John Elkington

Just finished a fascinating day at the Velvet Innovation event in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. Organised by JIC. Have met some highly innovative – and determined – innovators, at a supper last night (including key people from the Environmental Partnership Foundation), a breakfast this morning, at the event and at the dinner this evening. Very impressed by the quality of the thinking here. Learned a lot. And, I think, I may have made some interesting new friends.

Here’s a podcast I did this summer with Liz Fleming, Chief Ecosystem Officer with South Summit – just posted as the first in their second series.

Up very early, by my standards, to get to the House of Lords by 08.00 to check in for the second annual Climate Leaders Forum event, held in the Cholomondley Room and Terrace, overlooking the Thames. After a welcome from Lord Adair Turner, I did a 30-minute fireside chat with Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize.

She and I met back in the late Nineties at Nike and have been friends since. In that spirit she contributed a foreword to Tickling Sharks. Was on a table focusing on “Navigating Shareholder Pressure,” though those at my table, including CSO-level people from Arm, BA and BP, suggested that it should often be lack of such pressure.

Met a fair few people that I knew, but loads that I didn’t – which, for me at least, is always an important test of a useful event. Meanwhile, foot still aching after the cracked bone (or whatever) en route to Belo Horizonte earlier in the year, but managing to get around without hobbling too much.

My latest podcast, this one anchored by my old SustainAbility colleague and friend Mark Lee, now with ERM.

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.