Buildings shape much of our daily lives, but their environmental impact often goes unnoticed. Yet the built environment accounts for nearly 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions, from the energy used to heat and power buildings to the materials used to construct them.

In this episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia talks to Drew Shula, founder and CEO of Verdical Group, about the role the construction sector plays in climate action. The conversation explores how decisions made during design and construction can influence emissions, costs and resilience for decades, and why much of the real progress in reducing building emissions is happening at the local level.

From energy modelling and building standards to the challenge of scaling sustainable construction practices, this episode looks at how the built environment is becoming both one of the biggest climate challenges – and one of the most practical places to make progress.

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There are talks of endless economic crises, yet the rich are getting richer. Even though many countries promise a welfare system, healthy job markets, and in general decent quality of life for the masses, the numbers suggest that inequality is only getting worse.

According to Oxfam, in 2025 billionaire wealth jumped by over 16% to $18.3 trillion compared to 2024 levels. This massive amount of money is spread among only 3,000 people, who are worth an average of $6.1 billion each. Perhaps more shockingly, billionaire wealth has gone up by 81% in just five years. Is there even a country or industry where average wages have grown at the same rate since 2020?

Meanwhile, 25% of the global population can’t afford regular meals, and nearly half are living in poverty. But why are we talking about this in a sustainability podcast? One of the central tenets of Shaken Not Burned is pursuing a just transition: if the world's richest 1% own around 45% of the global wealth, we can’t expect this money to be invested in a way that will benefit all people in an equitable manner.

In this week’s episode, Giulia interviews Julia Davies, impact investor at We Have The Power and a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, on what we can do to recalibrate the world's wealth system.

For Julia and her fellow Patriotic Millionaires UK members, the answer is simple: increase taxes on wealth, not on work. The organisation proposes a tax of 2% on wealth above £10 million – however, the UK government doesn’t seem to be listening.

The conversation explores the implications of wealth extremism, emphasising the importance of community solutions and systemic change to address these pressing issues, advocating for a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

Crucially, all of us can do something about this, as individuals or business owners: support the campaign and “vote with our wallets”: that is, buy from ethical companies and small- and medium-sized businesses, rather than massive corporations.

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Climate action is facing political backlash, from watered-down EU regulation to the overturning of the EPA’s endangerment finding in the United States. Yet beneath the headlines, systemic climate risk is becoming harder for central banks, insurers and investors to ignore.

In this episode of Shaken Not Burned, Felicia speaks with Rachel Delacour, co-founder and CEO of Sweep, about the Climate Contribution Framework, developed with Mirova, ICARE and Winrock International. The framework builds on existing emissions standards but moves beyond footprint alone, assessing how companies reduce emissions, scale low-carbon solutions and finance climate innovation.

As investors search for credible signals of long-term resilience, this conversation explores whether we’ve been measuring the wrong thing — and what it would mean to evaluate companies by their full contribution to net zero rather than by emissions alone.

Sweep and Mirova Research Center launched the Climate Contribution Framework (CCF): A New Standard for Corporate Climate Action. This pioneering methodology developed by I Care by BearingPoint, and Winrock International offers an unprecedented unified, science-based benchmark to fairly measure and value the full spectrum of corporate contributions to global net zero.

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