Journal

On 10 January, we opened our doors – or, rather, the doors of Aviva Investors’ HQ conference centre at 1 Undershaft, aka ‘The Trellis’ – for over 300 delegates taking part in the Tomorrow’s Capitalism Forum.

As they arrived, they came downstairs through a portal fashioned by our oldest daughter, Gaia, made out of reclaimed plant materials. The central element picked up the overarching theme of flight and uplift, which would be centre-stage towards the end of the event.

In the event, the Forum – kicked off by Volans CEO Louise Kjellerup Roper and Tomorrow’s Capitalism Inquiry Lead Richard Roberts – proved to be a runaway success. And people loved the laser-cut wooden badges, one of which is shown below, featuring the Volans hummingbird logo:

The plenary sessions were also filmed – and Volans will be posting edited footage shortly. My own write-up on this blog has been slowed by the fact that we have been rebooting my website, ahead of a relaunch next week. But here are some highlights that have stuck in my memory – as we introduced the idea of the 2020s as “The Exponential Decade.”

That said, and speaking of reclaimed materials, I tackled exponentiality in my opening presentation by going back to Lester Brown’s work – particularly his 1978 book The Twenty-Ninth Day – to spotlight how poorly equipped our brains are to detect and respond to exponential trends. He was a huge influence on my own thinking – and I had the pleasure of meeting him several times, both in Davos and Washington, D.C.

You have almost certainly heard the riddle Brown based that book on. If waterlilies go from a standing start to clogging an entire lake, on what day is the lake surface half-covered? You guessed it.

The same theme of exponentiality was central to later presentations, including that given by Dr Catherine Tubb of RethinkX, spotlighting their work on radically different mobility solutions and, most recently, the coming disruption of the cow and cow-based industry sectors. Her point was underscored by the following slide, showing increasingly exponential adoption of a range of new technologies:

A series of quick-fire panel sessions drew on the collective wisdom of some stellar speakers, covering ways to step up personally, organisationally, financially, politically and systemically.

Speakers came from such organisations as Aviva Investors, The Body Shop International, the Capital Institute, the CBI, Climate-KIC, Conservation Without Borders, Covestro, Forum for the Future, the Good Growth Company, the Impact Management Project, Neste, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), the UK Green Building Council and Women for Women International. Glimpses of some of the sessions follow:

The quality of the discussions and the audience participation was impressive. And the audience numbers held constant throughout the day – a testament to real audience engagement. Some early conclusions can be found here in a summary from Richard Roberts.

Then I took over again for the final session, focusing on the rise of the Green Swan agenda – and announcing the first two prototype Green Swan Awards. They went to Sir Tim Smit of the Eden Project and Sacha Dench, aka the “Human Swan”. Details can be found here.

Here are some images from that session, including Louise (Kjellerup Roper) thanking everyone for coming – and steering them towards the evening reception.

Here are my reflections on the likely peaking of what I call the ‘Greta Wave’, published today in Ethical Corporation. And some thoughts on what might come next.

Cloud capping Box Hill as we arrived at the Denbies wine estate, where an age-old friend, Kate Pocock, was waiting to steer us around the landscape. Elaine and she worked at Oxford University Press back in the now distant day.

Exquisite winter, spring-like, weather. Wine growing in England is a rare upside of the growing climate emergency, though I hear some continental wineries are now buy land in places as far north as Norway. How long before these bucolic acres are arid wastelands?

The first Green Swan Prize(s) will be announced at our 10 January 2020 event in London, entitled Tomorrow’s Capitalism: Step Up – Or Get Out Of The Way. The linked agenda for change was trailed at our Green Swan Day event at the Barnes Wetland Centre on 23 June.

Meanwhile, we have been working on the trophy with sculptor Nicola Godden. So yesterday Elaine and I drove across to Dockenfield, near Frensham, to meet Nicola and her husband, Michael Rutherford. Love her work, so loved her studio. Afterwards we all had an excellent lunch at The Holly Bush in Frensham.

I first came across Nicola’s work, without knowing who the artist was, when her huge Uncle Sam-like Hammersmith Man was draped across the top floor of a high-rise office building by the Hammersmith flyover, where Polygram used to be based. I have also long loved her sculpture of Sir Peter Scott, which stands outside the Barnes Wetland Centre.

Here are some images from yesterday:

Across to Geneva on Wednesday night with Richard (Roberts) for a WBCSD session on its Vision 2050 Refresh project. Then a train ride on Tuesday morning with Richard and Julian Hill-Landholt of WBCSD to Vevey, chez Nestlé. Duncan Pollard of Nestlé has seen a recent piece Richard and I had done for a Sustainable Development Goal yearbook and decided it would be a useful provocation.

Bumped into Caroline Seow of the Family Business Network International as we boarded the train – and she and I shuttled back and forth to see each other, at first thinking we were going to the same meeting – and then realising we weren’t.

Great to team up with Peter Bakker for the Vevey session, though it seems we are both feeling equally frustrated with the pace of progress in this space – even with the COP25 climate summit, now moved to Spain from Chile because of the riots in the latter country (even if Spain has had its moments recently with Catalonia), imminent.

Then in too the office yesterday, Friday, despite the ongoing train strike in London (though to date it hasn’t much affected me) and the fact that Fridays are now work-from-home days. First to have lunch with Clara Barby of the Impact Management Project, then an impromptu meeting with Luke Nicholson, and later a get-together with Simone Amber (who I once worked with when she was with Schlumberger, developing her SEED initiative aimed at the educational sector) and her sons, Jonathan (who works with the OECD) and Oliver (Bloomberg News).