John Elkington

Across to Oslo a couple of days ago to speak at a conference hosted by the Business for Peace Foundation. Love the city: maybe it’s genetic – when I had my genes tested by 23andMe, the Scandinavian signal was very pronounced, via the Vikings and Normans. My bother Gray tracked the family vine back to Rollo the Ganger, after of William the Conqueror – who I had always seen as the arch enemy.

A bunch of people I knew at the conference, among them Jane Nelson and Paul Polman of Unilever, but also a whole range of people who were new to me. Included a lovely dinner with the Crown Prince Haakon and his wife – delightful couple – at his home outside the city. During the visit, I went across to a Nexus event to speak alongside Jan-Olaf Willums. Wish I could see how the two of us looked through their eyes …

 

 

Alex Steffen was high on our list of people to meet on our recent San Francisco trip, but missed him this time round. I regret it even more after reading a blog he sent out yesterday on what he calls predatory delay. For more on what he is doing at The Heroic Futures, see here.

Meanwhile, as I limber up for an Oslo trip on Monday, where I will be speaking at three events, I’m finding the predatory delay concept helps crystallise a number of concerns I have had for some years about the whole sustainability industry.

Alex notes that: “Some people seem to have a hard time even understanding the concept of the rights of future generations. The idea that people who do not yet exist have the right to assert their needs in our lives is one that seems to be hard to fully grasp.

“Think of this example: If someone sets a bomb to go off in a public square a year from now, is he committing a crime? Should he be stopped? Almost everyone would say yes. Should he be tried before a court of law and prevented from doing further harm? Most of us would agree that he should. What about ten years? What about 100? When does our obligation to avoid serious, predictable harm to others end?

“Now, here’s the tricky part: climate emissions (and huge array of other unsustainable practices) are the bomb, and your grandkids and great-grandkids are the victims.”

He goes on to say:

“As long as we don’t use more of the planet’s bounty than can be sustainably provided in perpetuity, we have the ethical right to enjoy the best lives we can create. But the minute we stray into unsustainable levels of consumption, we’re not in fact spending our own riches, but those of future people, by setting in motion disasters that will greatly diminish their possibilities. Unfortunately, nearly everyone living a middle class or wealthier lifestyle now enriches their lives at the cost of future generations. As Paul Hawken says, ‘We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it G.D.P.’

“Now, obviously, most of us did not intend to find ourselves in this situation, and so for a couple decades we had a legitimate argument that we needed a reasonable amount of time to change our ecological impact. It’s become clear that many of our leaders’ definition of a reasonable amount of time, though, is for things to change sometime after they’re dead.

“This is what I mean when I say that we have a politics of ‘predatory delay.’ Many wealthy people understand that their profits are extracted through destructively unsustainable practices, and they’ve known it for decades. By and large, they no longer deny the need for change, they simply argue for delay, on the basis that to change too quickly would be unfair to them.

“This allows them to been seen as responsible and caring. They want change, they claim; they just think we need prudent, appropriately paced change, mindful of economic trade-offs and judiciously studied — by which they mean cosmetic change for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, they fight like hell to delay change of any real magnitude, attacking not only the prospects of our kids and kin in the future, but increasingly of our society in the present. Their delay has real, serious human consequences, across generations. They’re taking, not creating; the harm they cause is measurable.”

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Across to Paddington Basin early for a World Environment Center session, co-hosted by Marks & Spencer, on business futures – specifically innovation in terms of business models (the focus of our ongoing project for the Business & Sustainable Development Commission), system level governance and collaboration.

As one participant put it, systemic change “is now happening – like an express train.” But another noted that the problem is that there is now a real risk of social dislocation because, “before the winners [in the new market game] have won, the losers have lost, got angry and brought the system down.”

That’s the space we’re playing into both with our UN Global Compact and Business & Sustainable Development Commission work. It feels like quite a responsibility. Indeed, during the event a group photo was taken (see above), and I started out hovering on the edge of the proceedings. But was then steered into the centre – and told I had helped get the ball rolling on sustainable business, so I ought to be centre-stage.

Hmmm. But an encouraging aspect of the session was that most people there are now thinking in terms of the need for system change, whereas when we started Volans in 2008 that wasn’t at all the case. Most people then were struggling to keep their noses above water.

Got back today from three days in Rome, speaking at the J.P. Morgan Philanthropy Forum. Stayed at Hotel de Russie, not my usual habitat. Was a member of the opening panel, chaired by Peter Wheeler of the Nature Conservancy. Learned a lot and met some great people, including Brigitte Mohn, who has been helping with the Social Stock Exchange.

A highlight of the event was a dinner at the Galleria Borghese, where it was wonderful to have a private viewing of the art. I had seen photographs of such things as Bernini’s The Rape of Prosperine, Apollo and Daphne and David, but they are immensely more powerful in the ‘flesh’. Was very struck by the gladiator mosaics, which most other people walked by.

When we met John Stewart at RBS what seems like light-years ago, he described many Californians as “nuts.” Often in a good way. Venice Beach today was a reminder of just what an extraordinary state this is.

And what a joy to find Small World Books along Ocean Front Walk, where ‘Conan the Librarian’ lay comatose in his basket. I have similar plans for when we aboard the flight back to London this evening …