John Elkington » Boards & Advisory Boards

Paris-based EcoVadis, one of many businesses and NGOs I have served as Board or Advisory Board member (left to right: co-founders Sylvain Guyoton, Frederic Trinel, me, Pierre-Francois Thaler)

It is an immense privilege—and a blessing for anyone born as curious as I was—to be invited to join Boards and Advisory Boards. But it is also crucial to keep an eye on the impacts you produce in the process—and to continually question whether particular roles really do have the potential to drive meaningful change in the relevant organizations.

Early in 2014, for example, I resigned from two company advisory boards, in both cases because I felt they were not living up to their original potential. Although it was not remotely my intention, in one case the company promptly decided to shut the advisory board down, while in the second case the other members all decided to resign, too. Happily, these were exceptional cases, and in the second case discussions were soon under way to see how the process could be reactivated under different rules, but they underscore the semi-political nature of some of these roles.

I am hugely grateful to my colleagues over the years for supporting me in this work, most of which has been pro bono. All such engagements are run through Volans, where Sam Lakha holds the reins as our Director of Outreach (sam@volans.com).

Despite continuous efforts to prune the number of memberships, invitations continue to come in. At the time of writing, in mid-2014, for example, I am involved in over 20 Boards and Advisory Boards, many mentioned here. To give some sense of how this side of my work has evolved over time, here are some of the places where I have played the role of Chairman:

Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) Advisory Council, UK.
Environment Department, Herning Institute of Business Administration & Technology, Denmark.
Environment Foundation, UK.
Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, UK.
Social and Environmental Committee, Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants, UK.
SustainAbility, UK/USA.
Volans Ventures, UK/Singapore.

In addition to the organizations listed above, I have served on Boards, Advisory Boards and committees for, among others:

2degrees Network.
AccountAbility, see ISEA.
Aflatoun.
Anglian Water (Board Sustainability Committee, 1996-2003).
Association of Environmental Consultancies (AEC) from 1993-1995.
Biomimicry 3.8 Institute (now the Biomimicry Institute).
Bioresources.
BP.
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (B&HRRC).
Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB).
Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR)
Climate Group.
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI).
Earthlife.
EcoVadis.
Environmental Data Services (ENDS).
European Union Consultative Forum on the Environment and Sustainable Development (1994-2001).
European Partners for the Environment (EPE).
Evian Group Brains Trust.
F&C Committee of Reference.
Friends of the Earth (FoE).
Gaia Energy.
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
Haller Foundation.
HP.
ICI Polyurethanes.
ING Sustainability Investment Fund Advisory Board (ING).
Institute for Social and Ethical Accountability (ISEA).
Institute of Environmental Management (IEM).
Instituo Ethos.
International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).
Kering (originally as PPR).
Merlin Ecology Fund.
National Provident Institution (NPI).
National Wildlife Federation’s Corporate Conservation Council (NWF, US).
Nature Conservancy Council (NCC).
Nestlé.
New Economics Foundation (NEF).
Newsweek.
Physic Ventures.
Polecat.
Recyclebank.
Royal Society of Arts.
State of the World Commission on Globalization.
Storebrand.
Tesco.
The Other Economic Summit (TOES).
Tioxide.
Tomorrow’s Global Company Inquiry Team.
Turntoo Foundation
World Business Awards, in support of the Millennium Development Goals.
World Resources Institute (WRI).
World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).
Zouk Capital.