One reason I have been quiet for a while has been the holidays – and the fact that I am working on my new book, my twentieth if all goes well. But another reason has been a form of purdah required by the negotiations, over quite some time, through which ERM acquired SustainAbility.
Have been receiving lovely messages since the announcement was made at 16.00 GMT today, from current team members at SustainAbility and alumni, and from others around the world.
As the press release note:
Founded in 1987, SA has helped define and evolve the sustainable development agenda and the role of business within it. Throughout its history, it has worked with business and stakeholders to enable a more just and sustainable economy.
I still had five years to run at SustainAbility when I began this blog back in 2003. But it has now been 32 years since Julia Hailes and I, with help from Tom Burke, founded the organisation – which spent its first 2.5 years in our family home in Barnes, before fledging and moving off to the People’s Hall, north of Notting Hill.
Some people say time flies by, but all that seems centuries ago. In fact it was in the last century, before the Internet and while the Berlin Wall was widely seen to be eternal.
Too soon to know how all of this will turn out, but I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my long-standing friend and colleague Geoff Lye, to other Board members and to Executive Directors Rob Cameron and Mark Lee, and to the literally hundreds of people who have worked with SustainAbility over the decades. I am proud to still call many of them friends – and am seriously proud of the work we have done together since 1987.
Geoff signing the documents
Geoff and I celebrating, with Sam and Louise the other side of the table
