Mark Swinnerton, CEO of Green Gravity, shares his journey from metallurgy to mining operations and currently gravitational storage technology to support the energy transition. We get an in-depth look into how he is transforming the renewable energy storage industry and giving old mine shafts a new lease on life, an insight into the technology and logistics and how businesses are evolving in this new digital age. Tune in for some amazing advice from someone with decades of global experience in a ...
Jul 07, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 46
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
Jun 23, 2025•56 min
Lena Mutzner, Group Leader in the Urban Water Management Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology discusses the intricacies of stormwater quality monitoring. We learn a bit about how water quality is sampled, different pollutant types that she has focussed on and the ongoing challenge around contaminants of emerging concern. We also discuss the apparent paradox of repeating research cycles despite having done similar work 40 years ago, the importance of a hol...
Jun 16, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 45
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
Jun 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Jarrod Luxton, Senior Lead at the Finnish Innovation Fund (Sitra), Board Member of Finland's Sustainable Investment Forum (finsif) and Founder of First Arrow discusses what a best-practice sustainability strategy looks like in 2025! The key player? Nature! We delve into the topic of valuing nature-based solutions and compare and contrast between Australian and Nordic contexts, especially Finland's priorities and motivations for the practice. Jarrod and I also reflect upon our times in Australia ...
May 19, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 44
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
May 12, 2025•1 hr
Thomas Young, Associate and Blue-Green Infrastructure Specialist at The Environment Partnership (TEP) in the UK shows us his journey from the technical side of green roofs to the more holistic broader planning of sustainability and blue-green infrastructure. His incredible journey is supported by many seemingly unrelated topics, travels and passions that have all contributed to the impact he is creating in the UK. Find out how beer, mushrooms, cowboys and community among many others are linked t...
May 05, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 43
Mashael Yazdanie, Group Leader, Scientist and Lecturer at the Urban Energy Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Materials Science & Technology (Empa) traces her journey across the renewable energies towards more holistic thinking around energy, sustainability, society and sufficiency. We cover her projects in both the global north and south, key concepts such as planetary boundaries, sufficiency, efficiency and doughnut economics as well as the need to learn, unlearn and relearn if ...
Apr 21, 2025•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 42
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
Apr 14, 2025•59 min
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
Apr 08, 2025•56 min
Don Weatherbee, CEO of Regenx Tech Corp in Alberta, Canada shows us how you can scale up metals recycling (or regeneration as he calls it) sustainably. We discuss his journey from studying accounting to joining the mining and resources industry and how he is now leveraging opportunities to close the loop and create the circular economy around critical metals worldwide, in particular, the opportunity of aligning chemistry, process and supply chains around catalytic converts and Platinum Group Met...
Mar 31, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 41
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its out...
Mar 17, 2025•1 hr 3 min
João P. Leitão, Senior Researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag), Professor at ETH Zurich and the first guest of this podcast returns for a Part 2 to reflect on the podcast 40 episodes later, more fun topics about Portugal and major research topics that we did not cover on the first episode including urban drainage asset management, urban heat mitigation and the central role that water plays in adapting cities to climate change and an uncertain future....
Mar 10, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 40
Lucas Gobatti, PhD research at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) goes deep into how Albert Einstein, Benedictus de Spinoza and Karl Marx have shaped his worldview and connection to cities and nature. As a trained architect, civil engineer and urban planner, we discuss how he balances science and spirituality in his research on urban heat and stormwater management and how we can improve the liveability of cities in the global north and south, par...
Feb 10, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 39
Patricia Cuervo Uría, Regional Delivery Manager at Binnies in the UK, Chartered Planner and fellow member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) discusses her experience in planning for flood risk and discussing the impending challenge of mental health in relation to climate change. With over 18 years of experience in delivering local government services and implementation, we reflect on some large-scale infrastructure and small scale sustainable drainage proj...
Jan 27, 2025•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 38
Brett Ferrin, Vice President of Sales North America at Traffic Logix discusses the evolving and more complex nature of traffic safety management and gives insight into the many ways we can ensure safety on our roads for vehicle operators and other users. We discuss the implications of rapidly exploding amounts of data and the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize and upheave safety planning including driverless cars, generating new insights from data and changing human behaviour ...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 37
To finish off 2024 and reflect on the 35 episodes of The Grand Challengers Podcast so far, here is a very special episode. Guests from across the show got to ask me a question of their choosing and I have compiled them into a special episode titled "Tables Turned". In this episode, we look into 22 questions relating to the origin story and plans for the podcast, what it has taught me, my life and career choices, me answering my own questions and advice I can offer. Join me in this beautiful mome...
Dec 09, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 36
Yannick Back, Research Fellow at the Unit of Environmental Engineering, Innsbruck University shares an alternative way of looking at planning for urban heat mitigation, which is the intrinsic link between water and energy fluxes. We discuss how Yannick has harnessed the power of remote sensing (both aerial and satellite data sets) and geographic information systems to develop new ways of assessing and mitigating urban heat in cities. We also hear Yannick's take on what is needed for alpine areas...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 35
Denise Mitrano, Assistant Professor in the Environmental System Science Department at ETH Zurich sheds some light into the topic of plastics pollution, from macro and micro to nano. Trained as an analytical chemist, we hear how Denise is using her skills to better understand how we can quantify, replace and reduce the sources for better environmental and human health protection. We also reflect on the role that science needs to play in future legislation around environmental protection and some ...
Oct 28, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 34
Bill Hunt, Professor and Extension specialist at North Carolina State University, USA shares with us his journey from a love of hydrology to creating major impact in America's stormwater management. We cover his achievements in the field of stormwater green infrastructure, his current activities in ancient Roman engineering and hear his wisdom on life lessons he has learnt along the way and our vital connection to water. Life is a journey and Bill's incredible advice can help you find our own pa...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 33
Luis Angel Sañudo Fontaneda, Associate Professor at the University of Oviedo, Spain, brings us on a journey through Spain's history in adopting Sustainable Drainage Systems and how its dynamic policies have shifted towards climate adaptation and sustainability. We look into the marvel of pervious pavements and swale systems, an engineering-focussed start to the Blue-Green Infrastructure journey and reflect on the challenges of being an academic trying to change the world. Podcast Intro/Outro Son...
Sep 16, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 32
Neil Armitage, Emeritus Professor from the University of Cape Town reflects on his journey from engineering through to academia and the human side of sustainable drainage systems. We reflect on South Africa's integrated urban water management challenges and have fun picking at terminology around SuDS, WSUD, LIDs and the like. We see what Neil is up to at the moment and look back at the major lessons he has learnt. Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over ...
Aug 12, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 31
Tobias Baur, Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST), Rapperswil and former partner at Studio Ramboll-Dreiseitl, sheds some light on Singapore's Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters Program, the country's journey in water management, and how sponge cities have evolved from stormwater to climate adaptation in recent years in Asia and Europe. We discuss the important role that interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral collaboration played in ens...
Jun 03, 2024•53 min•Ep. 30
Katrin Pakizer, Research Associate from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology (Eawag) joins us to discuss how to create transformative change and to transition cities towards more sustainable natural resources management from the lenses of water infrastructure, biodiversity and all the many infrastructures and resources beneath our feet. We look at the challenges that we are likely to face in future in these areas due...
May 27, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 29
Alexa Delbosc, Associate Professor at the Monash University Institute of Transport Studies, Australia demonstrates how social psychology concepts and thinking can be applied to transport planning. We explore a variety of topics including dehumanization of cyclists, changing lifestyles of millennials, the impact of the pandemic on transport, work from home culture, the built environment considerations, egocentric anchoring in planning and new ways of thinking about the city, especially with the u...
Apr 30, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 28
Darcy Molnar, Senior Program Coordinator at the Leopold-Bachmann Foundation and the Masters in Advanced Studies (MAS) in Water Resources Program Coordinator at ETH Zurich reflects on three major initiatives she has undertaken to foster better knowledge exchange on solving global crises, bridging global north and south and providing more opportunities for women in STEM. Having grown up in West Africa herself, we learn a bit about how we can use some African culture can and "joie de vivre" to tink...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 27
Manuel Fischer, Professor at the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, group leader in Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance and head of the Environmental Social Sciences Institute at the Eawag, Switzerland shares some insights on the social dynamics between major actors in the political arena during times of stability and times of crisis and the importance of delving deeper into these dynamics for better social-ecological systems. We also discuss the harsh reality of whethe...
Mar 18, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 26
Shubber Ali, CEO of Garden for Wildlife, a spin-out from the National Wildlife Federation in the US, reflects on the journey from helping companies improve their innovation to how people can contribute to improving biodiversity in their own gardens through the use of native plants. We also discuss the twin crises of climate change and artificial intelligence (in particular, Generative AI) and look at both the positives and negatives around major societal changes we are likely to experience in fu...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 25
Jon Hathaway, Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee Knoxville sheds light on the origins and practice of green infrastructure for stormwater management in the US, the impact climate change will have, needs for better asset management and maintenance and how we can operate these systems in a smarter way. We also compare notes and terminology in this field across the globe and discuss the challenges of academics working at the interfa...
Feb 19, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 24
Markus Vogl, Professor at the University of Stuttgart, senior partner at Studio Urban Strategies and former "Walter Gropius Chair" at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina reflects on the power of social collaboration for urban transformation by retelling the story of perhaps the most impactful project in his career to date, the Biblioteca Popular La Carcova and Parque Educativo. We also discuss what the role of architecture and urbanism sh...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 23
