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Talib Visram

Multimedia Journalist

British multimedia journalist based in New York | General reporter with a business focus

Writer for digital and print | Video and podcast host | Live event moderator 

Master's in Journalism | Background in social media and content marketing 

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    My Work

    Fast Company •

    How Las Vegas became a leader in water conservation despite its culture of excess

    Tourists flock to Las Vegas every year for the bright lights, buffets, and the buzz of rolling the dice and spinning the roulette wheel.

    Many tourists also do two other things: Watch the lavish fountain outside the Bellagio hotel and ride a gondola in The Venetian’s canal. Each year, the Bellagio fountain uses 12 million gallons of water a year, the equivalent of about 706,000 eight-minute showers. And it would take a regular garden hose 65 days to fill the water capacity of The Venetian’s cana
    Fast Company •

    Why you’re about to see more CFOs in charge of corporate sustainability goals

    For more than a decade, the biggest companies in the world, from Coca-Cola to AT&T , have had chief sustainability officers on staff. Part of the CSOs’ job has included running various pilot programs—whether producing a few thousand gallons of sustainable aviation fuel or replacing 20 trucks in a city with cargo bikes.

    Now, businesses want to scale and speed up these innovations, realizing that integrating ESG (environmental, social, and governance issues) into everyday practices has proven to
    Fast Company •

    These companies help Palestinians land tech jobs. Here's how they're providing humanitarian support now

    Reports from December suggested that 66% of Gazans’ employment had been lost. But even before the current conflict, Gaza had one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Two weeks before Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 70% of young Gazan university graduates were unemployed. Palestinians have the talent and qualifications—including a labor force literacy rate of 98%—but lack the opportunities. Due to Israel’s ongoing occupation, and particularly, the 17-year blockade in Gaza, most a
    Fast Company •

    Why Georgia’s Republican governor has become one of solar’s biggest boosters

    In 1883, an American inventor designed the world’s first solar panel. In the 1950s, the U.S. formulated the first silicon solar cells, and in the decades following, it spent more on solar R&D than the rest of the world, and dominated the global solar market.

    But today, America seriously lags on solar production. So much so that a new solar plant being built in Cartersville, Georgia will be the only one in the country to construct panels directly from raw materials.

    Most solar parts are made ab
    Fast Company •

    Why the global supply chain is about to get a whole lot worse

    The disruption to the auto industry is just one example of shortages and delays being experienced across sectors due to two simultaneous crises—of climate change and geopolitics—that are affecting the transport of goods and will ultimately affect their cost. Two of the world’s most vital shipping routes are currently compromised. Since November, the Panama Canal has had to reduce crossings by 40% due to a severe drought. More recently, the Suez Canal—which usually accommodates 30% of global cont
    Fast Company •

    Florida can't get enough of tax holidays. But they're not the magic bullet Ron DeSantis claims

    It’s the second back-to-school tax holiday of the year—and one of six tax holidays taking place in Florida in 2024, the most of any state. In his budget plan for 2024-2025, Governor Ron DeSantis submitted four of them for renewal. While some cover essentials, others remove tax from discretionary purchases like concert tickets, pool inflatables, and hamster bedding. Such tax holidays are touted as saving Floridians cash (and likely sound appealing to consumers), but experts say they generally do
    Fast Company •

    May is the new July; Norway is the new Italy: How extreme heat is changing tourism

    Due to fly into Catania Airport, she and her husband arrived at Palermo instead, a three-hour car ride away, due to a fire at the original airport. Palermo was “a sea of suitcases” caused by multiple diverted flights, says Lanz, assistant dean at the School of Hospitality Administration at Boston University. Once they got to Sicily, they dealt with temperatures of 115 degrees, coupled with siroccos—the hot, dry desert winds from North Africa that can reach hurricane speeds and cause wildfires, w
    Fast Company •

    Delta's chief sustainability officer is on a mission to use less fuel

    Between 2% and 3% of the world’s carbon emissions come from aviation. If the industry were a country, it’d be the sixth-largest emitter. What’s more, it’s a “hard-to-abate” sector, meaning it’s innately difficult to decarbonize because the tech that’s necessary to make a real impact is both nascent and expensive.

    Still, Delta Air Lines has committed to being net-zero by 2050. It aims to achieve that by making its current fleet as efficient as possible while integrating futuristic technologies t
    Fast Company •

    More people are flying in private jets, and it’s ruining air travel for the rest of us

    In the lounge, you’d have a free cup of coffee as you flipped through The Wall Street Journal. When you boarded the eight-seater plane—after someone carried on your luggage for you—you’d be personally greeted by the pilot, who’d run you through a flight briefing. Soon, after settling into the Swiss-crafted roomy interior, designed in partnership with BMW, you’d be at San Carlos Airport, just south of San Francisco. That experience stands in sharp contrast with today’s commercial flights: tiny tr
    Fast Company •

    The future of U.S. train travel is here—and it’s not on Amtrak

    These amenities felt like a dose of luxury after nine days of road travel in Florida in May, when I faced the typical traffic jams and torrential rain. So on my last day, after returning my rental, a simple train ride from Fort Lauderdale to Miami was a treat. Only a swift half hour trip, I was just getting settled into my snack tray and mimosa when it was already time to disembark. Passengers load a Brightline train to West Palm Beach at the Fort Lauderdale station. [Photo: Carline Jean/South F
    Fast Company •

    How record temperatures are threatening Texas BBQ

    Texas barbecue has always been a hot business. Workers spend hours by hot coals, metal, and fire, while customers wait in line outside, sometimes for hours, to taste tender meats with decadent sides. But the blazing Texas heat is getting hotter and longer, with little respite; this summer, temperatures hovered above 100 degrees for 45 days in a row. Austin’s top pitmasters say the heat is affecting their operations and causing their businesses to take a hit. They are actively working on ways to
    Fast Company •

    How Florida became a hotbed for alternative education: Inside the move to help parents flee the 'woke ideology' of public schools

    This story is part of an ongoing series about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ policies and how they impact the people in his state. For full coverage, click here .

    LAKELAND, FLORIDA — In the foyer of the Medulla Baptist Church in Lakeland, Florida, there were copies of My Pillow Guy CEO Mike Lindell’s memoir; raffle tickets for a baseball hat with the words “Ultra MAGA;” and a pile of Lifesaver mints accompanied by a sign telling people to refresh the bad taste in their mouths caused by the indo
    Fast Company •

    Hillary Clinton: Extreme heat has a disastrous effect on women workers (exclusive)

    In February, as India endured its highest temperatures since 1901, Hillary Clinton visited the country to see firsthand the heat’s impact on female workers. In Rajasthan’s salt flats, she met with women harvesting salt, laborious work that involves raking up the tops of the salt ponds in the scorching heat of the desert. The women were pushing their start times to 4 a.m. to avoid the highest temperatures of the day.

    Yet, despite the record heat, future years are likely to be hotter still. “How
    Fast Company •

    Ron DeSantis wants to reshape Florida’s universities. It could lead to a massive ‘brain drain’

    This story is part of an ongoing series about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ policies and how they impact the people in his state. For full coverage, click here .

    GAINESVILLE — Having grown up in conservative West Virginia, Terry Harpold believes college is all about widening your horizons by experiencing different cultures and lifestyles. When Harpold, who’s an English professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, visited the Sarasota campus of New College last year with his daughter,
    Fast Company •

    Cara Delevingne sprays industrial wastewater on her face in her latest beauty campaign

    For Cara Delevingne, who’s been the face of Chanel, Burberry, and YSL, beauty campaigns now come as second nature. At first glance, her newest campaign seems like a typical one. But the face mist she applies on herself isn’t so typical. It’s made from wastewater from an energy production facility.

    That’s a byproduct of the green hydrogen produced by Vattenfall, a 114-year-old Swedish multinational energy company that is striving toward its goal of net-zero by 2040. The campaign aims to raise aw
    Fast Company •

    Tiny cars are all the rage in European cities. Could they ever work in America?

    While each is slightly distinct, they all refer to a miniature electric vehicle too small to be classified as a passenger car, but popular in European cities for their affordability, convenience, and lower carbon footprint. In the U.S., daintier vehicles are more golf cart-adjacent, moving at lower speeds and usually in suburban communities. But mixing them more broadly into urban transportation systems is challenging, due to safety concerns and the sprawling structure of many American cities. L
    Men's Health •

    A 'Chopped' Judge Reveals What Actually Happens on Set

    WHAT DO YOU get when you mix shrimp, asparagus, a blueberry waffle, and a can of haggis? Or, donuts, coconuts, cocktail sauce, and cod milt (that is, the fish’s sperm sac)? For most of us, a bout of nausea—but to the judges of Food Network’s Chopped, something usually edible and sometimes delectable, prepared by some of the country’s best chefs.

    That’s nothing new to fans of the show, on which chefs showcase their abilities to fashion a mishmash of bold and peculiar ingredients into restaurant-
    Fast Company •

    Anti 'woke' ESG policies are already costing taxpayers millions

    Since the start of the ESG movement about 20 years ago, critics and advocates alike have raised questions about ESG investing, which screens for impactful company policies with respect to the Earth, society, and corporate governance. There have been legitimate queries about investment returns and whether companies are actually achieving the social impacts they claim. But 2022 brought a new brand of backlash that’s purely political, painting ESG investing as “woke” and leading to red states dives
    Fast Company •

    Meet the 7 Chief Heat Officers who are making their cities more resilient

    One of the most overlooked emergencies of the climate crisis is extreme heat , which, research suggests, is killing more than 5 million people a year . Deaths from severe heat strokes and related complications increased 56% in the U.S. between 2018 and 2021, and that could only get worse across the globe as temperatures continue to soar.

    While it’s more complicated to mitigate climate change’s effects and drive down temperatures, it is possible to prevent heat deaths. Heat is making cities inho
    Fast Company •

    The truth about Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, and effective altruism

    More likely, you’re reading this in 2022. If so, chances are that eight years ago, you or some close friends dumped an entire bucket of ice water over your head and shared the footage on Facebook, with a $10 donation to the ALS Association. The research group reported that, in total, the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge raised $115 million for ALS, the deadly progressive neurodegenerative disease, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease. That sounds like a lot of people doing a lot of good. But if you’re an e
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