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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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The Power Of The Tree-Hugger

John Elkington · 10 January 2016 · Leave a Comment

An eviction under way, Tot Hill, uploaded to Wikipedia by NickW
An eviction at Tot Hill in 1996, uploaded to Wikipedia by NickW

There are many things that have made me proud of our daughters over the years, but with Gaia one of them was her role in the anti-motorway protests of the 1990s. She was involved in the Newbury Bypass protests, then arrested and imprisoned in Scotland for protesting the opening of the M77.

I remember the day well. I had been chairing an Environment Foundation conference at St George’s House, inside the walls of Windsor Castle. Towards the end, one of the business delegates asked what would happen when every environmentalist was “inside the tent,” with no-one “throwing rocks from the outside?” (He felt that the external pressure was vital to ensure progress.)

My reply was that he shouldn’t fret: there would always be people willing to apply external pressure.

Later that same night, back at home, we were woken by a call from a gruff Glaswegian police officer – and asked if we had a daughter called Gaia? We then learned that six young people had chained themselves to the M77 central reservation just as it was opened by the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Gaia and her colleagues, we were told, were to be detained at her Majesty’s pleasure. The laws on detaining young people appear to different in Scotland.

Allowed just one phone call, Gaia phoned her director of studies at Edinburgh University to say she was going to miss her first year University exams, due to being in police custody for an act of civil disobedience. The charge: “wilful and reckless behaviour.” He promptly sent her a hand-drawn cartoon showing her in leg-irons – and rescheduled the exams.

The saga rattled on for around a year, but in the end (pursued by the government, but protected by the police) they got off scot-free.

Now the BBC is asking whether all that tree-hugging achieved anything? And the answer, the broadcaster suggest,s is that it most certainly did. The Newbury protestors may have lost the immediate battle, but they won the war. Very few major new roads were built for a generation.

In the same way, some people are quick to say that the Occupy movement failed, but I’m not so sure. First, it sent an immediate and unmistakable message to those in power, but, second, it also helped a new generation get a taste for activism. And the right sort of activism is as essential to a modern democracy as high quality education, sustainable transport and, yes, good policing.

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Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

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About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

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john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

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