conversation is the idea of regenerative business, moving beyond ESG checklists and "doing less harm" toward business models that actively restore ecological, social, and economic systems. We look at real companies already doing this: from flooring to offshore wind to space-based Earth observation. We also discuss the potential of more accurate and precise metrics for impact and fewer but sharper KPI's for business transformation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

8. 

   18 Mar 2026

   Creating Shared Value with Marc Pfitzer

   In this session we explore the idea of Shared Value. It is easy to assume that corporations have always existed exclusively to maximize returns for shareholders. But historically that was not always the case. In the nineteenth century many U.S. states required companies to demonstrate a societal benefit in order to obtain limited liability. Over time this view shifted. A famous turning point came in 1919 when the Dodge brothers sued Henry Ford after he chose to reinvest profits in higher wages and community development rather than maximizing dividends. The court ruled that a corporation should be run primarily for the profit of its shareholders. Decades later this idea became deeply influential through the work of Milton Friedman. But as globalization expanded and environmental and social challenges became more visible, alternative ideas began to re-emerge. In 2006, Michael E. Porter introduced the concept of Creating Shared Value: the idea that companies can strengthen their competitiveness by understanding and expanding the value they create for society. Nearly twenty years later, however, the practical challenge remains. Many companies say sustainability is integrated into their strategy, yet in practice it often sits in a silo. Financial performance and sustainability metrics are reported side by side, but rarely is there a serious attempt to understand how they actually influence one another. If sustainable business development is to become possible, companies need better ways to connect impact with financial performance. To explore how this can be done in practice, we invited Marc Pfitzer, a global strategy advisor since 30 + years, with several articles on todays subject published in the Harvard Business Review and he also lecture at the Stockholm School of Economics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

9. 

   23 Feb 2026

   Beyond the audit. With Shameek Ghosh from TrusTrace, and Erika Wennerström from Quizrr.

   In this third episode on labour rights, What Is To Be Done? meets two entrepreneurs attempting to address one of the most persistent challenges of globalization: how to ensure that human rights are actually respected in global supply chains, not just monitored on paper. Shameek Ghosh, founder of TrusTrace, and Erika Wennerström, CEO of Quizrr, represent two complementary approaches to the problem. TrusTrace focuses on traceability and data transparency, helping companies understand where products originate and under what conditions they are produced. Quizrr works from another angle, developing digital training programs aimed at workers and management across supply chains, with the ambition to turn social sustainability into something measurable, operational, and scalable. The conversation explores what increasingly appears to be a paradigm shift within social compliance. Traditional audit systems are being questioned for their limited effectiveness and fragmented nature, while new regulatory requirements and rising business risks are pushing sustainability from a voluntary initiative toward a core strategic concern. Both guests argue that meaningful change requires more than control mechanisms. It demands transparency about risks, but also investments in people, knowledge, and organizational learning. We discuss how responsibility for sustainability is gradually moving beyond specialized sustainability teams and becoming integrated into core business functions, how regulation and market expectations are reshaping corporate incentives, and why leading companies often act as experimental laboratories whose practices spread across industries through shared standards and network effects. The episode paints a picture of a field in transition, moving from compliance toward impact, from verification toward improvement, and from isolated interventions toward systemic change. Rather than asking whether supply chains can be monitored more efficiently, the discussion turns to a deeper question: how can global production systems be redesigned so that respect for labour rights becomes embedded in how business is actually done? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

10. 

    7 Feb 2026

    Labour rights under attack. With Aleksandar Zuza from IF Metall.

    In our first session on labour rights, we focused on global supply chains. In the second session, we shift to a more European perspective. The right to organise and to engage in collective bargaining has been fundamental to the construction of Europe’s welfare states and a core element of the social contract between the state, capital, and citizens. These rights were even written into the peace treaties signed in Versailles at the end of the First World War. They have functioned as key democratic institutions and could potentially be powerful tools for securing a socially stable transition to a regenerative economy. And yet, the prevailing sense is that workers’ rights are in retreat rather than advancing. One clear example is Tesla’s global anti-union policies. In Sweden, Tesla has refused to sign a collective bargaining agreement, a stance that is highly unusual for companies operating in the country, including American ones. As a result, IF Metall has been in conflict with Tesla since October 2023, making it the longest strike in Sweden in over 100 years. For this second session on labour rights, we have invited Aleksandar Zuza from IF Metall to help us unpack and better understand the conflict with Tesla. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

11. 

    27 Jan 2026

    Davos Decompression Special Edition

    Davos Decompression Special. In this session we take a break from our deep dive into labour rights to get some fresh insights from World Economic Forum in Davos. Our very own Carolina Sachs attended the conference for 14th time in a row. Get the insights and the news not covered by mainstream media! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

12. 

    25 Jan 2026

    From Compliance to Impact: Labour Rights in Global Supply Chains. With Professor Sarosh Kuruvilla, Cornell University.

    After dedicating four episodes to unpacking and turning the concept of growth inside out, we now move on to a much more specific dimension of sustainable development: labour rights. In the next three episodes, we will examine how fundamental human rights at work are respected and implemented across global value chains. We’ll be speaking with world-leading academics, local trade union representatives, and entrepreneurs to understand these issues and identify a path forward. Our first guest is Sarosh Kuruvilla, Professor at Cornell University and perhaps the world’s leading researcher on labour conditions in global supply chains. The picture he paints is undeniably bleak. Despite more than thirty years of codes of conduct and compliance systems, very little has actually improved on the factory floor. Brands, governments of producing countries, and even traditional trade unions all come under scrutiny. But Sarosh also offers a concrete way forward for brands that genuinely want to drive change, along with a new and potentially revolutionary tool: Risk-Based Outcome Metrics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

13. 

    15 Jan 2026

    What do we want from growth?

    After three conversations on growth, it’s time to pause, step back, and reflect. In this fourth episode, Sasja Beslik, Carolina Sachs, and Joel Lindefors come together to summarize and unpack the different perspectives we’ve explored so far. We revisit our conversations with Sam Tidswell, who argued that technological innovation and capital can enable continued growth even on a finite planet; with Isadora Wronskij from Greenpeace International, who challenged the growth paradigm itself and called for sufficiency, wellbeing, and system-level change; and with Anders Wijkman, former co-chair of the Club of Rome, who pushed us to rethink economics, institutions, and the role of policy beyond both techno-optimism and simplistic degrowth. What did we learn from placing these perspectives side by side? Where do they fundamentally disagree, and where do they unexpectedly overlap? What actually needs to grow, what needs to shrink, and what does a credible path forward look like in a world facing ecological limits, social fragmentation, and political headwinds? This episode is less about definitive answers and more about sharpening the questions. If growth can no longer be treated as a neutral or self-evident goal, what replaces it? And how do we move from critique to action? What is to be done? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

14. 

    6 Jan 2026

    A double bind. With Anders Wijkman, former co-chair Club of Rome.

    In two episodes, we have explored the concept of growth, first from a distinctly techno-optimistic perspective together with venture capitalist Sam Tidswell, who was fully convinced that technology will enable infinite growth on a finite planet. We then spoke with Isadora Wronski from Greenpeace International, who argued that one of the most important things right now is to slow down growth and reduce the power of capital. One of the organizations that first problematized the concept of growth was the Club of Rome, and in this session we are joined in the studio by its former co-chair, Anders Wijkman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

15. 

    15 Dec 2025

    The emperor has no clothes. With Isadora Wronskij from Greenpeace International.

    In the first part of our growth trilogy, we explored what infinite growth on a finite planet might look like. In the second conversation, we depart from the opposite position and explore what system-level change could look like, what needs to grow, what needs to shrink, and what it means to build a future defined not by excess, but by enough. Our guest in the studio is Isadora Wronskij from Greenpeace International. Greenpeace International has recently articulated a new strategic direction, one that looks beyond single-issue campaigns and asks much bigger questions: How do we redesign our economies around wellbeing and sufficiency rather than growth? What alternatives are already emerging? And what kinds of alliances, political strategies, and forms of activism might actually get us there? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

16. 

    8 Dec 2025

    Infinite growth on a finite planet. With Sam Tidswell from ReGen Ventures.

    After our initial pilot episode, we’re diving straight into one of the many complex themes we plan to explore. First up is the concept of growth, which we’ll devote three episodes and three interviews to. At the end of this trilogy, we’ll share our own reflections on the different perspectives offered by our guests. In the first part of the trilogy, we meet Sam Tidswell, a venture capitalist focusing on cutting-edge technologies, from seaweed-planting robots to biomining and building materials engineered from atoms rather than mined from the earth. Sam not only believes that a regenerative capitalism and infinite growth on a finite planet is possible, he believes it’s something we’re likely to see in the near future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

17. 

    25 Nov 2025

    S01E01 The Pilot

    This is the first episode of the podcast “What is to be done?” with Sasja Beslik, Carolina Sachs and Joel Lindefors. In this podcast, we want to explore strategy and tactics for keeping up the highest possible pace in the transition toward a flourishing society on a flourishing planet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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