Crowdfunding Clean Energy Access: How Everyday Investors Can Back Africa’s Future
Release Date: 03/10/2026
FSCS Protection as a Planning Tool: Rethinking Cash in Ethical Financial Planning
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
Cash is often the largest “unmanaged” part of a client’s balance sheet and that quiet neglect can create real risk, missed returns and poor outcomes. In this conversation, Dr Emma Black and Louis Gleeson explain why cash should be treated as a strategic pillar of financial planning, not a parking space. What would change in your practice if cash reviews became as routine as investment reviews? For years, cash has been the awkward sidebar in many financial plans: easy to overlook, assumed to be “safe”, and rarely managed with the same care as investments. But in a world shaped by...
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A Smarter PI Market: How Data and Culture WIll Stabilise Adviser Insurance
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
Professional indemnity insurance is meant to protect good firms so why does it often feel like the best advisers are paying for the worst behaviour? In this episode, BearRock’s John Netting and Jonathan Newell argue that PI can be redesigned to reward strong governance, reduce volatility, and strengthen the long-term sustainability of financial planning. Professional indemnity (PI) insurance sits quietly in the background of financial planning, until it doesn’t. When premiums spike, exclusions appear, or capacity dries up, it becomes more than an admin headache: it becomes an existential...
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Suitability Beyond Risk: Should Portfolios Reflect Client Values Too?
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
Most “ESG” conversations fail because they begin with labels, not lives. Etcho co-founders Charlie French and Liall Medina explain how advisers can uncover what clients genuinely care about and then evidence, implement, and report on values alignment without turning advice into a tick-box exercise. Should “suitability” explicitly include values, not just risk and return? Sustainable investing has had a turbulent few years. ESG went from buzzword to backlash—yet the underlying client need hasn’t disappeared: people still want their money to reflect what they value. The problem is...
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Stop Lying to Us: Human Rights, ESG and the Future of Sustainable Finance
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
“Sustainable” is one of the most overused words in modern finance and, at times, one of the least interrogated. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, Clemence is joined by Chris Welsford, founder of Antithesis Research and a long-standing independent financial adviser. Chris has spent decades challenging the industry’s blind spots from the mis-selling culture of commission to the uncomfortable reality that many “ethical” portfolios still hold companies linked to serious harm. At the heart of the conversation is a deceptively simple idea: the power of the question. Chris explains...
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Purpose-Driven Capital in Action: Community Energy and Fairer Bills
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
What if the clean energy transition didn’t just cut carbon but also cut bills, tackle fuel poverty and put decision-making power in local hands? Tim Stumpff explains why community energy might be one of the most tangible forms of impact investing in the UK and why the risk/return story is stronger than many assume. Community energy sits at a fascinating intersection: sustainable finance, local resilience, and a more democratic model of capitalism. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, we explore how communities are financing solar and wind projects that generate clean electricity, while...
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Sustainable Finance Isn’t “Woke”, It’s Risk Management
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
What if sustainable investing isn’t a values add-on but the most commercially sensible way to run a business and build resilient portfolios? Nicola Day of Greenbank explains why the real problem isn’t sustainability… it’s the persistent misunderstanding of what it actually means, and how investors can push for change with evidence, engagement and voting power. Sustainable finance is often dismissed as “woke”, idealistic, or optional, something to prioritise when markets are calm and abandon when things get tough. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, we challenge that framing...
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Why “Clients Aren’t Interested” Is Holding Ethical Investing Back
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
Advisers often say clients “aren’t interested” in sustainable investing but what if that’s really a confidence gap ? Max Tennant argues that adding an ESG overlay can be simpler than you think, and that the biggest shift isn’t performance… it’s the quality of the client conversation. Sustainable investing has been around long enough that it shouldn’t still feel controversial yet many financial planners still hesitate, often with the familiar refrain: “My clients aren’t interested.” In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, we’re joined by Max Tennant, Partner of Advisory...
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Ethical Investing Without the Echo Chamber: Meeting Clients Where They Are
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
Sustainable finance is getting louder, more political, and at times more confusing. Financial planner Cleona Lira argues the missing piece isn’t a new fund label, but a healthier relationship with money: one that includes values, emotions, and even silence. If clients are overwhelmed and disengaged, what would it take for advice to feel empowering again? Sustainable investing should be getting easier. More products, more data, more regulation, surely that means more clarity for clients and advisers alike. And yet, in this conversation with Cleona Lira (Conscious Money), we explore why...
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Crowdfunding Clean Energy Access: How Everyday Investors Can Back Africa’s Future
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
600 million people in Africa still live without electricity and the bottleneck isn’t technology, it’s finance. Ray Coyle, CEO of Energize Africa, explains how UK retail capital is being connected to solar, mini-grids and clean transport and why honest impact investing must talk about currency shocks, climate disruption, and what “appropriate risk” really means. Energy poverty is one of the most underestimated constraints on human and economic development and one of the clearest tests of whether sustainable finance is serious about outcomes. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes,...
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Financial Planning After “Enough”: Philanthropic Loans and Real-World Impact
The GoodStock Tapes Podcast
What if the most responsible use of wealth isn’t to preserve it indefinitely, but to deploy it, urgently, while it can still change outcomes? Julia Davies unpacks the “power of enough”, why she rejected slow endowment-style giving, and how impact investing (from community energy to philanthropic loans for land restoration) can be practical, not performative. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, Clémence Chatelin is joined by Julia Davies, a former commercial lawyer and entrepreneur who became an environmental investor after selling Osprey Europe. Julia describes the disorienting...
info_outline600 million people in Africa still live without electricity and the bottleneck isn’t technology, it’s finance. Ray Coyle, CEO of Energize Africa, explains how UK retail capital is being connected to solar, mini-grids and clean transport and why honest impact investing must talk about currency shocks, climate disruption, and what “appropriate risk” really means.
Energy poverty is one of the most underestimated constraints on human and economic development and one of the clearest tests of whether sustainable finance is serious about outcomes. In this episode of The GoodStock Tapes, we’re joined by Ray Coyle, CEO of Energize Africa, to explore what impact investing looks like when it moves beyond ESG labels and into real-world infrastructure.
Ray shares the origin story of Energize Africa: a UK government-backed idea (now under the FCDO umbrella) designed to give ordinary people in the UK a way to help fund energy access in sub-Saharan Africa.
We also go on the ground. What does “no electricity” actually mean for education after dark, safer streets, business productivity, health, and dignity? And what does a credible solution set look like, solar home systems, green mini-grids, battery storage, and electric mobility (including the economics of electric motorbikes for boda boda riders)?
Crucially, this conversation doesn’t pretend impact is risk-free. Ray talks candidly about where risk sits (issuer risk), the reality of operating shocks, climate disruption, and currency devaluation and why transparency matters when advisers discuss suitability. We also cover how these investments are typically structured, including targeted returns (often 6–8%) and common terms (from six months to three years), and where wrappers like an Innovative Finance ISA may apply.
If you’re an adviser, investor, or anyone curious about purpose-driven capital that actually builds things, this episode offers a grounded lens on how capital allocation can widen access to the basics, without hiding the trade-offs.
Listen now and if it sparks a new question about what “ethical investing” should prioritise, share it with someone who cares about finance as a force for good.
About Ray
Ray Coyle is the CEO of Energize Africa, a crowdfunding direct investment platform focused on expanding clean energy access across sub-Saharan Africa. Ray’s work sits at the intersection of sustainable finance, impact investing and real-economy infrastructure—connecting retail investors to businesses and projects delivering practical solutions such as solar home systems, decentralised mini-grids and clean transport.