The Grand Challengers Podcast Episode #51

A culture reboot for nature, biodiversity and conservation through incentives, conversations and T-shirts

Guest: Rob Wreglesworth

October 14th, 2025

Episode Teaser

Introduction

“…Why is something done the way it is? Is that just a belief that we hold? Is it something that’s easier to change with a bit of lateral thinking? …”

Rob Wreglesworth is an Associate Ecologist and Innovation Lead at The Envionment Bank and Co-Founder of No Longer Known in the UK. Rob is passionate about conservation and started his career as an environmental consultant before moving into the world of tech startups. As part of The Environment Bank, he is pioneering new approaches to conservation finance in the UK by developing a national network of long-term, landscape-scale habitat restoration projects. At the same time, he is changing the communication around biodiversity through podcasting and targeting scarcity culture in consumer markets.

On today’s show, Rob and I engage in a wide-ranging conversation around biodiversity and conservation, looking into building financial incentives through the biodiversity net gain and nature credits and how T-shirts can potentially build and motivate conscious efforts of protection in the general public. We dive deep into Rob’s passion for nature and how he has transformed his variety of skills into making real-world impact.

Biography

Rob Wreglesworth is an Associate Ecologist and Innovation Lead at Environment Bank, a UK-based organisation channeling private investment into nature and Co-Founder of No Longer Known, a fashion-meets-conversation startup spotlighting endangered species through limited-edition apparel. He studied Envionment Science with a course in GIS at the University of Sheffield and Sustainable Finance at the University of Cambridge and started his career as an environmental consultant. Frustrated with the disconnect between the work and real-world impact and public engagement, Rob explored the tech startup culture for solutions.

Rob is also the main write and founder of Innovate Eco a blog and podcast explores startup stories in the environmental space. He not only has a passion for the environment, but also innovate technology and thinking outside the box. With No Longer Known, Rob is encouraging conversations and storytelling on biodiversity, conservation, nature and ecology among the general public, using scarcity as a metaphor for extinction. His work and career explores themes of conservation as communication, cultural relevance in environmentalism, entrepreneurship in the nature space and balancing side hustles with full-time impact work. He is an active content creator hoping to drive change through meaningful conversations and experiences.

Resources Related to the Episode

Episode Chapters

(Chapters are embedded in the episode for quick access, click this to expand and view all chapters and time stamps)
  • 0:00 Intro
  • 1:59 Guest Intro and a conversation between two audiophiles
  • 5:50 Rob’s Motivation for Ecology & Environmental Sciences
  • 13:03 The issue with species conservation (Newts and bats)
  • 18:29 Unpacking nature credits, biodiversity and environment banks
  • 23:38 Diving deeper into biodiversity net gain and biodiversity metrics
  • 28:30 Soil biodiversity in comparison to animal biodiversity
  • 29:55 eDNA for understanding the underground
  • 33:45 Gaining compliance in biodiversity net gain
  • 40:42 Rob’s diversity of projects at The Environment Bank
  • 43:20 Arming yourself with interdisciplinary knowledge
  • 45:16 The Innovate Eco Podcast
  • 52:08 The cultural reboot for conservation with No Longer Known
  • 1:15:20 Q&A Start
  • 1:15:50 What does innovation mean to you?
  • 1:17:47 Key event, book, person
  • 1:21:57 Time Management
  • 1:25:03 Favourite childhood memory
  • 1:27:00 Biggest challenge to date
  • 1:29:29 Advice to young professionals
  • 1:32:44 What would you most like to be remembered for?
  • 1:34:22 Where can people find you?
  • 1:36:00 Final Message
  • 1:36:58 Outro

Connect with Rob Wreglesworth

Related Episodes

Episode #14 – Janine Bolliger
Lights, Camera, GPS and Action around biodiversity enhancement in human-dominated landscapes
(Related Topics: biodiversity, animals, monitoring)
Episode #21 – Danielle Dagenais
The paradox of nature – process and parts and its implications for green infrastructure
(Related Topics: biodiversity, green infrastructure, nature)
Episode #25 – Shubber Ali
Your garden, the ‘field of dreams’ for tackling the twin crises of climate change and artificial intelligence
(Related Topics: biodiversity, business & tech, conservation, community)
Episode #43 – Tom Young
Answers to sustainability are in the links between green roofs, beer, mushrooms, golf, water, cowboys and community
(Related Topics: biodiversity, biodiversity net gain, UK, green infrastructure, community)
Episode #44 – Jarrod Luxton
What does a best-practice sustainability strategy look like? Discussing nature, valuation, Nordic and Aussie contrasts
(Related Topics: nature, economics, financial incentives, policy)

Credits