Articles and Reflections

I wanted to be a tree. Turns out I’m actually mycorrhizal fungi. The realisation came at a time when I was wondering whether anything I was doing was really making a difference. If you’ve spent time in conservation, environmental or healthcare work, that feeling might be familiar. The problems are so large, the need so constant, that it can sometimes feel like whatever we do is never quite enough. Someone once reminded me that forests don’t survive on trees alone. Beneath the

Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers, with workload often cited as the cause. But research on burnout suggests that workload is rarely the whole story. When someone says they’re overloaded, it is often the most visible part of a deeper set of mismatches between people and their work. Workload is the part we see. But beneath it, other factors shape whether work feels sustainable — or slowly becomes too much. For example: When people have little control over ho

Breast cancer. Depression. Sleep apnoea. Chronic migraine. We often hear about the productivity losses associated with these conditions — measured in billions. But behind every statistic is a person, a team, and a ripple effect that moves quietly through a workplace. Serious illness doesn’t just affect output. It affects energy, identity, relationships, and the way someone is able to show up — often for a sustained period of time. For organisations, it can also mean the gradu