Still routinely amazed by the Elizabeth Line, which I took this morning to arrive early in Woolwich for the 2024 (fourth) edition of the Blue Earth Summit. And the regeneration of this area of Woolwich itself proved a very pleasant surprise, given that it’s probably more than 50 years since I was last here, when I was looking into urban regeneration while at UCL. The process seems to have been wonderfully well handled, at least aesthetically.
I initially thought Peter Burke’s Assembly sculptures down by the river wall were Antony Gormley’s. Given that many of the figures seemed to be slightly eviscerated, I also thought the piece might be a commentary on the damage caused by the Arsenal’s weaponry over the centuries. But I appear to have been wrong on both counts.
Very much enjoyed the session involving Jamie Arbib of RethinkX – and fascinated to hear from him about his forthcoming new book. Very much aligned with where my own brain seems to be headed these days.
Then came our session, on ‘The Future of Environmentalism’, where I moderated a panel consisting of Bella Lack, Clover Hogan, Dominique Palmer (who spoke at our 2020 Tomorrow’s Capitalism Forum, chez Aviva Investors) and Will Travers of the Born Free Foundation.
My opening words: “Hello, Earthlings, or perhaps I should say Blue Earthlings!”
To kick things off I asked how many people in the room considered themselves “environmentalists” – noting that I had tried very hard to avoid people slapping the label on me when I was working into the business world in the early stages of all this, because of the discount factor they would likely then apply to anything I said on related subjects.
Most hands shot up – and when I then asked whether the influence of environmentalists would increase over the coming decade, an even larger set of hands went up. No great surprise there, perhaps, given that natural selection was at work across our audience, but an interesting baseline.
Proved to be a great panel and wonderful session. Indeed, it’s very tempting to conclude that the future is now in safe hands and hand over, but the nature and scale of what confronts us all makes this very much a pangenerational task. Time to play the role of the “perennial”, as sketched in Mauro Guillén’s provocative book, The Perennials.
While in Woolwich, I bumped into a wonderful cacophony of people, known and not. Had lunch, among others, with Julia Hailes and her son Connor. Grabbed the chance to catch up with Jenny Poulter of Volans on our new nature-focused initiative, and with Volans team member Stirling Powers, son of Hugo – whose Riversimple hydrogen car was prominently displayed outside.
Great, too, to catch up with people like Nick Hounsfield and colleagues from The Wave – and with Ramón Van De Velde, who as CEO of The Lost Gardens of Heligan kindly hosted a Volans away day last year. He’s now involved in surf therapy – as his top boldly declared.
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