|
Journal
- Latest
entries
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
Archive
Journal entries prior to May 2008 can be found in the old archived site here
|
|
Journal: January, 2009
Display brief entries | Display full entries
Consumer Kids
Ed Mayo's new book launches at Museum of Childhood
29 January 2009
Exhibit 1: designed for small representatives of Homo volans
Sam and I trolled across to the V&A Museum of Childhood this evening for the launch of Mayo's new book, Consumer Kids. Basically the story of how big business is "grooming" children for profit. Had a wonderful scuttle around the exhibits, which brought back a wealth of childhood memories.... more >
Filmers of Oz
Shot for the Centre for Sustainable Leadership
29 January 2009
Did a filming session at Volans today, with a team from the Melbourne-based Centre for Sustainable Leadership, in Australia. At one point, it seemed, four cameras were in play, only two of them under the control of the film crew.... more >
European School of Management
28 January 2009
Went across to 76 Portland Place with Sam this evening to give the inaugural ESCP-EAP Environmental Lecture of Business, Sustainability & Technology, sponsored by Sony. The series is organised by the European School of Management. The photo above, taken by Sam, shows me looking 150 (still awaiting new glasses after cataract operations) and using a slide showing a version of the economic waves plotted by Nikolai Kondratiev, one of the biggest influences on my thinking in the late 1960s.... more >
SAM Plays It Again
Sustainable Asset Management summit
28 January 2009
Spent two days in Zurich at first Sustainable Asset Management (SAM) summit, arriving late on 26th - but in time to have a wonderful dinner with Alex Bakarwi and his wife, and Steve Viederman. Took a couple of walks along Lake Zurich, during one of which I stumbled across a huge statue called Heureka, which rang a bell - since I had been thinking of Eureka! moments. The summit was SAM founder Reto Ringger's swan-song - and saw the launch of the tenth annual survey of corporate sustainability. For downloadable version, try here. ... more >
Rabobank and sustainability
21 January 2009
Just back from a couple of days with Rabobank International, in Utrecht. Part of the discussion can be found here. With the banking sector in turmoil, this is a bank with its heart very definitely in the right place.... more >
A President for Future Generations
On reading a Gore-hugger's Inaugural Address
20 January 2009
I was in Tokyo on the day that Obama won the election, watching the results come in with people of many nations. Today I have been in Utrecht as the coverage of the Inaugural Address and parade came through on the BBC and CNN. Later, I read the speech. And I found it deeply moving, even if if not yet quite up to the punishing standard - how could it be - of Lincoln's Second Inaugural. ... more >
The (Foreign) Power of Unreasonable People
We begin to speak in tongues
19 January 2009
This is the best I can do from the Web on the cover of the Italian version of The Power of Unreasonable People, which arrived in the office today. Did another signing session for the US edition today, too. And this evening staggered home with my bag full not only of computers, cables, papers and magazines, but also a copy each of the US, Italian and Japanese editions of the book. More foreign editions are in the pipeline.
Plastiki to set sail into plastic sea
Probing an oceanic garbage dump five times size of Britain
18 January 2009
One of my favourite authors as a child was Thor Heyerdahl, with The Kon-Tiki Expedition profoundly shaping the way I thought of team-building, the natural environment and internationalism. Now David de Rothschild of Adventure Ecology is planning to set sail in the Plastiki, setting out on 28 April, the sixty-second anniversary of the start of the Kon-Tiki expedition. The Kon-Tiki, which is now the subject of its own museum, was built of balsa wood, the laster Ra II raft of reeds. On both, Heyerdahl could see evidence of the growing population of the oceans, because of their intimate contact with the blue face of the planet. The Plastiki will be built of more modern materials, empty plastic bottles encased in a plastic skin. The goal: to sail into an area of plastic debris that has accumulated between California and Hawaii, in an area of the northern Pacific gyre, an area five times the size of Britain. According to the Sunday Times today, of the 100 million tons of plastic produced each year, fully 10 per cent ends up in the oceans. ... more >
Office of Third Sector and Fifteen
In Winnie's erstwhile quarters
14 January 2009
Delightful dinner this evening at Admiralty House, London, hosted by the Office of the Third Sector - with excellent catering by Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen. In addition to social entrepreneurs I already knew - including Penny Newman (now of Fifteen), Nigel Kershaw of Big Issue Invest, Gib Bulloch of Accenture Development Partners and Reed Paget of Belu Water, I was delighted to meet people like Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa of Catch 22 Magazine and Sam Everington of Bromley By Bow. Many of them were Social Enterprise Ambassadors. Good chat, too, with Campbell Robb, who heads the Office of the Third Sector. Downturn very much in people's minds, but I found myself thinking of same rooms when occupied by Winston Churchill during WWII and my mood lightened considerably.... more >
Remembering Chico Mendes
In the Greenhouse, 20 Years On
13 January 2009
Never thought of myself as a diary-keeper, indeed had not kept a diary until 1989, when I completed a diary which was then turned into a book, A Year in the Greenhouse, by Victor Gollancz. The first entry, for Friday, 23 December 1988, began as follows" In today's world, a shotgun can sometimes be heard around the world." I then went on to talk about the assassination the previous day of Chico Mendes, who had fought to protect Brazil's rubber and brazil nut reserves against the depredations of loggers and cattle ranchers. Activists still run the risk of murder there.... more >
Slumdog Millionaire
Gaia's up in lights
12 January 2009
Gaia took a number of us to the Soho Curzon this evening to see Slumdog Millionaire, the film she has been working on at Celador. Wonderful to see her name rolling up in the credits at the end. Absolutely stunning film, though puts you through the emotional wringer any number of times on the way. The kiss on the scar will live on in my memory. Struck me that tthis could help raise awareness of a number of issues we have been associated with at Volans, particularly our work with Jeroo Billimoria's Aflatoun, which helps teach children (including slum and street children) - in India and elsewhere - how to manage what little money they do get their hands on. ... more >
Slumdog to Roka
An evening out - of this world
11 January 2009
Elaine, Gaia, Hania, Christine, Mickey and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire at the Curzon Soho this evening - in my case for the first time. Totally blown away. Then across to Roka in Charlotte Street for supper. On the way across, my camera seemed to take on a slightly slumdog personality.... more >
Freezing Catkins
A Touch of Frost in the Cotswolds
11 January 2009
Cotswold frost (Tim Elkington)
One of a series of images sent this morning by my father, showing hoar frost in their garden yesterday.
The Institute of Green Professionals
Following in the consilient footsteps of E. O. Wilson and Brian Milani
11 January 2009
As the fields opened out by pioneering social and environmental entrepreneurs begin to mainstream, we will see a secondary wave of professionalisation. Although I have tended to shy away from the conventional professional institutes in these fields, because they have often struck me as pursuing the narrow self-interests of particular groups of professionals or as being obsessed with strapping letters after people's names, I do see a growing need to network across the hugely diverse disciplines and fields that social entrepreneurship, human rights, cleantech, sustainable development and so on now embrace. Which is a key reason I was happy to accept this week the Honorary Fellowship offered by the Institute of Green Professionals, based in the USA.... more >
Earthrise + 40
From eels to the Moon
10 January 2009
I am often asked - most recently yesterday by a woman from the US - what got me into this space. And I often tell the story of the moonless nocturnal walk by the derelict flax ponds that had me standing in the mid-1950s in an elastic sheet of elvers, migrating from somewhere to somewhere. But that was a switching on to the natural environment, which could have led me into the world of pure conservation. I took a different path, towards environmentalism - and a critical influence was the cascade of images of Earth from space, notably Earthrise, the fortieth anniversary of whose publication falls this year.... more >
Albina Ruiz Rios
One of 25 Intelligent Optimists spotlighted in Ode
10 January 2009
 ... more >
Hawthorn hedging
A rare sighting on Barnes Common
02 January 2009
Walking across Barnes Common today, we came across a section of new hawthorn hedging, done by BTCV volunteers. Wonderful to see, too rarely seen these days, and will keep an eye on it all as it, hopefully, regenerates. Always remember sticking in a short length of willow to stake a rose some 40 years ago, at Hill House, and seeing the stake grow into a 50- or 60-foot tree. Reassuring. Otherwise have been alternating today between doing a little work, reading, watching films, thinking about digging out the compost and reaching out to old friends and new on Facebook.... more >
|
|
