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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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Raiders, Copenhagen, Stuttgart & X Prize

John Elkington · 20 March 2016 · Leave a Comment

Queen Victoria attends in Imperial College reception
Queen Victoria attends in Imperial College reception
Somewhat tattered: a V&A poster outside V&A
Somewhat tattered: a Royal Albert Hall poster outside the Hall
A motto on Copenhagen shopfront
A striking, timely motto on Copenhagen shopfront
'Darth Vader' staircase inside UN City
‘Darth Vader’ staircase inside UN City
A brief interposition comfort zone for Ingvild and Ole
A brief intersession comfort zone for Ingvild and Ole
Erik's poster
Erik’s poster – which Branson like a lot, apparently, cradling it on his lap …
Spring cranes
Spring cranes
Part of team mirrored
Part of our team mirrored
Nearby wings
Nearby wings
Window in my Admiral room as I leave for airport
Window in my Admiral Hotel room as I leave for airport
BA wings outside their Stuttgart lounge
BA wings outside their Stuttgart lounge, as I wait for London flight
Tim and Boo ply with iPhone
Tim and Boo play with his iPhone
An app, we discover, that takes one person's face and transposes it onto someone else's head - and vice versa
An app, we discover, that takes one person’s face and transposes it onto someone else’s head – and vice versa

Delightful Saturday afternoon with Hania, Gaia, Paul and Jake at the Royal Albert Hall, seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark with a live orchestra. On the way there, I took Elaine around Imperial College, which she hadn’t been into before. Outside, the Imperial College Chamber Choir was doing a cappella pop songs, which was really quite extraordinarily good. All the while, a small girl keep popping out of the door at the top of the stairs into the Polish Club on  the other side of the road.

Then, on Sunday, across to Copenhagen with Richard and Sam for our 3-day session with the UN Global Compact, particularly Ole Lund Hansen, Ingvild Sørensen and Rosedel Davies-Adewebi. Great dinner on the Sunday evening with Ole and Ingvild, at Höst – with extraordinarily good Nordic cuisine.

On Monday evening, I took Susanne Stormer of Novo Nordisk to dinner at Uformel, which she suggested. Also great, as was the Vietnamese restaurant, LêLê, which we ate at on Tuesday evening.

The work went brilliantly well, with the team working very well together. Fascinating session with Erik Rasmussen of Monday Morning, during which I filmed an interview for our Breakthrough Innovation Program. Then I had to unhook first thing on Wednesday morning to fly to Stuttgart for Bosch.  Sadly, a trip that should have taken a few hours took over 8 when SAS cancelled my flight, with no explanation.

Great session with Bosch, where I spoke to a couple of hundred senior executives, including a couple of Board members – and then had a fascinating dinner with them afterwards.

Flew back to London the next morning, among other things for a session with Paul Bunje of the X Prize Foundation, which was immensely invigorating. Key input for our UN Global Compact work, with a scouting trip coming up to San Francisco and LA.

Great lunch, too, with Jamie Broderick, Howard Kemp and Giles Sibbald of UBS Wealth Management on Friday, which meant we were a little late back for a session with Cathy Runciman  and Lisa Goldapple of Atlas of the Future – but that went wonderfully well, too.

Then yesterday, Saturday, Elaine and I drove across to Little Rissington, to see Pat, Tim and Caroline. He is recovering from broken ribs again, after a fall. An interesting session with iPhones with Gray’s oldest son, variously known as Boo, Aston and Kipp. These phones can do so much wonderful work, with the quality of the video recording for our interviews quite extraordinary by historic standards.

Home lateish, where I watched the episode of The Night Manager I had missed when flying to Denmark last Sunday morning. Stunningly good.

Then this morning I awoke early, in the midst of a dream about interrupting a very senior person who was telling a group of us how to right the world. I banged my hand on the table and thanked him for his provocation, saying that I had cracked the problem. And then, when I woke up, it turned out that a sequence of ideas in my head were actually quite useful. I promptly hurried to capture them on my crack-faced BlackBerry.

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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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