EMERGE, ENEL, GRI, WTO ETC

Another week that was

Amy and Jack Sim Jack, me Charmian holds forth at EMERGE Sara Parkin’s foot Peter Randall Page sculptures at Said Business School

Ice was spreading across Barnes Pond as I walked home this evening after spending the day at the EMERGE conference in Oxford, my session involving a conversation with Solarcentury CEO Jeremy Leggett. Twitter stream here. Charmian (Love) did an excellent session on how-to-get-into-this-sector this morning, during which I sat on the floor next to Forum for the Future co-founder Sara Parkin – and Amy (Birchall) is involved tomorrow. Great discussion with David Grayson this afternoon on a new project we’re planning at Volans, which broke some sort of logjam in my brain.

As often happens with events in Oxford, Volans happily served as a stopover for migrating entrepreneurs – and we had a great session yesterday with Jack Sim of the World Toilet Organization (WTO).

Earlier in the week, on Wednesday and Thursday, I was in Rome, speaking at a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) organisational stakeholder meeting at ENEL’s HQ in Rome. Italy seems to be developing quite an appetite for sustainability reporting. ENEL’s Luigi Ferraris gave one of the most engaging speeches I have ever seen as CFO do, noting that 5% of the energy company’s are now owned by socially responsible investment (SRI) firms.

Loved the stone pines lining the streets as various taxis whisked me around the city, ignoring jams by streaking down tram-tracks, the drivers vigorously texting as they screeched one-handed around corners.

Next time I’ll take my cycle, I think, though had to take that into the cycle shop during the week, because the combination of the sheer weight of stuff I typically carry around in my panniers and the increasingly aggressive potholes that are eating up the London streetscape had created metal fatigue – and a strut gave way as I sped home on Thursday evening. Love the cycle shop, Holdworth’s. Bought a tiny, resonant bell that they had lying around in the workshop for a while, which means I won’t now need to use my industrial klaxon , except in extremis.