John Elkington
A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.
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 …
Our last visit is to LA’s Cleantech Incubator, or LACI, where we are taken around by Michael Swords. Immensely impressive hive of innovation and entrepreneurial activity.
Interestingly, Joel Makower, on our first evening in San Francisco, noted that efforts had been made to turn sustainability and clean tech into a Venn diagram, or movement – but not always successfully. LACI is testament to California’s ambition to combine the two – and transform the state’s economy in the process.
By way of background, Wikipedia notes: “LACI’s Strategic Imperative is to move “the country off of its dependence on foreign fuels … California has already put its stake in the ground with AB 32, requiring all utilities to get 33% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. And Los Angeles is ahead of every major city by achieving almost 20% of its energy from renewable resources by 2010. The new strategic imperative is to focus the private and public sectors on the processes and technologies regarding the sustainable consumption of our natural resources.”
We were told that the site had previously been home to a brothel, while stunning photographs from the US Library of Congress showed women, more recently, in a range of industrial (particularly aerospace-related) activities and poses, including some from the Rosie the Riveter era.
Great to see sustainability up in lights, or at least as writing on the walls. And delighted to find LACI is directly linked to efforts to clean up the nearby LA River.
LACI is a test-bed for solar and other forms of energy, for electric car charing technology, and for technologies like light pipes or tubes. Huge numbers of 3D printers and even more exotic machines. Such a welcome contrast to the era symbolised by the nodding donkeys we passed, nodding, on the way in.
Then back to Marina del Rey once again, where we are to be picked up by a colleague of Ingvild’s in a rented Camaro, to go to a restaurant on Venice Beach, a few minutes away. A taste of the old, muscle car California, though after this trip I am even more confident that a very different future is bubbling under.
As William Gibson, long one of my favourite science fiction authors, has said: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Yet, we might say. And in the past 10 days we have been privileged to see some of the places where it is evolving at an increasingly exponential rate.
It’s around 11 years since an X Prize Foundation team came to see me at SustainAbility’s London offices in Bedford Row. That was around the Ansari X Prize time. Have been fascinated by their approach and activities ever since – and Peter Diamandis’s books Abundance and Bold are virtually set texts at Volans.
Serendipitously, we came across Paul Bunje (who is pivotal on the energy and environmental sides of their work) no less than three times in the recent past, and he kindly offered the keys not only to the Foundation, but also to Singularity U and organisations like IndieBio (both covered in earlier posts).
He also engineered it that we could sit in on a filmed seminar Peter Diamandis – who I talked to, of all places, in the restroom this morning – was doing for Success Magazine. Then we had mind-boggling conversations with the new CEO, Marcus Shingles, with Joel Carnes (who runs the Prizes) and with Paul.
It will take a while to process what we learned, and continue to learn, but with only one more visit to do – to the LA Cleantech Incubator, introduced to us by Paul – I have to say that this trip has exceeded my expectations by the proverbial country mile.
No sooner had we landed at LAX and dropped our bags off at the Sheraton hotel in Marina del Rey than we were headed off to UCLA, to interview and film Adam Dorr at the Luskin School of Public Affairs on the subject of his recent essay, Environmentalism & Technological Denialism. Great conversation – and we will post the filmed interview on the impending Breakthrough Innovation website we’re working on with the UN Global Compact.
