CSR 2.0 in Athens

Zappeion Chairs Wayne Visser discusses BP disaster Angel in the bushes … … as Wayne interviews me Front cover picture (detail) of EuroCharity Yearbook 2007, post-fires

Just back from Athens, where was a speaker at the CSR 2.0: CEO & CSR Money Conference held in the Zappeion building. Arrived late yesterday at the Royal Olympic Hotel and was very struck by the view of a Roman temple from my bedroom window. Had meant to have breakfast on the roof terrace, overlooking the Acropolis, but had to get my suit pressed this morning – and decided I couldn’t trudge around the hotel in a dressing gown.

Last night, had a nice drink by the hotel pool with Peter Michel Heilmann (President) and Michael Spanos (Managing Partner) of EuroCharity, to discuss the conference, their work and possible joint projects. They gave me copies of the EuroCharity Yearbooks for 2007 and 2008, the first of which features a beautiful – but dreadful – image on its cover, of a statue that survived the devastating fires that swept across Greece in 2006. Arson was at the root of many of the fires, spurred by a desire to develop – though anyone who looks at the Greek landscape today and knows what it was like in classical times must wonder what these particular Greeks imagine anyone will come to see in the future. Logging, goats and fires have put paid to much of what made the country liveable in the pre-oil (and air-conditioning) era.

Interesting conference, focusing on transparency, accountability, reporting and the impact of social media. Though slightly weird to see other people using images I developed at SustainAbility and/or Volans in their presentations, with no referencing or credit. Met a number of people I want to follow up with – and, despite the landscape trends, was reminded of just how much I like this part of the world.

It is now exactly 40 years since I was last in Athens, when Elaine, four friends and I took my family’s Land-Rover around the mainland and islands for a couple of months. Then the Colonels were in everyone’s minds, today it’s the financial collapse. In my speech, I spotlighted the role that corruption has played in this latest tragedy – and suggested that the addresses of the developers who exploit future fires should be published on the Internet.

Finished Ben Macintyre’s wonderfully engaging book Operation Mincemeat on the flight from Amsterdam to Athens, and got a hundred pages into Robert McCrum’s Globish (the story of how English became the world’s language) on the flight back today. Always slightly suspicious, though, when I read a book on a subject which at least one author has written brilliantly on before – in this case Bill Bryson, in his stunning Mother Tongue – and there is no mention of that earlier work. May be nothing in it.