John Elkington

Geoff Lye and I have worked together since the early 1990s, both at SustainAbility and at Volans. Extraordinary to see the coverage this week of his travails with British Airways en route to Greece – and to see how much more coverage the media is prepared to give to disasters than to the underlying processes that build up to cause them. His story has been featured in, among others, The Evening Standard, The Sun, The Telegraph and The Times.

Across to Little Rissington and Hill House today, for Pat’s 95th birthday. A joyous day, with wonderful lunch cooked by Lydia, aided and abetted by Gil and Rory. Later we went to look at Caroline’s painting in her studio, and I caught sight of this line of skulls next door, in my long-ago bedroom. Have always wondered why Gaia, Caroline and I have such a fascination with head bones.

For years – in fact since my coining of the Triple Bottom Line in 1994 – I have often said that I am happiest when things come in threes.

In large part that’s because I can remember three things, whereas four or five sometimes stretch the memory.

People have long played with the trio idea, notably including The Body Shop in Australia – which at one point used an image showing the rear ends of three cows.

But I really wasn’t thinking of a trio of hurricanes seeking landfall. According to the US National Hurricane Centre this is unparalleled. “Is this the new normal?” they wonder.

My take on the challenges of being a green thought leader can be found here, thanks to GreenBiz. This latest Elkington Report column explains why I have found the work of Chicago economist David Galenson so reassuring over the years.

Flew to Amsterdam on 1 September with Elaine, and took our neighbour Faye Hahlo out to supper at De Bolhoed. After a beer at an open air bar by the canal. She is just starting her second year at the University of Amsterdam.

Over the following days, we visited a slew of museums, including NEMO, where we went up to the roof bar one evening to watch the sun set; the Hash, Marijuana & Hemp Museum (where I spotted a model of a hemp-canvas-covered Conestoga wagon, of the type that part of our family took the “Great American Desert” in the middle of the 19th century); the Tulip Museum; and The Hermitage, where we bought a crystal ball, to help me connect tomorrow’s dots.

But probably the highlight was the National Maritime Museum, with its replica of the East Indiaman Amsterdam and a stunning exhibition of navigational instruments and technology.

Spent a wonderful afternoon and evening with Thomas Rau, Sabine Oberhuber and their family, which began with my swarming up into their children’s tree house. And included dinner within the extraordinary fortifications of Naarden.

Then the work side switched in, with a keynote to the Fourth Annual Green Bond Roundtable, hosted by Rabobank. As I was preparing for this, I remembered going with Gaia to Amsterdam back in 1998 to speak at Rabobank’s centennial conference. The roundtable worked out very well, with extremely positive feedback afterwards.

Then, on Tuesday, Richard (Roberts) and I took the train across to Eindhoven to see Harry Verhaar of Philips Lighting. Thomas and Sabine had played a significant role in the company’s evolution of their ‘lighting as a service‘ business model.

Sardine-like packing of train for part of trip back, but then we got a seat. And there were moments, as when the customs people insisted in  unpacking and investigating the crystal ball, when I wished we had left it back at The Hermitage, but maybe it will crystallise a new era in our thinking about the future?