How to Save Democracy: Giving Nature a Voice

We are now living in a democratic emergency. Autocrats, authoritarians and outright fascists appear to be on an inexorable rise, while few politicians seem capable of charting a credible path forward in the face of today’s immense challenges – and in the course of all this, the climate and nature emergency seems to have disappeared from the agenda.

Yet just beneath the media radar, another story is taking shape: a story of democratic renewal and reinvention, with citizen participation, deliberation, and defiant joy at its heart. Despite the headlines, pioneers are demonstrating new ways of making decisions and running organisations and societies that are commensurate with the scale of the challenges we face.

Simeon Rose and Jane Davidson are two such pioneers who have long been in conversation with one another across the valleys of West Wales where they both live. Simeon sits on the executive team at the cosmetics company Faith In Nature, the first business in the world to give Nature a seat on its board, a move now being replicated by businesses and other organisations across the world. And as Welsh Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Jane played a key role in the establishment of the independent Future Generations Commissioner who is a voice for people not-yet-born. Both these innovations give Nature a voice right upfront in strategic direction, have led to major change in their immediate contexts, and if replicated across the world, have truly transformative potential.

Join Jon Alexander, author of Citizens and co-host of the How To Save Democracy podcast, to get under the skin of these two stories and the links between them – and to explore how giving nature a voice in every organisation and every nation could make a major contribution to help save democracy in its current malaise.