Episodes
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For the final programme of the series, John Murphy returns to a selection of businesses that have come through this far. A fabric and haberdashery shop, a fruit farmer and a micro-pub. Whatâs their story of survival, what did they change and what of the future? The potential difficulties and pitfalls, are not over.
Presenter: John MurphyProducer: Phoebe KeaneSeries editor: Penny Murphy
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The pandemic and the resulting recession have led to widespread calls to recognise that we now have a once in a generation opportunity to re-think how we put the economy back together again. Research shows we can help our economy flourish again by prioritising spending on environmentally friendly initiatives. From electric bikes, to eco-friendly cement, to a new type of plastic that could heat our homes, fill our mattresses and cushion our running trainers, Adam Shaw meets the businesses that could benefit from this type of recovery plan and could help us build back better.
Presenter: Adam ShawProducer: Phoebe Keane
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As Brexit talks between the European Union and the UK got under way earlier this year, before anyone was using the word âpandemicâ, Caroline Bayley began following two companies which both export to Britainâ one in France, one in Germany â to see how they were planning for trade with the UK outside of the EU. One is a vineyard and wine business in Bordeaux and the other makes components for kitchen furniture and cabinets in Germany. Both were knocked sideways by the coronavirus but have still had to prepare for future business with the UK with or without a trade deal.
Presenter/Producer: Caroline Bayley
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Politicians keep promising more trees â seen as good for the environment and for fighting climate change. Trees are also big business sustaining vital rural jobs. So will lots of new planting keep everyone happy? Chris Bowlby explores forestryâs future in one of its key locations â Northumberland. He visits the huge forest at Kielder, and a rural factory turning thousands of logs into essential materials for millions of British homes. But there are problems too â a thicket of bureaucracy surrounding planting, and questions about what sort of trees really do bring environmental gain.
Presenter: Chris BowlbyProducer: John Murphy
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Robots and Artificial Intelligence have been moving into our workplaces for years. But is now the time that they will become fully established and take over some jobs entirely? Is the march of the robots going to get louder now that everything seems to be changing ? David Baker investigates.
Presenter: David BakerProducer: Sandra Kanthal
Credit: Getty Creative / iStock / PhonlamaiPhoto
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Sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests around the world that followed the death of George Floyd, companies are wading into the conversation on racial inequality. With a focus on diversity in business, there was also interest and investment in a lot of companies run by black people in the UK. Tobi Oredein, founder of media company Black Ballad, asks businesses including a home-ware maker, an interior design firm and a global bank if this is all a trend or if there will be substantial and long-term change.
Presenter: Tobi OredeinProducer: Darin Graham
Credit: Getty/Ariel Skelley
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The UK fitness industry employs twenty thousand people and is worth an estimated ÂŁ5 billion to the economy. But - like most other industries - it shut down overnight in March. Some teachers and trainers made swift decisions to move online. Some businesses closed permanently. Will people want to return to busy gyms, even with the new protocols? Tanya Beckett dons her leotard to discover what shape the exercise industry is in.
Presenter: Tanya BeckettProducer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Credit: Getty
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The coronavirus pandemic and the associated global economic lockdown have had a dramatic impact on businesses across the UK, perhaps none more so than on the aviation industry and airports like Gatwick, usually the UK's second busiest.
The consequences, though, go far beyond the confines of the airport. Tens of thousands of jobs in the wider economy and in nearby towns, like Crawley, are under threat.
One report has suggested that, because of its dependence on Gatwick, Crawley could be the worst affected urban centre in the UK.
John Murphy speaks to a range of businesses in Crawley during this extraordinary period, to see if and how they can survive.
Presenter: John MurphyProducer: Darin Graham
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As the UK emerges from the coronavirus lockdown, millions of employees are still furloughed â either fully or part-time â with most of their salaries paid by the government. But how many of them really have jobs to go back to? Already companies including British Airways, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Jaguar Landrover and Centrica, to name just a few, have announced thousands of job losses and no-one knows what the true picture will look like by the autumn, as government support is removed.
There are dire warnings that the labour market could be as bad or even worse than the 1980s. Jonty Bloom asks whose jobs are most at risk from the economic damage wreaked by Covid 19 and what help is needed.
Presenter: Jonty BloomProducer: Caroline Bayley
Picture credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
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The oil price has crashed - for a while some producers were even paying customers to take it away. It's like no oil shock the industry has ever seen before. Lesley Curwen sets out to discover what difference cheap oil will make to our lives. Which jobs are at risk? Will there be a knock-on effect on our household finances - utility bills and pensions for example? And as lockdowns slowly start to ease, could it change how much we rely on oil for good?
Presenter: Lesley CurwenProducer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Picture Credit: Colin McPherson/Corbis via Getty Images)
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2020 hasn't been good for British business - certainly not since Covid-19 showed up. The global pandemic and the lockdown imposed to try to fight it have affected individual livelihoods and those of many companies. John Murphy talks to some business owners from different sectors of the economy - a family-run pub, a fruit farm, a fabric and haberdashery shop and a multinational - to see what changes they've experienced and how they have had to adapt during the crisis. They explain what they think the future will hold and, indeed, whether they will survive.
Presenter: John Murphy Producer: Lizzy McNeill
Photo by: Victoria Connolly, MacCulloch and Wallis Ltd
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With the highest Covid19 death toll in the world, and 26 million Americans claiming unemployment insurance, the US economy has taken a massive hit. But how quickly can it bounce back?
Will Americaâs economy will be strong enough to pull its weight in the global economy? Economist Jim OâNeill explores the current scale of the problem and asks how resilient are US businesses and the countryâs economy.
In Business hears how Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer has devised A Roadmap to Responsibly Re-opening America, which seeks to balance the health priorities with the pressure to open up the economy again.
The story of a small bakery in Brooklyn, which has had to lay off its workers, is illustrative of the damage that has been inflicted on businesses across America. Has the fiscal response from the authorities been sufficient to protect businesses so that they can recover once lockdowns end?
Is American manufacturing sufficiently flexible to pivot and adapt to the changing circumstances of the Covid health crisis? And will one of the longer term consequences of the crisis be a re-thinking of the character of American capitalism?
The answers to these questions will shed light on whether American will still be able to play its traditional crucial role in the global economy.
Presenter: Jim O'NeillProducer: Philip Reevel
Picture Credit: Getty
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In the 14th century the world was devastated by plague, known as 'The Black Death', in the 20th century a deadly form of influenza struck infecting around a quarter of the world's population. Since then HIV, Ebola and more have stricken nations. With each epidemic and pandemic comes a huge human cost but each also carry an economic cost. In this programme John Murphy visits pandemics past to see what history can teach us about economic cost and recovery.
Presenter: John MurphyProducer: Lizzy McNeill
Picture: An American street cleaner during the influenza epidemic in 1918Credit: Getty
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Since the Covid-19 âlockdownâ began, vast numbers of people have been toiling away at home for the first time: converting living rooms and bedrooms into makeshift office space, wrangling with technology, and juggling family life with working hours. How are we doing? Caroline Bayley explores the delights and challenges of "WFH".
Produced by Beth Sagar Fenton.
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Honey bees, cow dung and mulch - the company in Zimbabwe that is protecting the forests in order to offset carbon emissions. As Charlotte Ashton wrestles with âflight shameâ, she wants to find out where her money goes if she chooses to offset her flight. She lives in Zimbabwe, but is from the UK and doesnât have the money or time to spend three weeks at sea, sailing home to visit relatives. She focuses on a company based in Zimbabwe that runs one of the largest projects of its kind in the world and discovers how carbon credits work. Carbon Green Africaâs project focuses on protecting existing forests, rather than planting new trees and her journey takes her to some surprising places. In a programme recorded last November, Charlotte finds that preventing deforestation not only helps her offset her carbon emissions, but helps give people in a remote part of Zimbabwe new jobs and access to international markets.
Guests: Charles Ndondo and Rory Muil, Carbon Green Africa Christian Dannecker, South Pole Presenter: Charlotte Ashton Producer: Phoebe Keane
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Ruth Alexander examines whether the complex global web of supply chains can hold up under the enormous pressure of the coronavirus pandemic.
Looking further into the future, she and Jonty Bloom ask whether this global shock has shown that the days of the speedy delivery of a huge choice of cheap goods from all over the world is over.
Presenter: Ruth Alexander Producers: Caroline Bayley and Lizzy McNeill
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Indonesiaâs capital Jakarta is sinking, and struggling with traffic and pollution. The governmentâs solution? To build a new capital on the island of Borneo instead, better known for its jungles and orangutans. How will this work? Former BBC Indonesia correspondent Rebecca Henschke travels to the proposed new capital site and meets families, environmental campaigners, and local indigenous people to find out how they feel about being included in the proposed new capital territory. Can the indigenous villagers carry on getting their medical remedies from the forest? Will an orangutan sanctuary survive? And do nearby businesses welcome or fear the future competition? Rebecca also meets the family of an 11-year old girl who drowned in a disused mine pond that should have been cleaned up, but wasnât, due to widespread impunity for mining companies. Will the government honour its promises about protecting the environment this time? Will the new capital really be a âforest cityâ, as the Minister of National Development Planning insists?
Presenter: Rebecca Henschke Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo: Borneo. Credit: BBC
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Fashion is a hugely polluting industry and is under enormous pressure to become more sustainable. From the way cotton is grown, to the use of synthetic materials and the conditions in factories where our clothes are made - these are all challenges facing the sector. In this programme Patrick Grant, the British menswear designer, factory owner and judge on the Great British Sewing Bee, asks how the fashion industry should respond and what we, as consumers, should be doing too.
Presenter: Patrick GrantProducer: Caroline Bayley
Picture Credit: BBC
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Hydrogen is a volatile gas with an image problem, but hydrogen evangelists think this could be the âmagic moleculeâ which will solve the worldâs air pollution and cut carbon emissions dramatically. Manuela Saragosa presents the final part of this special series on energy from Italy, where hydrogen has been pumped into the existing gas network. Could a hydrogen boat replace the diesel belching cruise liners and ships along the canals of Venice?
Presenter: Manuela SaragosaProducer: Nina Robinson
Photo Credit: Nina Robinson/BBC
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Jaguar Land Rover, Cadbury, Weetabix are but some of the many British brands now owned by foreign corporations. The UK has one of the highest rates of company takeovers by new overseas owners. Sometimes these deals rescue a struggling business and save jobs. And sometimes they provide welcome investment for fast growth. But is there also the risk of Britain suffering a permanent loss of technology and know-how, or even a threat to national security, such as when the company targeted for takeover is in the defence industry? And what about the emotional side of takeovers? Research suggests they can be a huge burden for executives, and staff may be reluctant to cooperate with previous competitors, jeopardising the sales targets of the new owners. Ruth Alexander asks if the UK is selling its family silver, and whether this matters in a globalised world. Is Britain for sale, or inviting investment? Or has Britain already been sold, with 54% of shareholdings of UK public companies now foreign-owned? She talks to current and former CEOs and to academics, to find out why so many British companies are being bought, what this says about the UK,, and what impact it has on jobs and the future of the economy.
Presenter: Ruth AlexanderProducer: Arlene Gregorius
Picture Credit: Getty
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