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In this episode of the Sustainable Ambassador Podcast, I sit down with Professor Mark Miller of the University of Edinburgh to explore how climate change and pollution impact the heart — and what really happens inside the body when we’re exposed to environmental stress.

From air pollution to rising temperatures, we unpack how a warming world is placing measurable strain on the cardiovascular system.

For decades, we’ve known polluted air damages the lungs. But Mark’s research shows something deeper and more systemic: even short-term exposure to diesel exhaust can stiffen blood vessels, elevate blood pressure, and disrupt heart rhythms — effects that resemble years of accumulated cardiovascular stress.

As climate change increases heatwaves and alters pollution patterns, these stressors don’t act alone.

They interact.

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In this episode, we speak with Gerbrand Haverkamp, Executive Director and co-founder of the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), about what benchmarking is for—and of the power benchmarks have to accelerate corporate action.

Gerbrand explains why WBA was founded in the wake of the SDGs, how WBA translates evolving standards into comparable measures of performance, and how change happens through a mix of learning, pressure, and ultimately norm-setting.

The conversation closes with a grounded message to sustainability leaders: focus on what actually reduces emissions, restores nature, and improves lives—because that’s what will stand the test of time.

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