Just back from first trip to Shanghai. Stayed at the Grand Keminski Hotel. Speaking at the Tongji Sustainability Forum, where I was alongside Carbon Productivity champions Richard Northcote of Covestro and Perry Yang of Tongji and Georgia Tech. Have written a GreenBiz piece inspired by the trip, which I will post here when it appears.
Journal
A May Of Marvels
As I breathe a little ahead of a trip to Shanghai on Tuesday, have been reflecting on the month to date.
Marvels this month have included a trip across to Little Rissington to help Pat and Tim celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary on 8 May; the discovery of the Wellcome Trust Reading Room (and booking it for the Volans 10th birthday party); an extraordinary learning journey with the team to visit projects developed by one of my favourite social entrepreneurs, Agamemnon Otero, and his teams at Energy Garden and Repowering London; and the co-hosting yesterday at Imperial College of our carbon capture event with Noah Deich and his team from the Centre for Carbon Removal.
But the top story by several country miles has to be the birth of our first grandchild on 22 May: Gene August Lushington. Wonderful to meet him on Thursday at University College Hospital.
Hania called him ‘Thumper’ when in the womb, because he was so active. One of my colleagues, Lorraine Smith, noted that Thumper the rabbit in Watership Down warned of incoming challenges, so maybe a case of like grandfather, like grandson?
Time For A Wall Street WCKD Ticker
For most people, a “ticker” has to do with clocks, hearts or bombs. But for anyone familiar with stock market capitalism, the term suggests the unique code assigned to each security traded on a given stock market — for example, AAPL for Apple Inc., BAC for Bank of America, F for the Ford Motor Company.
My modest proposal is for a secondary ticker to be applied by governments and stock exchanges to all companies vulnerable to risks associated with so-called “wicked” problems. And the obvious ticker symbol, whether on the Wall Street, London or Shanghai stock exchanges, would be WCKD.
For more, see GreenBiz, here.
Carbon Productivity, Star Of New Breakthrough Video
Our latest video explores the semi magical world of Carbon Productivity. Take a look.
Strandbeest Sunday
A gloriously sunny Bank Holiday, so am alternately sitting out and working on various writing tasks, including a project for Pat & Tim’s 70th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Just came across Theo Jansen and his Strandbeest, quixotic wind-powered animalistic sculptures that perambulate along beaches. Stunning!