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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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Orri Vigfússon: Green Capitalist

John Elkington · 29 July 2017 · Leave a Comment

Via Wikipedia and The Green Interview

Orri Vigfússon said that he was “a new kind of environmentalist. I don’t take the moral high road.” Instead, as his obituary in The Times on 29 July noted, he described himself as a “green capitalist”.

When I wrote The Green Capitalists, published 30 years ago in 1987, I had to cast around for people who truly fitted the label. Vigfússon, who I sadly never met, did – and in a number of dimensions. A key element of his work was to buy up fishing rights from trawler owners and others whose activities were leading to the possible extinction of the Atlantic salmon, the “King of Fish.”

Useful background on his career can be found here – while reactions to the news of his death can be found here.

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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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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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