Shaken Not Burned

Shaken Not Burned is the podcast that helps you make sense of sustainability. We unpack the big debates shaping climate, business, food, and society: debunking myths, clarifying trade-offs, and sharing ideas you can actually use to think, decide, and act in a changing world.

Shaken Not Burned is a education podcast hosted by Felicia Jackson and Giulia Bottaro, with 128 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Felicia Jackson and Giulia Bottaro hosts Shaken Not Burned, a education show with 128 episodes published.

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  Episode #21

  The price of uncertainty: who pays when risk becomes reality?

  Oct 1, 202630 minS6

  Insurance is supposed to protect us from risk. But what happens when the risks themselves are changing? Risk doesn't disappear because we fail to recognise or price it . Decisions that make sense individually — pumping more groundwater during a drought, building another housing development, keeping water prices low — can accumulate until environmental change becomes economic loss. Insurance is one of the places where that loss becomes visible . Insurers pay some of the bill; the rest falls on households, businesses and governments. As risks increase, premiums can rise, terms can tighten and some things can become difficult to insure at all. But the outcome isn't fixed : insurers look not only at the physical event, but at what's exposed to it and how vulnerable it is. We may not be able to stop a flood or an earthquake, but building standards, flood protection, healthier ecosystems and other forms of resilience can change how much damage they cause. That matters because insurance can be more than a way of paying for damage afterwards. It can signal where risk is building, encourage measures that reduce vulnerability and, through insurers' role as investors, help finance some of the resilience that makes future economic activity possible. In the final episode of our insurance arc, Felicia and Giulia bring together conversations we had in the previous three episodes with Robert Johnston of Clark University, Regula Hess of WWF, and Rachel Delhaise of Convex to explore what insurance can tell us about the changing relationship between environmental and economic risk. From water and the insurance protection gap to rising premiums, resilience and the limits of insurability, they ask a deceptively simple question: do we invest in reducing risk now, or pay for the damage later? If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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  Episode #19

  When insurance isn’t enough: WWF and the insurance protection gap

  Sep 17, 202644 minS6

  When disaster strikes, insurance may pay some of the bill. But who pays the rest? This week on Shaken Not Burned , Felicia Jackson talks to Regula Hess , deputy head of WWF Switzerland , about the growing insurance protection gap — and why it matters far beyond the insurance industry. When losses aren't insured, they don't disappear. They fall on households, businesses and governments, affecting everything from mortgages and investment to public finances and the speed at which communities recover. But WWF argues that simply expanding insurance isn't enough. Insurance can spread the cost of disasters; it can't stop the underlying risk from growing. That means reducing risk too — including protecting the forests, wetlands and other natural systems that can reduce damage before it happens. Regula describes insurance as an early warning system : when risks become unaffordable or increasingly difficult to insure, perhaps we should pay attention to what that is telling us. There is, of course, an obvious question. If preventing damage makes so much sense, why aren't we doing more of it? Part of the answer is that prevention is difficult to see. Yet research cited by Regula found that every dollar invested in climate resilience and preparedness can save communities up to $13 in damages, clean-up and wider economic costs. Which is why her description of insurance as an early warning system stayed with us. When insurance becomes unaffordable, or risks become too large or unpredictable to insure, it is telling us something. Not simply that there's a problem with insurance, but that the underlying risk is getting out of hand. Perhaps the real protection gap isn't just between what we lose and what insurance pays — it's between the risks we're creating and what we're doing to prevent them. This episode is the second in our latest Shaken Not Burned arc on the changing economics of risk . Last week, our conversation with Dr Robert Johnston explored how water risk can build through decisions that might make sense individually, but can add up to something much more damaging. And why failing to recognise the full cost of those decisions doesn't make the cost disappear. As part of the series, we will also speak to Rachel Delhaise from Convex about the insurance market itself and what happens when a changing climate makes the past a less reliable guide to the future. Finally, co-hosts Felicia and Giulia will put the conversations together and ask what they tell us about where risk comes from, where the costs eventually end up, and what choices we still have before they do. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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  Episode #18

  Water, risk and the economy: when sensible decisions add up to disaster

  Sep 10, 202641 minS6

  We rely on water for pretty much everything: growing food, manufacturing goods, building cities and sustaining everyday life. But what happens when the systems we've built around it start to reach their limits? Felicia Jackson talks to economist Dr Robert Johnston about why he sees today's water challenge as a systems failure — and how individually sensible decisions can combine into what he calls a catastrophic harmony. We explore why the price of water often fails to reflect its real value, how natural and economic systems are connected, and whether better ways of measuring how nature benefits us can lead to better decisions. Where risk is insurable, we can transfer some of the financial cost to insurers. But insurance doesn't create the risks it prices and alone it doesn’t mitigate them. By the time premiums rise, cover becomes unaffordable or insurers pull back, years of decisions may already have increased exposure, depleted water resources or weakened the natural systems that once provided some protection. That's what this conversation with Robert helps us see: how risk is built long before it becomes visible on a financial balance sheet. This episode is the starting point for our latest Shaken Not Burned arc on the changing economics of risk . As part of the series, Regula Hess from WWF joins us to explore the insurance protection gap and who pays when insurance covers only part of a loss. Then Rachel Delhaise from Convex takes us inside the insurance market itself to ask what happens when a changing climate makes the past a less reliable guide to the future. Finally, co-hosts Felicia and Giulia will put the conversations together and ask what they tell us about where risk comes from, where the costs eventually end up, and what choices we still have before they do. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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  Episode #17

  Managing disruption: climate risk, trust and the future of resilience

  Jul 30, 20261h 25mS6

  As extreme heat and wildfires sweep across Europe, the gap between recognising climate risk and responding to it is becoming harder to ignore. The good news is that the evidence, expertise and many of the solutions we need already exist. Why, then, is meaningful action still so difficult? That was the question at the centre of this special live edition of Shaken Not Burned, recorded at SOAS during London Climate Action Week. Felicia was joined by Julia Davies ( We Have The Power and Patriotic Millionaires UK ), Gosbert Chagula MBE ( Future Impact Ventures ), and Dr Harald Heubaum ( Centre for Sustainable Finance, SOAS ). Their different perspectives point towards a common problem: coordination. Knowledge, authority, finance, incentives and public action remain fragmented — and they operate within systems shaped by unequal power and competing interests. The conversation explores why governments struggle to use the expertise they already possess; why investment continues to favour short-term returns; how wealth shapes politics and public narratives; and what community ownership, trust and individual agency can make possible. It also exposes a problem hidden inside the growing focus on resilience: people use the same word to describe very different futures. What we choose to protect, what we are prepared to change and who gets to decide will shape how societies respond to the disruption already underway. The solutions may exist. The harder task is aligning the power, money, institutions and public support needed to put them into practice. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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  Episode #16

  Infrastructure: built for yesterday, needed for tomorrow

  Jul 23, 202652 minS6

  Describing infrastructure as boring was a compliment. A building used to have a relatively straightforward job: keep the weather out and the people inside reasonably comfortable. Roads moved traffic, power systems supplied electricity and factories made things. Once infrastructure had been built, the task was largely to maintain it until it needed replacing. Sure, politicians like to throw themselves behind a flashy, expensive project that raises the profile of their country (example: the HS2 railway in the UK), but what ordinary people need is reliable systems that are ticking along in the background, making everyday life efficient and manageable for the entire population. Still, the reality is that today we need more from our buildings and infrastructure. Buildings are now expected to cut emissions, manage energy demand, protect people from heat and pollution, support health and even help balance the electricity grid. Transport, water and energy networks must withstand conditions they weren’t designed for. Industrial systems are expected to become cleaner, more efficient and more resilient– often all at the same time. Considering that half the buildings that will be standing by 2050 already exist, retrofitting them is the only way to get us to net zero. Meanwhile, cities must manage the relationships among all these systems while remaining liveable, competitive and capable of adapting to a changing climate. In the final episode of our latest arc, hosts Felicia and Giulia explore one of the great challenges of our time: adapting decades-old infrastructure to the requirements of the contemporary era. More often than not, this requires investment in invisible tools, such as sensors and insulation, that most people won’t notice, but will benefit massively from. Rodrigo Fernandes of Bentley Systems introduced us to digital twins and the possibility of understanding cities as interconnected systems. Katie McGinty of Johnson Controls described buildings evolving from inert brick and mortar into active participants in energy, resilience and business performance. Sophie Graham of IFS explored how AI and operational intelligence are changing the way industrial assets are managed. And, it turns out, sensors, insulation, and waste heat recovery aren’t boring after all. We explore what happens when infrastructure stops being passive and starts operating as part of a dynamic system . Can intelligence help ageing assets become more adaptable and resilient? Should we invest less in building new things and more in making existing systems work better? And as buildings and industrial systems begin to sense, learn and optimise, who decides what they should optimise for? The real transformation may not be in the concrete and steel, but in what we enable them to do. This episode explores: The shift from static assets to dynamic, adaptable systems The role of operational intelligence and digital twins in infrastructure The importance of retrofitting and upgrading existing buildings Circularity and reuse of materials in construction The economic and environmental benefits of smarter infrastructure The systemic interconnectedness of urban systems The impact of climate change on infrastructure design The role of AI and data in optimising asset performance If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn , TikTok and Instagram – and why not spread the word with your friends and colleagues?

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