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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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And That Was February

John Elkington · 5 March 2017 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday, having seen the film Hidden Figures (staggeringly good, profoundly moving) at the Olympic Cinema in Barnes, we wandered across to Barnes Books, where I bought a copy of Lincoln In The Bardo. Anything to distract me from the continuing antics of the weasel in the White House.

Like January, February zoomed past, with a huge amount of work cranking through the Volans realm – all in the context of the rise of new forms of populism, covered in our latest Volans Salon, held on 31 January. Martin Wright, formerly of Forum for the Future, co-hosted an evening with some 25 people from the wider London  ecosystem.

On 2 February Gaia, Paul, Hania, Jake and I celebrated Elaine’s 70th birthday at Brasserie Zédel: a wonderful evening. And a very welcome distraction from the continuing saga of the kitchen floor, where first hot water pipes have forces us to have the floor taken up. Over a month now of being reduced to a concrete floor.

Other highlights of the month included: chairing a Crowd event on our ‘Social X‘ agenda on the 6th; a lunch with Nicolai Tangen of AKO Capital on the 7th, followed by the launch event for the Science Museum’s Robots exhibition; attending the IntelligenceSquared/Nature Conservancy event called ‘Nature, Our Best Climate Technology‘ on the 9th;

On the 10th we drove across to Little Rissington to see the Hill House ecosystem, then back to a blizzard of events. These included meetings with people like Interface VP Erin Meezan, chairing a session at a WWF event on the Government’s Industrial Strategy in the ICAEW Great Hall on the 21st, followed by an Ecosequestration Trust Board meeting across at Imperial College; a Chilean day on the 23rd, with a visit from Angelica Cortes, followed by lunch with Maria Jesús Nilo at the British Museum Great Court restaurant; then Richard Roberts and I did a 2-hour Leaders’ Quest session for senior Cemex executives at the Building Centre on the 24th; and I was back in the ICAEW Great Hall on 1 March to chair another session, this time for the UKSSD (UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development) annual conference.

 

And then we’re in March already, with a Hüman After All party on the evening of the 2nd and a fascinating lunch at the Gilbert Scott restaurant in the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel with Patrick Thomas of Covestro.

Brought my bike and bunch of pictures back home from the office in a taxi on the 3rd. End of an era with the bike, but after six serious accidents since 1974 it’s probably time to hang up my helmet, at least for central London cycling.

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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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