John Elkington Journal

Empire of the Summer Moon

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:51:00 GMT

Having been interested in the Native American Indians for decades, and having seen Hollywood films like The Searchers in my teens, at the local RAF cinema with an early girlfriend, I wasn't expecting this book, Empire of the Summer Moon, to be quite so overwhelming.... more >

Knitting on the Arctic Convoys

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:43:00 GMT

Sir John points out a ceiling feature

Asia House stairwell (detail)

Ahead of the Japanese study tour to London that Volans is organising for next week with the British Council, I went across to Asia House, a co-host, for lunch today - with their Chairman, Sir John Boyd. Wonderful, unseasonally balmy day. We dined a deux in the library - and I confess I fell in love with both Asia House and him.... more >

Friends of the Earth is 40

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:47:00 GMT

Painting in Heaven 1

Painting in Heaven 2

Paint still drying on the bees

General view of Heaven 1

Flying back to front

General view 2

Painting's nearly done

Had been slightly dreading the Friends of the Earth 40th birthday celebration in the nightclub Heaven, under the arches at Charing Cross, but it was a delight from the moment we met. One thing they did was get us all to write our names on Post-It notes of different colours. Green was for those involved in the 1970s, in our case from around 1971-2. Elaine volunteered then, while between jobs in publishing, and I passed through in a number of guises, including as a member of a group called 'Planners Against Growth'. ... more >

Virgin Media's Time Machine

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:05:00 GMT

Virgin Media have launched their video interviews with various sustainability pioneers. I was filmed on the front steps of 2 Bloomsbury Place - and in the back garden. My profile features the cover of Surfin' USA by The Beach Boys, the first album I ever bought. That was 1963, that was.... more >

Virgin Unite and Long Finance

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:19:00 GMT

A Jim Benson Award

A wall

Top of a table

Great meeting on our TEDx event in May with Ellie Springett of Virgin Unite, which involved walking through Hammersmith and Brook Green - past St Paul's Girls School, where both the girls went a lifetime or two ago. Odd overlapping of time zones in one's mind. Then back to the office and across, with Sam, to the City to see Michael Mainelli of Z/Yen, Long Finance and the London Accord. They are now in the old Gresham College building, which is lovely. Michael describes Gresham College as a Tudor version of the Open University. Truly fascinating conversation, after which Sam and I headed back to Volans for a meeting with Susan Spector McPherson of Fenton Communications. A meeting of minds.... more >

2 Degrees Summit

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:11:00 GMT

My table

View from my end of the afternoon panel

The Shard by day, as I head back to the office

The Shard by night, as I head home after the dinner

Across to the Royal Mint early for a 2 Degrees summit. Struck by the sheer number of faces I didn't know, a symptom of the process of sustainability mainstreaming that is under way. Was part of a panel of speakers includinding people from companies like BMW, BP, Sainsbury's and Tesco, chaired by 2 Degrees founder Martin Chilcott.... more >

Andrew Witty of GSK at Cranfield

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:23:00 GMT

Sir Andrew Witty takes questions

Up to Cranfield University yesterday, after a busy day, for the annual Pears Business Schools Partnership lecture - this time by GSK CEO Sir Andrew Witty. Brilliant lecture, excellent Q&A, during which I asked a question about extent to which GSK's competitors were picking up on the access to medicines agenda, and then a dinner with faculty before being driven back to London with Ramil Burden, who heads Sir Andrew's office. Great conversation, at least as far as I was concerned.... more >

Friday the Thirteenth

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:36:00 GMT

I seem to have gone slightly mute on the blog front here, partly because of pace of work - among other things, I have been finishing off the galley proofs of my new book, The Zeronauts for the editor, who is working on the book in Nova Scotia, where she and her family live alongside coyotes and barred owls. Have also been pouring thought into the TEDx event we're planning for May and into future plans for Volans.... more >

Apologies for Unintended Blog Postings

Fri, 6 Jan 2012 08:46:00 GMT

For some reason, the new website updating process developed by my webmaster in New Zealand - which I used for the first time over the holiday break - seems to have resulted in all the changes I did to other sections of the website being posted as blogs. My apologies for those using RSS feeds - and I have asked him to take a look and sort out as quickly as possible.... more >

Sir Robert Horton

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 08:49:00 GMT

Interested to see an obituary in today's London Times for Sir Robert Horton, who has died aged 72. I came across him when he was Chairman of BP, a job he had once famously said he wanted - if he couldn't become Prime Minister. Sometime at the very beginning of the 1990s, he invited me to be a judge for his Chairman's Gold Awards for environmental excellence, which were open for submissions from right across the company.... more >

The 2022 Horizon

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:20:00 GMT

My last blog of 2011 for the Guardian Sustainable Business website raises the question whether we should declare a Decade for Sustainable Capitalism? Links to the TEDx event we are working on for next year, and for the Manifesto that David Blood and Al Gore of Generation Investment Management have trailed in The Wall Street Journal.... more >

DESSO, RAI and RAU

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:57:00 GMT

Some awards at DESSO

Ralph prowls around the reception space

Michael Porter on the big screen

Rubik's Cubes at the Value Chain event

Sculpture at RAU

Turn Too brochure at RAU

Very interesting visit today to DESSO, where we met CEO Stef Kranendijk and some of his colleagues. Then back to Amsterdam's RAI Centre for a major event on sustainable supply chains, though the session we saw yesterday - with Michael Porter beamed in from NYC - was very much more interesting than the one we went to this afternoon, which was billed as how to get companies from 5-10% sustainability solutions to 90-95% solutions. But, sadly, the stories we heard - though well intentioned - were operating at lower levels of ambition. Then a fascinating visit to the architectural firm RAU, another champion of the Cradle-to-Cradle approach. They explained their turn too approach. Liked them - and their thinking.... more >

Around TNT's HQ

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:55:00 GMT

Gandhi quote

Sculpture and sunset

Carpet - by InterfaceFlor, Desso told me

Part of atrium

Another view

Later in the day, we visited TNT's new HQ, billed as the most sustainable office building in Europe. More details here. Loved the quotations engraved on internal windows. The first quotation I saw engraved on a window inside the building was Mahatma Gandhi’s “You must be the change you want to see the world. Then I came across Nelson Mandela’s “It always seems impossible until it is done.” And Thomas Edison’s “There is no substitute for hard work.” Then, turning a corner, I encountered Richard Branson: "Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from their parents and they from their parents. It is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world." I also liked the thinking behind the suite of four rooms called John, Paul, George and Ringo - which can be merged together, to form a larger space known as The Beatles.... more >

Mission Zero

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 23:26:00 GMT

Ray Anderson and Paul Hawken's book 'The Ecology of Commerce' in case

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist

Spools, or are they bobbins?

Ralph

People Making History

80% there by 2012, it says

That's why

Biomimicry 1: Ralph peers at Pangolin case - alongside shell of a real pangolin

Biomimicry 2: Boxfish and box-shaped car

Fishing net used as source of recycled polymers

Great trip today with Ralph Thurm of Deloitte Innovation to InterfaceFlor. Had been meaning to visit them for many years, either in Holland or the US, but - despite a couple of invitations from company founder Ray Anderson - events have always conspired to deny me the opportunity. Wonderful people and fascinating stories of their efforts to evolve Ray's Mission Zero. He's sadly missed.... more >

Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 22:41:00 GMT

The Lion of Knidos at the British Museum

Lion 2

Superhumility: Grayson Perry's motorbike

Ceramic 1

Crashed F-86 Sabre features on this one

A gathering of heavens and afterworlds

One of my favourite icons of modern architecture

Sutton Hoo helmet and shield

Cyrus Cylinder

The fishes again

Fellow fish fetishist

Christmas fair on Barnes Pond as we return

While the Eurozone timbers shivered, and David Cameron seemed keen to take the UK off into inglorious isolation, protecting the interests of the bankers and othersd who did so much to trigger this crisis in the first place, went to see the Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum, The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman. Helped put a very different complexion on things. Can't recommend it highly enough.... more >

Impetus, Forum for the Future, FIRST, IIRC, IIED ...

Thu, 8 Dec 2011 22:34:00 GMT

Frieze as we stop in to an arts materials shop on way back from Guardian

SustainAbility and IIRC webinar

Jessica Fries and I

IIED, where even the floor is green

Etched glass in an IIED door

Plastic ducks used to denote whether people are in or out

Crystal ball: an award, I think

Ducks, again

Stephen Lloyd, our lawyer, waves as he passes

Thinkers

Bushed

Writing on the walls

Screens in IIED reception

A week of shuttling back and forth between London-based organisations, for all sorts of reasons - including the Impetus Trust (which is in Flaxman Terrace, a building or two along from the UCL Bartlett School, where I did my MPhil in the early 1970s, when it was the School of Environmental Studies), Forum for the Future's Christmas party, the First Magazine Awards for Responsible Capitalism (where their website seems well behind the times), SustainAbility (for an Engaging Stakeholders webinar on integrated reporting, where I duo'd with Jessica Fries of the International Integrated Reporting Committee) and IIED's new building in Gray's Inn Road, for their Christmas party. IIED's building is very impressive--spent some time talking to the architect, Phyllida Mills, of Peynore & Prasad.... more >

Roast Jellyfish Instead of Turkey at Christmas?

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 18:05:00 GMT

My Christmas dinner blog is the lead story on the Guardian Sustainable Business website today. Draws on a panel discussion on the Christmas dinner of 2050 as a way of looking at different futures. My panel started off as the underdog, but came out on top, through fair means and foul.... more >

The Future of the Christmas Dinner

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:08:00 GMT

The panel prepares

Dax Lovegrove of WWF and Nick Roberts (second along, of Atkins) are my sidekicks

Charmian (Love) with Nick and Elspeth (Finch) of Atkins

I sum up for 'Less is More'

Took part in a panel discussion at the BMA hosted by Atkins this evening, with rival teams proposing 'Less is More' (our side) and 'Laissez-faire' (the other side). A summary of the event, which we won, can be found in the form of a blog on the Guardian Sustainable Business website. Afterwards on to a lively dinner with speakers and others.... more >

6 Heads in Somerset House

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:51:00 GMT

There is no such things as a sustainable business

Tom and I

Audience begins to assemble

The panel - and the 6 Heads, on screen: Mike, Carmen, me, Tom, Sonia, Isabella

Mike Tennant in full flow

Like butterflies, ideas pinned to wall

The problem is scaling up ...

A period of experimentation

Go to the edge

Across to Somerset House for a session organised by 6 Heads, a new venture set up by four of the Imperial College students who interned with us this year (Hannah Griffiths, Isabella Gaupmann, Nicola Millson, Sonia Naran) and two others (Ilana Taub, Nicola Robinson). They had done a brilliant job, not only in attracting a standing-room-only audience, and I really enjoyed the discussion with Tom Burke of E3G. A shot in the arm.... more >

CloudApps, Shark and Belly-Dancer

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:49:00 GMT

Shark

Lionfish, I think

And what are these?

Walked across to the House of St Barnabas in Greek Street early this evening, for an event organised by CloudApps. En route, the Geoffs (Lye and Kendall), Patrin (Watanatada), Sam (Lakha) and I walked past some wonderful articulated shark and assorted fish in the shop window in Shaftsbury Avenue.... more >