John Elkington

View from conference room Gone fishing: painting outside the conference room

We held the first of our roundtables on ageing, entrepreneurship and sustainability at Accenture’s offices this evening – and attracted an extraordinarily diverse range of participants. One of the receptionists wanted to know what the theme was, because the guest list was so out-of-the-ordinary. A great sense of momentum, though there’s still work to be done on how these three great areas of interest overlap. Extraordinary feeling reflecting that all of this span out of a short conversation David Grayson I had last year while I waited for a taxi back to Milton Keynes.

Dog leash hook outside Barnes chemist 2BP snowdrops One way through the orchid And another

A fraughtish week, with back pains – bravely tackled by a couple of osteopaths by the name of Ron – and the bronchitis I have been nursing through six flights in the past couple of weeks. Still, this morning I collected a course of antibiotics from the chemist – and was somewhat shocked to find that I don’t have to pay for medicines now I am over 60. 

British Museum lion We were actually looking for TIGERS: Nelmara, Maggie, Amy

Very productive day, with white-board and flipcharts, at 2 Bloomsbury Place, with Nelmara Arbex and Maggie Lee of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), working on the new report. For lunch, we ducked across to the British Museum. After a morning spent discussing TIGERS, of which more anon, all we found were endless lions, Imperial and otherwise.

Patrin at the Habor Court Hotel

Ian (Keay) and I at the Birch-hosted party According to a sample of Oli Barrett’s photos, a good time was had by all Patrin and I – and a book for the flight

Just back from US: my flight from SFO was significantly delayed by a crashing downpour as we were about to take off, then we took a while to get into JFK, probably because snow was slowing things down, so until the last moment I was convinced I would miss my connection – but didn’t. Read two books on the way across: David Siegel’s Pull and Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch, plus the latest editions of Fast Company and Wired. All feeding the ferment in my mind.

Oli Barrett sent two photos as I travelled: one of Ian (Keay, our best man way back in 1973) and I at the Birch/Bebo party, and a collage of the Clean & Cool Mission participants. The images capture the good humour of the enterprise which, in turn, reflected its energy, interconnectivity and productivity. Will be writing up my thoughts on it all in my six monthly columns tomorrow – and, hopefully, the first of a series of blogs for Fast Company.

Truly invigorating week – and nice to tie it off with breakfast on Friday morning with Jennifer (Biringer) and Patrin (Watanatada) of SustainAbility San Francisco. A whole bunch of new ideas now fizzing around our collective brainpan.

Patrin