🎙️ We use a lot of buzzwords in the climate space—but what do they actually mean?
In this special "Explain to a Friend" episode of Tangelic Talks, hosts Victoria and TJ sit down to translate the heavy jargon of Season 5. Because you can't implement climate solutions if nobody understands the vocabulary.
In This Episode, We Explore:
🌍 Why "sustainability" includes economic development and social equity, not just the environment.
⚡ Renewable vs. Clean Energy: Why solar panels are renewable, but extracting the minerals to make them sparks debate over whether they are truly "clean".
🔋 What a mini-grid is and why it's crucial for countries where the national grid isn't sufficient.
⛏️ The role of critical minerals like lithium and cobalt in EVs and power stations.
🏢 Why the corporate world retired "CSR" for "ESG," and why "Responsible Business" is next.
💰 The difference between institutional investors, retail investors, and foundations.
🏛️ Why government energy subsidies are massive, essential, and highly controversial.
🔹 About This Segment: "Explain to a Friend" strips away the experts and the technical fluff. Just two hosts breaking down complex concepts so everyone can join the conversation.
💬 Join the Conversation: Which climate term is the most confusing to you? Drop your thoughts below 👇
🌱 Support the Mission: Find our full glossary of terms at TangelicLife.org/TangelicTalks.
🔖 #TangelicTalks #ClimateEducation #Sustainability #RenewableEnergy #ESG #ClimateFinance #CleanEnergy #MiniGrids
Tags: climate jargon, explain to a friend, renewable vs clean energy, critical minerals, ESG explained, mini grids, climate finance, institutional investors, Tangelic Talks
In this special "Explain to a Friend" episode of Tangelic Talks, hosts Victoria and TJ sit down to translate the heavy jargon of Season 5. Because you can't implement climate solutions if nobody understands the vocabulary.
In This Episode, We Explore:
🌍 Why "sustainability" includes economic development and social equity, not just the environment.
⚡ Renewable vs. Clean Energy: Why solar panels are renewable, but extracting the minerals to make them sparks debate over whether they are truly "clean".
🔋 What a mini-grid is and why it's crucial for countries where the national grid isn't sufficient.
⛏️ The role of critical minerals like lithium and cobalt in EVs and power stations.
🏢 Why the corporate world retired "CSR" for "ESG," and why "Responsible Business" is next.
💰 The difference between institutional investors, retail investors, and foundations.
🏛️ Why government energy subsidies are massive, essential, and highly controversial.
🔹 About This Segment: "Explain to a Friend" strips away the experts and the technical fluff. Just two hosts breaking down complex concepts so everyone can join the conversation.
💬 Join the Conversation: Which climate term is the most confusing to you? Drop your thoughts below 👇
🌱 Support the Mission: Find our full glossary of terms at TangelicLife.org/TangelicTalks.
🔖 #TangelicTalks #ClimateEducation #Sustainability #RenewableEnergy #ESG #ClimateFinance #CleanEnergy #MiniGrids
Tags: climate jargon, explain to a friend, renewable vs clean energy, critical minerals, ESG explained, mini grids, climate finance, institutional investors, Tangelic Talks
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00so for season five we are going to dive deep into these terms that we've been using
00:04as you know our season is focused on implementing and innovation so there's a lot in finance
00:10infrastructure investment policy community impact the economy's sustainability as
00:15you're able to do this for an infinite or a very long time
00:21certainly creating a warm and engaging microwave for your podcast can set a great tell me as a
00:26suggestion that combines an upbeat and abiding spirit without any micro music welcome to tangelic
00:33talks your go-to podcast from tangelic where we dive into the vibrant world of clean energy
00:38development sustainability and climate change in africa we bring you inspiring stories
00:43insightful discussions and groundbreaking innovations from the continent making waves in the global
00:49community tune in and join the conversation toward a brighter greener future let's get started
00:58so welcome to explain to a friend this is one of my favorite episodes to do because as we go
01:03through the season we notice that there's a lot of terms and jargon and things that we say in the
01:09sustainability space that we just take for granted when you're in this space so for season five we are
01:14going to dive deep into these terms that we've been using that help us explain how clean energy ideas
01:20move from ambition to real world delivery as you know our season is focused on implementing and
01:25innovation so there's a lot in finance infrastructure investment policy community impact a lot of
01:31words we've been using just was what's that saying tj the one that's like willy-nilly
01:36like that well so i kind of know but i'm not a great amount of vocabulary kind of just a
01:43jargon that
01:44you just use i guess it interchangeably or i'm not sure i know the word it's on the tip of
01:49my dog
01:49but i can't so sorry yeah okay i'm glad this isn't one of the terms we're yeah yeah me too
01:56me too
01:56we need a fesaurus i guess what ai we don't
02:01but i think it's good to start with the word we hear everywhere and i've used it already sustainability
02:08what does that actually mean for you tj what does that actually mean yeah so um with sustainability
02:13even not even thinking about it in terms of climate and just environment i kind of see sustainability as
02:20you're able to do this for an infinite or a very long time so if we were just to use
02:28it in terms of
02:28definition when talking about just everyday things we use i could say that i can sustainably walk to my
02:37workplace every day it doesn't really affect me it doesn't really affect future generations
02:41walking to work is sustainable it's fine whereas if i don't know i wanted to use maybe a airplane
02:49that's using a crazy amount of fuel and impacting the environment impacting others it's not really
02:54sustainable so that's obviously an extreme case but when we talk about it in terms of the environment
03:00it's if we were to look at renewable energy a lot of people consider renewable energy sustainable
03:07because when we are producing energy from a renewable energy source we are not destroying as many
03:16sites we're not destroying as many resources once the renewable energy is made and it's controversial
03:20that statement but we can get into that so i kind of sustainability as you're able to
03:26basically allowing yourself to feed yourself or meet your own demands without impacting
03:34other people in terms of externality and impacting future generations that's that's kind of my main aim
03:41for it yeah yeah definitely and i think in the context of season five it means sort of connecting
03:48environmental protection like you said with affordability social equity economic development
03:54and something we're talking about a lot and just long-term resilience because sustainability kind
03:59of implies that you're able to do it for a long term like you said yeah and you've mentioned there
04:03another one of those jargons that we say a lot of renewable energy are renewable and clean energy the
04:08same thing would you say not necessarily um so it depends who you really asked but with um renewable energy
04:16energy there are a lot of renewable energies where for instance solar um people consider that yes it can
04:24be clean but when going into the minutia of how you build solar panels how you build grids that are
04:31allowing
04:32solar panels a lot of the time critical minerals um minerals that are maybe unsustainable for the environment
04:39are used to create them so the conversation can be is it clean it can be renewable because we're using
04:46energy such as solar energy such as wind energy such as various others but overall that net zero
04:54or that net gain or net loss is it a net gain is it a net loss um so that
04:59that is the question too
05:00another thing i would say is um there's so many different types of renewable energy and some decide whether
05:07it's classed as clean or not for instance biomass um i worked at a company before drax where many
05:13companies and many organizations count biomass as renewable energy and wood pellets in particular
05:20that are used to convert wood into electricity some people class it as renewable energy others don't
05:26it depends some of the protesters do some of the protests so it's it really depends um clean energy
05:32it's more about basically having energy that is produced and that is created from resources that
05:39are completely clean obviously and it's not using any products that are considered bad for the
05:44environment renewable energy is talking about more energy that you can continuously create from a
05:50energy source without it being deleted okay that makes sense so then i guess when we're talking in
05:58those separations you mentioned solar and i'm guessing solar panels in that and the critical mineral side of
06:04it all would you consider solar clean or renewable i i'd consider it renewable and i guess it depends on
06:12how you create your solar panels um so okay for instance um there are some minerals that are that can
06:22be used to
06:23create solar panels so one of our one of the hosts were talking about um clean stove energy and the
06:30fact
06:30that they were using mini grids and energy um from solar to create this now it really depends what's going
06:36into the solar panels um for for instance i i think when we're talking about ifeoma um who was a
06:45person that
06:45does quite a lot of work in terms of getting clean self energy into nigeria um we talked about some
06:51of the
06:52products like polysilicon ingots wavers solar cells and a lot of those products most of the time can be
07:00said can be considered clean but when we're talking about you tell me if we were to go to a
07:06critical
07:07mineral site a lot of them are prominent in africa and prominent in asia and you're drilling down in
07:12the resource to collect some of these materials um it's producing a lot of carbon dioxide and these
07:17materials are then put into the solar panels that we're using to create clean energy do it's a
07:24question that doesn't it's maybe an open answer question it's not close cut do we consider that
07:29clean energy i can't really answer that but it really depends on how you see it yeah some say if
07:34you are literally getting resources out of the ground and you're taking resources that aren't there forever
07:41then it can't be considered clean but others are saying look overall and we're going to be creating
07:47more energy that's clean from it than the energy that we use to actually create the solar panels
07:52so it really depends it depends on what you're thinking yeah i know that makes sense and i guess
07:59that's one of the big tensions that we have in the sustainability space where for example the mining of
08:04critical minerals so we can do solar panels and we can do the batteries and the minigrids and everything
08:10is kind of a contradiction with the things that sustainability stands for and it sounds really
08:17easy solar panels sound like a very easy idea of like technology that converts sunlight into electricity
08:22i think that's like the basis of it right but there's so much that goes into it like you said
08:28you
08:28mentioned mini grids what are what's that what part of the solar panel is that yeah yeah so um with
08:34mini grids um a lot of um emerging nations and developing nations use mini grids in particular
08:42some of where i look into africa in nigeria um if we just look at the national grid which powers
08:49a lot of the households and companies and that are across a country so for example you could have a
08:58household when you switch in the light you need to be on the grid in the uk or in london
09:03to have
09:03electricity coming through that electricity comes from the grid it's powered on a certain current
09:08so there's a certain power level that the grid needs to be on um all of the power stations are
09:14or many
09:14of them are going in through the grid you get your electricity through there there are some countries
09:20in which their national grid is not sufficient enough therefore they rather than relying on the national
09:26grid um maybe smaller smaller towns smaller civilizations they focus on actually obtaining
09:35their own supply of electricity known as a mini grid so these can be really small powering maybe one or
09:40two households these can power a few different households maybe a village and then it becomes a
09:45bit bigger um and in order to actually power the mini grid so you can technically use gas
09:53um you could use the oil you could use solar you could technically use wind it really depends on
09:58the on the mini grid that you're trying to use um and that's why a lot of smaller it's usually
10:04in
10:04smaller groups of villages and that are using it rather than in big cities um across some of those developing
10:11countries fair so kind of like what's angelic is doing in rural exactly yeah bringing that exactly that's
10:20the plug that's the plug there so uh no feel free to i'll let you talk about that but you
10:25can read
10:26more about on tangelic life we're also going to be putting all these definitions and things that we're
10:32talking about on the blog at angelic life.org slash tangelic talks so if there's anything that we've
10:38missed or that you haven't picked up we'll have some definitions and examples there but again i just i
10:44want to make sure we're on the same page because when we talk about clean energy and renewables like tj
10:49said there's debate on what we think and throughout the season you might notice that we use those
10:56words interchangeably because our guests have a definition of their own and that's one of the
11:02things with definitions they don't tend to be universal especially in a space that isn't necessarily
11:07fully regulated unanimously for sure like you're right there's so many especially we're dealing with
11:14guests that are around the world right we've talked with a couple people in america in the uk um in
11:20in manjuria too so depending on the guests and depending on the country they all have different
11:26cultures different definitions of different ways of seeing stuff some agree with the terms some don't
11:31so that's why same with languages some of the words are very different in terms of meaning uh so that's
11:38really important what you're saying definitely and i guess we've said critical minerals a couple of
11:45times can you give us some examples of what those are yeah yes i know lithium but outside yeah so
11:50um
11:51no there's so many different types of critical minerals um so there can be metallic metallic um
11:57copper can be considered some um gold as well um but there can be non-metallic elements that are also
12:03used to create important um technologies goods and even used in certain services as well um so look
12:12of course we've talked about how these minerals can be used in uh solar but we know about e-v's
12:17electric cars in terms of how they're being used a lot of them are being used in in trains and
12:22transports
12:23too um it's being used in power stations they are all very important um so yeah there can be
12:30lithium copper even the more common metals that we hear about silver platinum is a massive one too
12:38and it's all about minerals that are kind of taken from the earth and they are used to
12:45basically produce goods or they're used in supply chains for for products
12:51right okay yeah yeah because i remember having a conversation with someone that was telling me that
12:56everyone hails wind as the cleanest of energies and stuff but no one talks about all the critical
13:02minerals that go into actually making the turbines it's like oh yeah dang yeah we were so close yeah
13:09yeah no i always remember one of the shows i watched um was top gear like a decade ago before
13:15everything
13:15happened and look they were massive car heads right so they were always on the sides of producing cars but
13:21and they would get annoyed when electric vehicles were just coming on and that everyone was saying
13:27oh they're so sustainable and then there were a lot of studies saying that in terms of producing
13:31these electric vehicles and the amount that they're contributing towards carbon emissions is quite high
13:37and no one's taken notice of them that's not to say i always say that's not to say that we
13:41shouldn't
13:42produce them because i always say that technology improves and proficiency improves and we hope that
13:47those emissions reduce and if they do reduce then it's it's good for everyone right um but we should
13:53take those yeah it's kind of a trade-off we have to balance out yeah and yeah so with electric
14:02vehicles
14:03a lot of people say that there was trends regarding so i'm gonna start again five four three two one
14:12with electric vehicles of course the nice thing about them is they don't produce as much
14:17carbon dioxide and they don't rely on uh fuel such as petrol and diesel but there was much time people
14:23saying in terms of producing these electric vehicles extracting a lot of critical minerals that of
14:28course is um at times unsustainable and can be bad for the environment people wanted to note some of
14:35the carbon dioxide that has been produced from producing these vehicles similar with what you said the
14:40wind turbines and some of the solar but that doesn't mean that we should continue and just well
14:46eliminate these vehicles or eliminate producing these products because i still think of technology
14:51efficiencies we've seen with ai there can be ways here reduce the the impact in terms of how it harms
14:58the environment in producing these vehicles especially when the benefit of clean energy being produced for
15:03them is apparent so that's why i always say i really do get the the the protests that a lot
15:09of
15:10protagonists are what our targets are against these products but i still think it's really important
15:16producer yeah and i i guess it's a trade-off that we talk about a lot in this space of
15:21this is what
15:22we're doing now but it's going to lead to a reduction in co2 and for example congested cities where you
15:29just
15:29have millions of cars piled up at rush hour exhausting all this all these chemicals and stuff
15:35stuff maybe we won't have that anymore if everyone's on evs right and then we don't have to mine anymore
15:43for those things so it's a hard one i mean when we mine for critical minerals one of the things
15:49and
15:50this is getting into um environmental and social governance territory one of the things that a lot
15:57of companies that are for example b core certified um is that social side so making sure that the supply
16:04chain is clean with human rights legislations and everyone's being taken care of and that sort of
16:10thing but why is esg so important in the sustainability space if our goal is just to you know combat
16:19co2 i
16:20guess yeah yeah that's a good question um and it's we talk about with some of our guests that the
16:27term esg
16:29it's it's kind of sort of negative connotation now because a lot of people consider it a fad there's
16:35so many companies that use it where you wouldn't really consider them being the most esg friendly
16:40um i think maybe all sites were not so if someone is using it for maybe a reasonable manner i
16:47would say
16:48look esg is the environmental social and governance i think the ease probably the easiest to understand
16:54improving the environment and making sure that your um your products for your services are not harming
17:00the environment in the same way so in terms of sustainability it's clear to see if you are focusing
17:05on the environment then you are being sustainable by not allowing the environment to be damaged and
17:10you're able to do this for eons and potentially do so um on on the social side that considers more
17:18the
17:19the people that are around you whether the people that you're working for or the people that it harms
17:24or the people that it benefits to um so for me it's it's really important if you've got a product
17:30um that has a service and that service is really great for your businesses that you have as clients but
17:37if it's not good for the businesses that are maybe competitors or it's not good for the businesses
17:43that are not really directly affected by it but indirectly impacted then it some may argue it's
17:50not sustainable because it can reduce the community in the ecosystem and we use that to
17:55the ecosystem quite a bit um on the governance side which is probably the the term that we don't focus
18:02on
18:03as much i always see it as the way that a company is run right so it talks about some
18:11of the definitions
18:11that's all about the internal systems that are in play um leadership um managing risk as well and
18:17just being held accountable yeah so when focusing on that it kind of looks into the inner regions of
18:24the company and i always just say if you're looking at sustainability is are these practices sustainable
18:30that the company is doing to to keep on moving is the boards being fair is the board being equitable
18:36and is the ethics of the company right um if the ethics isn't right then in terms of that
18:42sustainability fashion many will argue that it's not sustainable to continue working in a certain way
18:50that makes sense yeah and in this season we've sort of discussed it in relation to like corporate
18:55sustainability a lot of it but also transparency and greenwashing we had a great episode on avoiding
19:01greenwashing and your communications and also how we measure impact and how organizations themselves
19:07measure impact so they can report what they're doing on the esg front and a lot of the conversation
19:14is that esg is the new csr and we've kind of retired csr now and kind of focused on that
19:19and i think the
19:20emerging can i force you to talk about business i was i was gonna say csr a lot of people
19:26might not know that
19:27term so yeah do you maybe want to go into it as the as the expert well csr is corporate
19:33social
19:34responsibility which is the social side basically of the new term environmental social governance so
19:41the responsible responsibilities that a business or organization has to the community around it now that
19:50climate is a bigger conversation now we've created esg to encapsulate directly the environmental and
19:58the social not just the social which is why we moved away from csr in this way i think the
20:04new
20:04one is going to be responsible business that's the one i'm hearing a lot being talked about which is
20:10kind of stripping all the dimensions and assuming that they're all embedded in the governance already
20:17so we don't have to make a distinction anymore on environment and social
20:23which is kind of gonna make it harder to measure impact probably yeah it is it's always like and
20:31i've said it before like when i talked about languages and how you measure certain terms depending
20:36on the countries it's always going to be hard because everyone's got a different way of measuring impact
20:39right yeah um how how i look about impact in terms of the societies probably how you how you
20:46differently you look at impact as well we've all got different ways um and look there's the whole
20:52podcast is about just listening to people's different views and and that's very focusing on
20:56so on different sectors too exactly and one of the things we've touched on this season is that esg
21:02ratings and frameworks can sort of help you access funds for a lot of these ideas we've been talking
21:07about but when we say funds i know it's money but like is it a different kind of money like
21:13what
21:13what do we mean by funds yeah right so there's different types of funds but the main definition
21:20is you're pooling money together um so if you if you're an investor you pull money with other
21:27investors together you combine that money and someone an individual a company will invest that money into
21:35stuff right stuff i mean asset classes so a lot of the time in these conversations that we're having
21:43we're talking about private funds and not some of those more public funds okay private i mean they're
21:49investing into companies um that are not listed onto stock exchanges or they're not listed onto anything
21:57that's public or or bonds they're investing into communities um the two people that we spoke to
22:05invested into uh property that focus on communities you can invest into real estate in general you can
22:11invest into businesses you can invest into companies funds as well though you can invest in the public
22:17side so there's literally lots of companies jp morgan goldman sachs even smaller companies that will
22:24get lots of money lots of individuals monies and investors money together and they'll invest into
22:30stocks they'll invest into bonds as well and the aim of course is to usually get a return but the
22:37nice
22:37thing about some of the conversations that we've seen in terms of the sustainability side is they also
22:42want to make an impact some of the interviews that we that we've spoken to today um so yeah that's
22:49uh
22:49that's the main thing so funds i always just say it's it's hard a lot of the time to invest
22:54yourself
22:54especially these big investors so with the real estate uh funds that we spoke to initially
23:02um the reason why certain investors would want to invest is because they don't have the information
23:07or they don't have enough information to invest themselves or they don't have the time to do so or
23:12there can be regulations or licenses that means they're not able to actually invest themselves they
23:16have to use an expert in the field to invest that makes sense that's why we used is that what
23:22we also
23:22call institutional investors then just larger companies yeah yeah yeah so institutional investors
23:30just so the i always say the bad definition because sometimes bad definitions are good to explaining
23:36it means guys and girls that have a lot of money to invest into stuff that is the simple definition
23:44yeah more complex definition it's more about people and companies and institutions that are large
23:51investors and they can collate and they can invest a lot of money into a certain business or a certain
23:59fund or company with retail investors they're usually small they usually have maybe let's just say a
24:06hundred thousand dollars or less they can they can have ten dollars they can have a hundred dollars
24:10but institution investors usually um there's different there's different definitions whether you're in the
24:16uk the us or africa or whatever but they usually think of investors that are investing six figures seven
24:22figures even eight figures or more into a company so big banks will do so foundations um larger
24:30companies institutions and that's where it comes from the institutional investors they will invest a lot of money
24:36into these companies whereas more retail investors so maybe you and i investing into stocks um investing
24:43into bonds maybe putting a small investment into a private company we're considered more of the retail
24:49side okay that makes sense and then am i right in saying because from the way you talk about investors
24:55they're putting in money looking to see a return at some point i'm guessing on that investment whereas
25:01foundations i think it's more strings no strings attached type thing like they give you a research
25:07support early start funding but they're not looking for a return necessarily monetary return in that way
25:13right is that the difference yeah i say it depends it's case by case on the foundation i can't speak
25:18for
25:19the hundreds and hundreds of foundations out there right um but the interesting thing about foundations
25:24and for those who don't know their their organizations charitable trusts um and a lot of the time they
25:32of course they have an arm that wants to invest into products but like you said they don't just think
25:40about the profits um they can think about the impact in which this opportunity is um giving to
25:48the communities that is giving around a lot but sometimes foundations they'll have various different
25:55investments some investments they only will think of it as a profit motive it might not be the biggest
26:01pie of the of the pie but it could still be a big slice of it others can be yes
26:07we want to invest in
26:08this product because of course we see there's a bit of a profit motive but also the impact that it
26:14can make
26:14to the society and the community in general so it just really depends yeah and every foundation will
26:20have different strategies right there's this thing that i actually call the corn satellite approach
26:25where the corn satellite can focus on different geographies it can focus on the impacts and rather
26:31it's profit and the profit motive side too it can focus on so many different aspects but it
26:38really just depends on the foundations but they usually on in terms of just a general trend
26:43they focus a bit more on making an impact to society that makes sense okay yeah yeah yeah
26:49because i've always heard of foundations as more like philanthropy rather than yeah money investments
26:55like yeah return investment yeah i think well because what what i'd say as well though is in terms of
27:01the flat free work so there can be a foundation that like the bill gates foundation that does a lot
27:07of work
27:07in terms of helping their community right but that's separate from the investment branch yes so the bill
27:15gates foundation can you know help um certain villages they can help certain societies in general and they
27:22give money and they're not expecting anything back from there yeah but in terms of the investment arm
27:28that investment arm might just say look in order to fund all these projects that we're doing
27:33we need to make money basically yeah i'm not saying the bill gates does that in particular but that's a
27:39way that they can do so and then that foundation can say look we just need to find investment
27:44opportunities that make us money in order for us to do stuff that is great for charity that's great
27:48in terms of charity work others might just say look investment arm we want to make money but we also
27:53want to focus on improving society as a whole yeah um so that's why they're they're slightly different it
27:59really depends on on the focus on the foundation yeah yeah because there's a there's a lot of big
28:05corporations that have their own foundation as well so i can imagine it's one of those where it's like
28:10if you're making revenue over here you can kind of funnel it over to do your own philanthropy side of
28:15thing yeah but either way sorry no no no i was going to say that um also remember that a
28:24lot of these
28:24foundations receive massive donations yes from technically investors uh too um and governments
28:31as well there's massive grant programs in which foundations communities organizations charities they
28:37they all receive these massive donations and lump sums um so they can do that but also yeah of course
28:44they
28:44can invest into products too yeah yeah exactly and either way it just means in the term in the terms
28:51of this
28:52season what we've been listening to a lot is wherever whatever idea you have you need to fund it right
28:59you need the money to make it happen and these opportunities allow for long-term work you know
29:05sustainable work let's say but to actually get that idea off the ground um past the pilots and into
29:11communities and actually making an impact but these are all private you said there's the government ones
29:19third sector ones is that what subsidies are a subsidy so well when it comes to it depends how you
29:27how
29:28you frame it if we're just looking at public investment that's just investing into stocks or bonds pretty
29:34much um stocks so like the big one apple microsoft stocks um also it says hundreds and hundreds of
29:42stocks around the world on stock exchanges bonds are usually government bonds you can also get well you can
29:49also get a load of corporate bonds as well that's when basically a company or yourself decides to give
29:55a loan to a company and then you get back the loan and more in terms of coupons okay coupons
30:03or small payments
30:04that you get depending on the agreement it can be monthly it can be daily it can be yearly all
30:09sorts
30:09okay um so that's in terms of the public investments that you can make and then funds can have public
30:16funds um and then what you said in terms of subsidies subsidies are kind of think of big grants that
30:23come
30:24from governments big payments that come from the government so subsidies can be used for many different
30:30companies and many different organizations um so governments can give subsidies to various energy
30:36companies we've seen government subsidies to power stations across the world um whether it's in the
30:41uk in the us we've seen subsidies being given to organizations to help them fund them to produce
30:47important um aspects and important programs um and usually with the subsidies unlike a loan you don't
30:56need to pay off it's just a lump sum it's a it's a investment it's a trust um it's a
31:01payment in which
31:02you're supposed to do good work with it and so there's usually a lot of terms and papers that you
31:08have to sign to make sure that you're not just going to run away with them yeah but that's why
31:13subsidies
31:14are are quite important for the various companies but of course there's a lot of controversy in terms of
31:20when governments give subsidies out and some people say maybe it could be used for other resources and
31:26and the money could be used for other things in general yeah and every time there's public funding
31:32and tax money involved there is a big debate on it could be spent somewhere else yeah you know i
31:38wish
31:39we could choose where our money goes to that'd be really cool but yeah yeah all these things we've
31:45talked about are all part of the ecosystem of sustainability specifically for season five and
31:51implementing and innovating within the sustainability space so to close us out tj what is ecosystem you're
31:59going to hear this word over and over what do we mean by ecosystem okay well i think maybe a
32:05good way
32:05of looking at an ecosystem is going into the biology term and i was very bad at biology at school
32:11but
32:12work with me here so once you talk about ecosystem i don't know yeah but once someone talks about
32:19ecosystem it's about uh it's about living organisms that are kind of interacting with other um other
32:28organisms in an environment right yeah if you take that in terms of the business term it is businesses
32:35it is people it's individuals it's organizations that are all interacting with each other and a lot of
32:41the time when you talk to an investor especially investors that care about making an impact
32:47look look you could just invest in something like i don't know you could invest you could have funds
32:53that invest in stocks that are halfway around the world that's got nothing to do with the community
32:59that then that the fund and investors in and they can make money from it but they could say what's
33:04in
33:05it for us what's in it for the community that we're currently in and if the actual fund says nothing
33:12then a lot of the time the investor especially if they care about making an impact is going to move
33:16away from this whereas if for instance this fund or this opportunity says look we want to create a
33:24power station that is clean energy and from this we see in terms of carbon dioxide emissions reducing
33:32which improves the health of people around the atmosphere um around the environment in the community
33:37sorry and also it allows for jobs to be created and it allows for interest infrastructure to be
33:44created too and it creates a ecosystem where more organizations are built that are sustainable
33:49sustainability improves overall the environment improves salary improves jobs are increasing you can
33:56class that as an ecosystem because something's been built that is more than just one organization and
34:02more than just one entity is benefiting multiple entities are benefiting from that but it's funny
34:08i've never actually had to define ecosystem but that's just like my that's how i see an ecosystem
34:14being built so sorry if that's a bit of a a bit of a long explanation but sometimes you need
34:20to have
34:20a lot of information for this i mean there's a lot of players in this ecosystem so it makes sense
34:25you know
34:25there's like you said a lot of people interacting a lot of people affected maybe harmed maybe benefited
34:32um working on it so yeah when we say season five is about an ecosystem of implementation and innovation
34:41within the climate space this is what we mean you know it's not just individual solutions and individual
34:46organizations or even individuals themselves but how we build those systems that make those solutions work
34:52all these organisms interacting to sort of deploy the ideas and the the change we want to see in the
34:58world 100 percent yeah and look look just think of it in terms of um uh one of the guests
35:05i won't
35:05spoil what he focused on looking at community parks and they invested in all types of real estate but
35:11there was a few parks a few mixed-use properties that were supposed to be used for the community but
35:17they
35:17weren't being used as much yeah they try and invest in that and from this they hope
35:22that more people will go there um it can create more jobs it helps a system that wasn't being used
35:28in place and therefore more people are interacting and overall the community and the system there
35:34is improving so it's having a bit of impact and that's that's why people class it as impact
35:41investing a lot of the time when you are trying to create that ecosystem that's really good and that's
35:46a really good way to tie it together well that's right that's awesome well guys this was explained
35:52to a friend obviously we've probably missed loads of turns and probably you don't agree with some of
35:58our definitions so if that's the case it was a comment or reach out to us if you want to
36:03come
36:03on tangelic talks and explain the work that you're doing be part of this ecosystem with us you can find
36:08us
36:08at tangeliclife.org slash tangelic talks also on the blog for this episode will be some definitions
36:14and examples kind of linking to the episodes we've been mentioning here and we'll catch you guys on the
36:20next one thank you
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