John Elkington

Delighted to see VIVOBAREFOOT releasing their ‘Feet, People & Planet’ report – with my foreword on footprints and handprints: https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/regeneration. An emerging focus is on Regeneration.

This was some time ago, but nice to be reminded by Covestro of the conversations they hosted when dipping into today’s Twitter stream. Here’s the link. And a reminder, too, that I haven’t blogged here for a couple of months. The pace of life has been absolutely incredible.

Among other things, I have done over 100 virtual keynotes in 30+ countries since Green Swans came out. This week, for example, I did one for the Ministry of Defence (a 5-hour session on the climate emergency), then later the same day a session with 20 chief financial officers for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Then later in the week I did keynotes for e.g. the Daily Telegraph and Legal & General, the Institute for Family Business (IFB) and the Circular Economy Hotspot in Catalonia. All on top of normal work. Last weekend I suffered a 3-day migraine attack, which must be some sort of message.

Meanwhile, I have been working on my new book, now over two-thirds of the way through, with an eye to getting it out in 2022. Have been doing some stunning interviews along the way, including with leading surfers – for reasons that will become clear in the course of time.

A podcast I did with Emma Foster-Geering and Dulma Clark of VIVOBAREFOOT launched today here.

On Thursday, I filmed an interview for the Plantiers World Gathering in Portugal, alongside Paul Hawken. The programme went live today.

I was thinking this morning of all the artists who have influenced by aesthetic sense over the decades – and Giorgos Varlamos came to mind. Born in 1922, he died in 2013. We visited his gallery in Athens during our 1970 Landrover trip to Greece – and bought a print of the image above, Hunters in the Woods. It’s still in the summerhouse.

A highlight of the visit was Giorgos taking us through his photograph albums, almost exclusively black-and-white images. An inspiration for my later albums, largely created in Tessa Fantoni’s albums, bought from her store in Clapham, though my father had kept albums for many decades prior.

I remember talking to Giorgos about how he had developed the image, which was printed from a woodcut, if I remember correctly. He said he had crunched up newspapers as a visual reference during the process, so that the cross-hatchings had an echo of newsprint – and therefore of meaning.

Not sure I approve of the subject matter these days, having sold my two shotguns some time before we went Greece-wards. Having once had some “pet” pheasants, which I had discovered nesting in a hedge at Moses Farm House, near Lurgashall, I had earnestly foresworn shooting pheasants. But then, some years later, shot one on Little Rissington airfield, in large part because she took me by surprise. Still feel a pang of regret.