Environmental problems, tested against reality.
Costing the Earth examines environmental change through homes, farms, rivers, gardens, recycling policy, and clean-energy projects. Its episodes are calm and explanatory, moving from a tangible scene to the larger systems of science, politics, infrastructure, and everyday cost.
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Costing the Earth is an environmental journalism series about the gap between green ambition and real-world delivery. It has a calm, public-service feel. The show is interested in systems, but it usually reaches them through something concrete: a riverside house, a soil profile, a garden, a shop, or a polluted waterway. That gives the reporting useful weight. Steve Backshall’s off-grid house becomes a way to examine why energy-efficient homes are still difficult and expensive to build. A conversation about insulation quickly turns into mould, building defects, heating bills, and the practical limits of air source heat pumps. A farm in Cornwall opens into the microbial life beneath crops and forests. The programme can move from the smell of healthy soil to questions about reforestation and whether trees should be planted with their microbiome. It is curious about small design choices too. In the garden episode, permeable paving, rainwater storage, leaf mould baskets, peat-free growing, comfrey tea, and nettle-based fertiliser all become clues to how ordinary spaces might cope with a changing climate. The policy reporting is just as grounded. Scotland’s deposit return scheme is framed with a playful investigation structure, but the substance is serious: litter, retailers, machine costs, exemptions, and political coordination. Water pollution gets the same steady treatment. Sewage is only part of a wider picture that includes farming, forever chemicals, microplastics, urban runoff, climate stress, and older contaminants still sitting in the landscape. The show does not pretend these problems have quick fixes. It also does not treat despair as an endpoint. Earthshot episodes point toward solar home systems, clean power, water-saving ideas, and conservation projects that link ecological repair with poverty reduction. Costing the Earth is strongest when it lets practical detail complicate the slogan. It respects expertise, but keeps translating it into consequences people can understand. The result is environmental audio for listeners who want evidence, context, and a clearer sense of what change actually requires.
Made for: For listeners who want climate and ecology journalism that is evidence-led, concrete, and practical. It suits people interested in how homes, farms, rivers, gardens, recycling systems, and energy projects actually change under pressure.
What sets it apart: Costing the Earth stands out by starting with lived or physical examples and patiently tracing the infrastructure, policy, science, and cost behind them. It is less about green slogans than about what happens when environmental ideas meet buildings, budgets, habits, and politics.
Fresh ideas from the sharpest minds working toward a cleaner, greener planet
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Costing the Earth connects environmental science to the practical costs, engineering constraints and political choices behind proposed solutions.
Costing the Earth starts with a hard environmental question, then follows it into fields, homes and policy arguments. Tom Heap presses guests on what proposed solutions require in practice, from halving emissions and removing carbon to changing food production.
A bottle-return scheme gets treated like a crime scene, and you get the suspects.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Steve Backshall's off-grid house becomes a practical test of why sustainable building remains so difficult.
Costing the Earth tracks Steve Backshall's five-year effort to build an energy-efficient home, shaped by the hopeful, slightly whimsical ambition of living off-grid.
A soil-first look at the microbial life shaping healthier farms, forests, and restoration work.
The episode starts in the soil rather than above it, at Woodland Valley Farm in Cornwall, where Chris Jones opens up a deep brown topsoil profile with crumb structure, cocoa colour, and an earthy smell.
Chelsea Flower Show becomes a practical lesson in water, waste, and climate-aware gardening.
Costing the Earth treats gardens as more than decoration, using Chelsea Flower Show to test how garden design can carry culture, climate, and restraint at once.
A true-crime frame makes Scotland's deposit return scheme feel like a shop-floor investigation.
The episode frames Scotland's deposit return scheme as a true-crime puzzle, with sabotage, suspects, and the chance to put a troubled system back together.
A serious, systems-level look at river pollution and the scale of change needed to turn it around.
Costing the Earth begins with sewage and widens into a clear account of why Britain’s waters are under strain. It is strongest when it treats the problem as a knot of sewage, farming, urban runoff, newer chemicals, microplastics, climate change, and the structure of the water…
A Devon-set debate on vegan Britain that stays firmly rooted in land use and food production.
Costing the Earth opens on a hillside in Devon and treats a vegan Britain as a practical question rather than a slogan. Tom Heap keeps the focus on what such a shift might mean for farming, crops, diet, biodiversity, and farmers themselves, with Stuart Roberts of the National…
A sober climate-policy conversation that weighs the 2030 target against the broader mix of solutions it may require.
This climate-policy episode takes a hard look at whether the world can halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It treats the target as a systems problem, tracing the pace of industrial, political, and behavioral change and the wider mix of solutions needed to reach climate…
A panel of experts discuss the philosophy and reality of waste management, from disposal to circular economy solutions.
Host Tom Heap explores the hypothetical impacts of a fully vegan Britain, debating its environmental and agricultural consequences.
Host Tom Heap explores how to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, a key goal for the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.
Steve Backshall says the insulation, not the gadgets, is "everything" in his off-grid house.
Charles Nichols says the Wales trial has 72 tests and 6,400 trees measured in eight days.
James Wong opens Costing the Earth’s "Gardens of the Future" by linking gardens to human culture, the Chelsea Flower Show, and the challenge of gardening in a changing climate.
Costing the Earth’s “Investigation DRS” follows Tom Heap and Seppi Golzari Munro through Scotland’s delayed deposit return scheme, which is described as a 20p system for bottles and cans.
Costing the Earth: Water pollution solutions opens with Tom Heap asking what should be done about sewage in rivers, seas, and politics, and whether the answer is tougher regulation, higher bills, or public ownership.
This episode explores the history of dwarf elephants on a mythical island, using storytelling to discuss evolution and extinction.
This episode discusses humanity's impact on the planet, including wildlife decline, pollution, and climate change.
This episode explores the Earthshot Prize finalists working on clean energy solutions, starting with solar home systems in Bangladesh.