John Elkington

I didn’t expect to buy anything when we went to the private view of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition today. But this image by Ian Chamberlain caught my eye. (Also love his images of old Thames Estuary flak forts.)

In the early 1970s, I was enthralled by geodesic design and architecture, with our bookshelves still crammed with books by Buckminster Fuller, Stewart Brand and others on the theme. Had breakfast with Bucky himself in Reykjavik 40 years ago and served as a judge for the Buckminster Fuller Institute in recent years.

So, though it’s obvious once you think of it, the idea that his glitteringly high tech work would eventually fall into ruin was something of a provocation. So I bought the original of Dome 1, as a reminder of the perils of technological obsession.

Then this evening, as I was shutting down for the day, I came across an interesting piece on CNN.com about the work of Gerard O’Neill, another major influence on my thinking some 3-4 years after I began working on city planning at UCL in 1972.

O’Neill did his work in Mountain View during 1975, where we were on a mission a couple of months back, visiting Singularity University. His three options at the time for NASA space habitats: the Bernal Sphere, the Toroidal Colony and the Cylindrical Colony. None of them yet built, but they would make fascinating ruins.

And speaking of ruins, we then headed across to the British Museum to see their Sunken Cities exhibition. Spellbinding – can’t wait to go back. And all the mentions of Osiris put me in mind of the first article I ever wrote for New Scientist, also in 1975, which was called ‘Beware The Wrath of Osiris.’

Not sure where this fits into my impact metrics, but intrigued to see today that my job title has made it into the Financial Times and the new Guffipedia. The interesting thing, Lucy, is that hives do “think” – and, by doing the waggle dance, scout bees help the colony access new opportunities. So business as unusual continues, I think.

Surfaced at Tower Hill very early for me this morning, just before 08.00, for breakfast with Rick Ridgeway – Environmental VP with Patagonia.

City was lovely as I travelled in – and Rick and I had a 90-minute conversation with a couple of Rick’s colleagues from the EU end of Patagonia.

Extraordinary man – and great fun to be with. On the Tube heading in, I had read again the Harvard Business Review article he co-authored on the Sustainable Economy back in 2011.

Of course, the title of this blog is intentionally misleading, in the sense that there aren’t many people like Rick – or like Phil Agland, who Elaine and I then headed across to BAFTA this evening to see.

Phil’s new TV series, China: Between Clouds and Dreams, was being premiered – they showed the first programme out of five. Utterly stunning. The children he films across China are out of this world wonderful. Can’t wait for the series to be broadcast later this year.

Great to catch up with Phil and linked people from the deep past, among them Janet Barber, Nigel Tuersley, Julian Caldecott and, the origin of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper sequences in Phil’s new series, Dr Christoph Zöckler of the incomparably named Spoon-bill Sandpiper Task Force. Bought him a glass of celebratory Maalbec: seemed the least I could do.

Flew to Zürich late yesterday, to speak at a conference organised by öbu. Bit of a hiccup at the airport, where a busload of passengers from the same BA flight were taken to an entrance where they didn’t have to show their passports – at which point, the terminal was locked down while the BA passengers were separated out. Not fun.

But I had been through passport control, so eventually managed to blag my way out, and into a welcoming mobility car driven by Remo Rusca of Smart Identity.

Very much enjoyed the event today, which was linked to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, whose side session I joined in the afternoon. Nice interval sitting outside in the square with Joanna Hafenmayer of MyImpact, also a board member of öbu.

Had fretted that the threatened strike by French air traffic controllers would keep me in Zürich, but BA 717 took off on time and, despite a couple of turbulence-related lurches as we headed into Heathrow, I got home in good time and good order.

Former PM John Major was in the front seat of 717 as I boarded – and no doubt (this is a postscript) was pondering what he would say about the Brexit/Leave campaign. His thoughts widely broadcast today.

 

Today saw the launch of our teaser video trailing our new strategic partnership with the United Nations Global Compact. The aim: to bridge between the linear world of incumbent companies and the increasingly exponential worlds of the insurgent innovators and entrepreneurs now driving an A-to-Z of disruptive businesses creating new, different forms of value – faster and better…

By engaging companies, exponential thinkers and practitioners, the Breakthrough Innovation Platform (launching in September 2016) will explore and showcase new ideas and emerging practice around:

1. The Exponential Looking Glass

Whether from Silicon Valley, Berlin, Tokyo or Johannesburg, the Breakthrough Innovation Platform will spotlight some of the most innovative people on the planet and share their thinking around exponential technology, organizations, change – and their take on how to facilitate both radical and sustaining innovation.

2. Disruptive Technologies for Sustainability

The constant buzz around technology innovations and the next big thing can make it challenging to identify the ones truly transforming our world and our businesses. The Platform will identify and analyze the upsides and downsides of technologies that have the potential to disrupt industries and, in the process, create opportunities for sustainable performance. These include technologies ranging from big data, artificial intelligence and the internet of things through to driverless vehicles, 3D printing and synthetic biology.

3. Tomorrow’s Business Models

Business model innovation is on the Board and C-suite agendas like never before. Bridging between corporate incumbents and the wave of market insurgents, the Platform will explore and outline promising and potentially more sustainable business models made possible by breakthrough innovation and digitalization. This will include a close look at platform and network models, the shift from products to services and on-demand offerings, and other models emerging from circular, collaboration and sharing economies.

“Change is coming at business at an accelerating rate signalling an era of profound disruption,” says Lise Kingo, the Global Compact’s new Executive Director. “Our 8,300 corporate members include pioneers in corporate social responsibility, shared value and supply chain management, but the launch in 2015 the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the COP21 climate agreement signalled a new era of opportunity—where companies must shift from considering the business case for action to evolving the business models which will be at the heart of tomorrow’s economy.”

In the eight years since Volans was launched, the focus has been on innovators and entrepreneurs seeking to disrupt old ways of thinking and create new forms of value. So we are delighted to now help usher in what we call the Breakthrough Decade that will see a range of disruptions accelerating, but that also signal a new era of opportunity for developing and deploying innovative business models that will be at the heart of tomorrow’s economy.