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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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To Barcelona For Ship2B Impact Forum

John Elkington · 3 December 2017 · 1 Comment

Coming in to land on Wednesday
Things looking up
Looking back: Plaça de Sant Felip Neri (see below)
More looking up
Walking across to the old Olympics zone for supper
Memories of Kodak moments, after the extinction event
At the Mazda Space, revving up for Impact Forum
Entrepreneurs lining up to speak
Ship2B co-founders Maite (Fibla) and Carla (Navarro)
Carla and Maite on left, Leonora (Buckland) and Xavier (Pont) on right
Layered history: ruins discovered below the central market building
Heading back to London on Thursday evening

Great couple of days in Barcelona, speaking at the Ship2B Foundation‘s Impact Forum. Picked up from the hotel by Ship2B co-founder Xavi(er) Post and taken on a long perambulation around the city.

One of the places we passed through was Plaça de Sant Felip, with its extensively pockmarked walls. Was told that this was where executions were carried out in the Civil War, but the size of the impact holes had me thinking of the bomb damage we still see in London – so was interested to see this blog later. Interesting how stories can mutate.

Fascinating visit to the City Council to see Francesca Bria, Barcelona’s chief technology and digital innovation officer. We share interests in such people as Nikolai Kondratiev and Joseph Schumpeter, Chris Freeman and Carlota Perez, and Manuel Castells.

Really enjoyed the 2017 Impact Forum on Thursday, themes around ‘Change Is Happening’ and held in the Mazda Space, alongside the old central market building – which is where we had lunch. Sadly, I had to be whipped away to be taken across to the airport.

As we arrived at the airport, I suddenly realised that my assertion that I had only once been to Barcelona before, in 1968, en route to Ibiza, was wrong. I have spoken at least one of the local business schools, but many years back. Checking back through this blog, I found an entry for 18 February 2004, on a visit to speak at ESADE.

I’m beginning to wish for a biochip memory implant …

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Comments

  1. Lorraine Smith says

    3 December 2017 at 3:01 pm

    Very interesting and a great call out re the real origins of those pock-marked walls. I wonder how many other places we’re carrying around the wrong explanation for things?

    I was in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympics–feels like yesterday/ages ago at the same time. Great to see it again now through your eyes.

    Thanks for sharing this!

    Reply

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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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