Every episode starts from a shared premise: the science, the economics, and the moral case for restoration have been made — repeatedly. The Understory is not interested in making that case again. It starts from where that conversation ends, and asks why restoration hasn't scaled, who's been blocking it, and what it actually takes to build an industry that didn't exist a decade ago.
We prioritise credible builders over credentialed commentators. Guests are practitioners, scientists, and decision-makers who have deployed something real: people with track records and the willingness to be honest about failure. If a guest can give the same answer they give at COP or Davos, the question wasn't hard enough.
And we go where the main stages don't: to indigenous practitioners, restoration entrepreneurs, and emerging voices whose ideas haven't yet reached critical mass, but need to. The understory of a forest is where most biodiversity lives and where regeneration actually begins. That's the conversation we're here to have.
Diagnosis has been done. Every episode spends the majority of its time on what could actually move — mechanisms, models, proof points, commitments.
If a guest can give the same answer they give at COP, the question isn't tough enough. Every episode is designed to create at least one moment of genuine discomfort.
Indigenous leaders, Global South practitioners, restoration entrepreneurs — the people whose ideas haven't reached critical mass yet, but deserve to.
EPISODE 4 • AUGUST 28, 2026
A forest is built by millions of separate decisions, made over timescales longer than any career, election, or fund life — while the climate moves underneath them the whole time.That movement has done two things at once. It has made forests more valuable, because they are among the largest carbon solutions available to us. And it has made them more fragile, at a speed and reach nobody in forestry has seen before. We are leaning on forests harder than ever, at exactly the moment they are least able to take the weight.
EPISODE 3 • JULY 5, 2026
In this episode of The Understory, recorded live during London Climate Action Week, hosts Dr. Sweta Chakrabordi and Jad Daley sit down with Samrah Khan, (Chief of Staff, Climate Cardinals) and Zainab Bie (Asia Pacific Director, Equal Right, and co-founder of Impactship) to ask who the climate movement keeps leaving out of the room, even when it claims to be making space for them.
EPISODE 2 • EARTH DAY 2026
In this episode of The Understory, hosts Dr. Sweta Chakrabordi and Jad Daley sits down with Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, President of the Association for Fulani Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad (AFPAT) and Christine Cadigan, EVP of Carbon Origination at American Forest Foundation, to tackle one of the most persistent bottlenecks in the climate movement: bridging the gap between grassroots community stewardship and the massive influx of corporate capital.
EPISODE 1 • May 8, 2026
What if the environmental movement is accidentally holding itself back? In the very first episode of The Understory, recorded live on Earth Day at EarthX 2026, host Dr. Sweta Chakrabordi sits down with three of the most influential voices in conservation to say the quiet part out loud: the way we talk about climate and nature is fragmented, confusing, and may be costing us the very progress we're working so hard to achieve.
TEASER • APRIL 2026
Jad and Sweta introduce the show, the philosophy behind it, and the questions they intend to pursue. Why does restoration keep stalling? Who isn't in the room? And what would it take to build the industry this moment actually requires?
President, Terraformation
Former CEO, American Forests
Three decades at the intersection of forest policy, climate science, and conservation finance. Jad has grown allergic to the conversations that dominate the world's climate forums — the pledges that don't move capital, the panels that recycle the same diagnoses. On The Understory, that impatience is a feature.
CEO North America, We Don't Have Time
Scientist & Behavioral Risk Expert
Sweta has spent her career translating complex science into the kind of understanding that actually moves people and institutions. A familiar presence at the world's most consequential climate forums — from COP to the World Economic Forum — she brings both the institutional standing and the intellectual independence this show demands.
New episodes throughout 2026, recorded in studios and live at the world's most important climate convenings. Subscribe wherever you listen — and share with someone who's been waiting for this conversation.
