Hello and welcome to a special one-off edition of the Green Alliance podcast. My name is Sean Spears.

I'm Director of Green Alliance and today I'm talking to Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the Environment

Agency and a member of the government's

Council for Sustainable Business. We will only have a healthy economy if we have a healthy

environment. We recorded our conversation to tie in with the COP26 Business Leaders Summit

on Monday. We don't just get enthusiastic about the race to net zero because without thinking about climate shocks,

we risk all of that energy efficiency washing away in a flood or melting in a heat wave.

We shall explore how businesses can take practical steps to decarbonise, to support the recovery of nature,

and to ensure that we get a truly green recovery from COVID-19.

It's about rolling up our sleeves and working in collaboration

and recognising that we need in those collaborations to bring in the public sector, the private sector

and a lot of the environmental

groups who also play a very, very strong role. I hope you enjoy the podcast. Welcome to the

Green Alliance podcast. I'm delighted that we got today Emma Howard Boyd, who is chair of the

Environment Agency, but for the purpose of this recording,

is also a member of the Council for Sustainable Business. And the Council's got a big gathering,

a summit happening on Monday to look at the contribution that business can make to decarbonising the economy

and meeting the government's aspirations for net zero leading up to COP 26 in

Glasgow next year. Welcome, Emma. Hello, hi. Great to be with you, Sean. I'd just like to start

by asking if you say something about the role of the Council for sustainable business,

because I guess on the Council, there's a pretty broad range of businesses, not all of whom would be necessarily considered immediately to be sustainable businesses

house builders, Heathrow Airport and so on. What is the council's wrong?

...