John Elkington

Have been working flat out to prepare presentations (both subjects to NDAs) for Novartis (in Basel) and Nissan (in London) this week, plus preparing for Aviva meeting tomorrow and Social Stock Exchange Board session on Friday.

But thrilled to be still receiving glowing feedback from those who came to our ‘Reimagining Carbon’ Carbon Productivity Basecamp at the Royal Society of Arts on Wednesday 14 June.

We caught the wave. The opening session with Paul Hawken (on Project Drawdown) and Erin Meezan (on Interface’s ‘Climate Take Back‘ campaign) went down a storm. Will fill in details when the photographs are available. The main session were also filmed by Atlas of the Future, so we will have excellent content for the new website planned for a few weeks from now.

Great dinner the night before at the Impact Hub in King’s Cross.

Now preparing for the next Basecamp, this time on money, data and trust, hosted by UBS on 7 July. Richard Roberts is leading that one – and came across to Barnes on Friday, where I was working, to discuss.

Part of the reason I was at home that day was to prepare the way for the men who were meant to be arriving this morning to sand off the American oak floor downstairs that two of laid 40 years ago. But, in keeping with the endless saga that has run like the old Flanders & Swann song, ‘The Gasman Cometh‘, the sandmen’s arrival has been postponed to Wednesday – when, if all otherwise goes well, I will be in Basel.

In the space of just eight months the sustainability movement has lost three leading lights: our own Pamela Hartigan, then earlier this month Malcolm McIntosh and now Ernst Ligteringen.

Pamela didn’t tell me how ill she was until perhaps 5-6 weeks before she died. Malcolm did some years back when he came to see us in Barnes, but we thought he had recovered. The news about Ernst came as a complete surprise to everyone concerned.

I had close working relationships with all three, over extended periods, and it’s amazing how such relationships so often mutate into friendships. But these were three – in Shaw’s sense of the word – unreasonable changemakers.

While there’s a strong sense of loss in terms of the inspiration, conversations and support there might have been, one can only be intensely grateful for the opportunities to get to know and learn from such extraordinary people.

Delighted with this short video on our latest thinking, thanks to our friends Atlas of the Future and as part of our evolving Project Breakthrough initiative with the UN Global Compact.

The electoral upset, for all it may, just possibly, open up prospects of a softer stupidity in terms of Brexit, has once again amped up the uncertainty. That said, the skewering of the Hard-Brexit-as-our-first-and-obvious-choice camp gives me a modicum of hope.

Once again, a strong sense of an old order coming apart at the seams – and new ones struggling even harder than normal to be born. Am reading Stephen D. King’s Grave New World at the moment, which also amps up the sense of impending something. Britain a nation at sea and at odds with itself. But at least young people are voting, even if they’re now yet reading the small print on the pack.

In  the midst of all this, a few photos that sum up my June to date:

On the subject of books, one I read and enjoyed recently was The Adventures  of John B lake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship, by Philip Pullman, with art by Fred Fordham. Great fun – and interesting to see something in the news within the past few days about the new breed of autonomous vessels, a new form of ghost ship.

And then this morning, I stumbled across Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s book, Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth, published last year. Love the central idea that we have to think of 10 reasons why Earth should not be destroyed by aliens. Working on it …

Delighted to see UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner using our Waves 5-to-6 diagram from our recent Breakthrough Business Models report. With thanks for the heads to Kevin Moss of WRI, who co-hosted our Breakthrough session in Washington, DC in January, see 29 January entry.