Design for Freedom Podcast

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Design for Freedom Podcast

Have you ever wondered who was involved in supply the materials that built your house, your child’s school, or your office?

Do you work in the construction sector and struggle with the multiple challenges involved in the ethical sourcing of building materials?

And are you someone who wants to see forced and child labour eradicated?

The Design for Freedom podcast focuses on the elimination of forced and child labour in global building materials supply chains. By 2030, global spending in construction is set to reach $17.5 trillion. But current estimates have over 28 million people around the world held in forced labour conditions – many of whom extract the materials and make the products that go into our homes, schools, office buildings, and landscapes.

The podcast digs into the uncomfortable truths about the global supply of critical products and materials relied upon by the construction sector, and the challenges that persist – and it provides the insights, perspective, information and tools that you need in order to take action and be part of the solution.

Hosted by Elaine Mitchel-Hill, International Lead at Design for Freedom.

Episodes

Global Data

Episode 4 • 31 mins • October 30, 2025

Explore the crucial role global data plays in the elimination of modern slavery.

This episode looks at the barriers to data sharing and collaboration, and the immense potential of AI technology to accelerate progress. Reliable data and AI tools, such as those in Acelab’s materials hub, can help the construction sector make more conscious material choices and make the invisible in supply chains visible. Meanwhile, initiatives like the Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labor ensure that data is responsibly governed and provides conditions for systemic change, driven by worker and survivor voice.

Elaine is joined by Mahendra Pandy, Director of Humanity United’s forced labor and human trafficking portfolio and founder of the Global Migrant Workers Network. Elaine also welcomes Vardhan Mehta, Co-founder and CEO at Acelab and a member of the Design for Freedom US Working Group.

You can read a full transcript of the episode here.

Also streaming on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Natural Stone

Episode 3 • 35 mins • July 9, 2025

Consider how natural stone, quarried, processed, transported and reused under the right conditions, can be a highly a sustainable material, and how technological developments in the pre-tensioning of stone and its prefabrication all open up new possibilities for ‘urban mining.’

Elaine is joined by Steve Webb, Director at Webb Yates Engineers — an award winning structural, civil, and building services engineering design practice based in London, UK, and Pierre Bidaud, Creative Director at The Stone Masonry Company, and also a founding member of The Stone Collective which promotes stone as a resilient, low carbon footprint material.

You can read a full transcrtipt of the episode here.

Also streaming on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

The Venice Biennale

Episode 2 • 34 mins • May 27, 2025

Join Chelsea Thatcher, Chief Strategy Officer and Creative Director at Grace Farms Foundation, and the person behind the With Every Fiber Exhibit at Grace Farms, and Nina Cooke John, Artist, Architect and Founding Principal at Studio Cooke John Architecture and Design, whose monument to abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Shadow of a Face, provides the focal point for the Design for Freedoms’ Venice Biennale Exhibit.

You can read a full transcrtipt of the episode here.

Also streaming on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Introduction to Design for Freedom

Episode 1 • 33 mins • March 27, 2025

Join host Elaine Mitchel-Hill, who presents the context for the series and highlights what steps we can all take now. Elaine is joined by Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder at Grace Farms Foundation, and the visionary and creator of the Design for Freedom Movement; and John Morrison, Chief Executive of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, who brings an incredible wealth of experience in human rights and construction across the globe.

You can read a full transcrtipt of the episode here.

Also streaming on Apple Podcasts | Spoti f y