I’d like to start by talking about the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Where do you think the most progress is being made, and where is more work needed to hit the 2030 target?

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What I would encourage people to do is to think of them as the world's Sustainable Development Goals, because that’s what they really are: the world's to-do list. 

In terms of where progress has been made, we've made progress in child mortality, preventing HIV infections, access to energy, mobile broadband. What I love about the SDGs is that they show such interconnection - you make progress with one and you benefit others. 

If you want to be negative, only 17 percent of the targets are currently on track. Climate action is obviously the biggest one and there is inequality, geopolitical tension, economic disparity. The lingering effect of Covid 19 has obviously hit broader progress.

Does it matter if we don't hit the goals? Of course, it matters. But I think, rather than being negative we need to focus on the point of these goals: this is the world that we all want to live in. There's not one single goal that anyone would have a problem with. Everyone wants this to happen. What would the world look like if everybody was educated; if everyone was fed; if everyone had a roof over their head? 

We know that positive stories make people change. What inspires change are stories that show you that there is hope. 

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You listened to so many of these positive stories as host of the Global Goalscast podcast. Whose story really inspired you?

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Some of my favorite stories show that really deep interconnection. We did one episode about a former child soldier called Zachary who spent five years in an armed militia in the DRC from the ages of 13 to 18. He decided to join the militia because his best friend had gone off, school had stopped and he was sitting at home doing nothing. He was really hungry. The army - the militia - had offered to feed him in exchange for joining them. 

He goes on to see his best friends die. And of course, what happens is that he's still hungry. There's still not enough food, because the whole point about the conflict was that it reduced all the local agriculture. We talk about ‘supply chains’ but it’s all jargon - what we’re really talking about is food. 

When Zachary left, he joined a joint programme between World Food Program and UNICEF, where they offered skills training and one big meal a day. 

He was given a computer and printer as part of the programme, he took the computer back to his village and wrote letters, made PowerPoint presentations, and downloaded music and movies for his village. Since returning, he's also dissuaded other young people from going and joining armed groups. When I interviewed him, he hoped to become a computer engineer.  

This just shows the connections that exist between food, war, education and inequality. 

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What do you think is the biggest barrier to creating a more sustainable future, and what can we do to counter it?

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There’s a quote from John Kennedy: ‘our problems are man made, therefore they can be solved by man.’ Let's just replace ‘man’ with ‘human’. 

Crisis is nothing new, but this moment in time is different from every moment that has come before. This is the first time in the planet's history that one species - us -  has developed the skills and power to change the world. We've changed the climate. We've filled the seas with plastic. We've farmed the land so intensively that it may be gone in the lifetime of children born today. We may have even developed computers so intelligent that they're going to replace us. 

We talk a lot about environmental, economic and social challenges, but what we don't often talk about is what it means to be part of a species this powerful. How do we live in this civilisation that we have the power to destroy?

The scale of the challenge is so great sometimes that I think we often miss the fundamental point, which is that this is all about the choices of human beings, each one of us individually and then all of us collectively. 

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What do you think has changed post-pandemic? Are businesses in particular more open to creating real, lasting change than they were before Covid?

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I think in some ways, yes. I was looking at a McKinsey report that said that post-pandemic, lots of businesses have shown an increased willingness to engage in real change. There is a focus on sustainability and resilience, and heightened social responsibility and purpose. There’s more operational flexibility. 

One thing I will say about Covid 19 is that it was a global experiment in who we prioritised. It was a test of how equitably we look after each other, regardless of race or resources. And on that scale, we failed. 

In the middle of the pandemic, I spoke to a health worker who works in one of Nairobi's biggest communities. At that moment, children in the rich world were getting their second doses of the vaccine, and this was before this public health worker or any other health worker in Africa, had received their first dose. 

So the challenge that I think we might not have solved from the pandemic is, how do we make sure that that kind of inequity never happens again?

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Last year, The Wall Street Journal described ESG as ‘the latest dirty word in corporate America.’ In the face of what some people are describing as the ‘ESG backlash?’ what is the underlying principle that sceptics might reconsider? 

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I love this question. I'm interviewing Ed Conway next week for a podcast and he's written a book called Material World, which is all about the connections between the materials that have built our world and are going to transform our future. We’re talking about sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. 

What he shows so brilliantly is the interconnection - the same as with the SDGs, there is an  interconnection between these very simple substances and our world. Looking at sand, for example - sand is being used to make concrete and we can be really rude about concrete, as it’s responsible for a lot of carbon emissions, but it's also responsible for tremendous advances in our developments. You can build hospitals with it. 

But to build these buildings, what we're seeing is a depletion in the world’s sand. In richer countries, there are lots of restrictions on where you can take the sand. But in poorer countries, there aren't, so you see rivers vanishing, beaches vanishing. And of course, that makes these countries more vulnerable to climate change.

In richer countries, the focus on sustainability is tough because it imposes restrictions and makes doing things more expensive and more difficult. That is definitely unfair, but in countries like China and poorer countries like Bangladesh, there aren't those restrictions, so at their own expense, they're depleting their resources in order to grow. 

Essentially, we don't value sand everywhere in the world the same, just as we don't value the oceans, for the damage that we're doing to them. But what would happen if we did?

That’s what ESG is trying to do; it is trying to give things a value. 

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In your work as a communication trainer, what are some of the most common mistakes you’ve come across among senior leaders? 

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Good communication is about building relationships, which is what really good leaders do: they build relationships through their communication. 

I look at communication in two halves. First is how you say it. So when you speak, do you look and sound comfortable and confident? What's detracting from your message? Are you sending signals that you're not meaning to? 

The biggest mistake I see people make on this side is not taking the time to deliver their message with the right techniques and with emphasis; with pauses. Not taking time to check In with their audience, through eye contact and through asking questions. 

Then on the other side, the second half is about what you say. Are you being memorable and interesting? Are people walking away remembering what you said, not for a few minutes, but for years?

I think less is definitely more. People can only really remember about three things. I think Steve Jobs was right - when he launched a new iPhone, he only ever had three messages. 

Ask yourself, what's the example I'm going to use to illustrate this? What's the mini story that happened in my life as a leader that I can use to illustrate this? 

What's the clever, unexpected analogy or metaphor that I could use to describe this? So instead of saying ‘this project was really difficult and tough’, it was ‘like teaching cats to type’, or it was ‘like going up the escalator backwards’. 

These elements of storytelling make a connection between you and the audience. This approach lets people in, it shows them aspects of yourself. It also helps you speak with more gravitas and presence, because only you would come up with these phrases. Only you have these stories to tell.