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WBCSD’S Vision 2050 Refresh

WBCSD photos of WBCSD event (with Duncan Pollard of Nestlé bottom right)

Across to Geneva on Wednesday night with Richard (Roberts) for a WBCSD session on its Vision 2050 Refresh project. Then a train ride on Tuesday morning with Richard and Julian Hill-Landholt of WBCSD to Vevey, chez Nestlé. Duncan Pollard of Nestlé has seen a recent piece Richard and I had done for a Sustainable Development Goal yearbook and decided it would be a useful provocation.

Bumped into Caroline Seow of the Family Business Network International as we boarded the train – and she and I shuttled back and forth to see each other, at first thinking we were going to the same meeting – and then realising we weren’t.

Great to team up with Peter Bakker for the Vevey session, though it seems we are both feeling equally frustrated with the pace of progress in this space – even with the COP25 climate summit, now moved to Spain from Chile because of the riots in the latter country (even if Spain has had its moments recently with Catalonia), imminent.

Then in too the office yesterday, Friday, despite the ongoing train strike in London (though to date it hasn’t much affected me) and the fact that Fridays are now work-from-home days. First to have lunch with Clara Barby of the Impact Management Project, then an impromptu meeting with Luke Nicholson, and later a get-together with Simone Amber (who I once worked with when she was with Schlumberger, developing her SEED initiative aimed at the educational sector) and her sons, Jonathan (who works with the OECD) and Oliver (Bloomberg News).

The Human Swan Lands In Somerset House

Sacha in The Times

Elaine spotted a large article in The Times about Sacha Dench, known as “The Human Swan”. So impressed were we that I got in touch via LinkedIn and email – and it just happened she was in Holborn that day, 2 December, so we agreed to meet in Somerset House. Blown away by her – and now she’s speaking at our Tomorrow’s Capitalism event, sub-titled ‘Step Up – Or Get Out Of The Way’.

Patricia Elkington R.I.P.

2019 has been a year to remember, with both my father, Tim, dying on 1 February, while Elaine and I were in Copenhagen, and my mother, Pat, dying this week, on 19 November. In her case, after a long illness that had her confined to bed – dependent on my three siblings and various forms of nursing and end-of-life care, including the magnificent Kate’s Home Nursing. Both died at home, with family members around, a real privilege in these days of increasingly institutionalised care.


As her younger brother, Paul, put it to me today, “Pat, my sister, your mother, was a most remarkable being – she was very close and dear to me all my life and a prop and mainstay in troubled times. She had what I can only describe as a ‘glow’ – almost an aura that even shows in photographs of her over the years, she will be most sorely missed by us all, and leaving us she has taken with her much love and many memories.” She was certainly an extraordinary story-teller.


Recalling her in happier times, and her first use of headphones, the first image is of her in the Hill House kitchen. I had recorded her talking about the poltergeist that haunted her as a child, when her parents were divorcing, and the ghost that she was convinced haunted (in a positive way) the end of Hill House where there is a 400-year-old oak staircase. We knew her as Belinda. The story goes, though we heard it long after Pat first saw a mob-capped girl sitting at the foot of her bed, that a young maid fell down the stairs and broke her neck.

The second image, below, honours the huge responsibility her generation carried, symbolised by the Soviet/Russian veterans coming up to see her in bed after Tim’s memorial service. His photo, with great-grandson Gene on his lap, is in the background. The woman in red hat a former partisan, the only person from her entire town to survive WWII. A world of ghosts.

Pat and Tim voted the wrong way on Brexit, she saying the chimney-sweep told her to do so, but we loved them nonetheless!


She would have loved the fact that I was at Buckingham Palace the day after she died, though the sacking of Prince Andrew would not have escaped her notice or comment.


Her views didn’t always follow well-worn tracks, though she would most definitely not have approved of the way in which the monarchy was being dragged through hedges backwards by the shenanigans of the Queen’s favourite son. But she would definitely have approved of the way half a dozen grey vacuum cleaners were arrayed in one space I passed en route to the Billiards room, lined up in regimental order.

WWF, SustainAbility and Science Museum

Yesterday, Wednesday 13 November, Elaine and I went across to the Royal Academy to see the Anthony Gormley exhibition, Highlight, at least for me, were his sketchbooks. Pretty busy, so made our way across to Waterstones, where I bought a number of books, including on the history of calculus and exponential thinking: Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz. Then on to Somerset House, where I joined a meeting with The Body Shop and Elaine met Roxanne (Tibbert) for the first time.

Today, Thursday 14 November, I headed off early to ZSL London Zoo for the latest meeting of the WWF UK Council of Ambassadors. Great talk by Henry Dimbleby on the future of food. Later, walked back through Regent’s Park with WWF UK CEO Tanya Steele, both of his headed back to Somerset House, where WWF now have an office at the same end of the same floor as us.

In the evening, Elaine and met up at Cahoots, part of Kingly Court in Soho, for a gathering of the SustainAbility UK and US teams. Hadn’t realised that there was an old Tube station there – and rather liked the décor of the underground restaurant, where we managed to squeeze some 40 people into a reproduction of an old Tube train. Struck by the Christmas decorations in the Carnaby Street area, huge plastic models of oceanic life forms. Not sure the irony was intended.

Then on to Science Museum for the launch of the Wellcome Galleries on the evolution of medicine and medical technology. They were serving canapés from stretchers and staff were dressed in emergency response uniforms.

E-Square and Investor Revolution Salon

Flying Visit to Hill House

Drove across to Little Rissington this morning, to see Pat – now heavily sedated on morphine. House was full with my three siblings, three nephews, our cousin Toby Adamson, a nurse Tanya and another, Sharon, from Kate’s Home Nursing. Kate’s have been beyond wonderful at a taxing time.

Left the trip back until quite late, around 21.30, but hit all sorts of problems on the way back to London. The Oxford ring road was closed eastwards, so I found myself driving right through Oxford and Cowley to get back on track. Then the signs said that the M4, where I would normally head after the M40, was closed. So I stayed on the M40, only to find the junction with the M25 was closed, too. Having been watching Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials on BBC1, am beginning to hanker after my own airship.

Lizars & Zouk

Interesting day, kicking off with a Volans session with Sam Lizars, across in Harp Lane, working out where we want to head next. Then a wonderful dinner across at the Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane, with Zouk’s AGM the following day. Enjoyed the dinner tremendously and learned a good deal about electric vehicles, battery technology and the like at the AGM event.

Canada

A slightly frenetic trip to Canada in the wake of their election, where Justin Trudeau managed to squeak back in. First north of Montréal to a QG100 strategic retreat at the Estérel Resort. Beautiful weather outside, though belting down with rain when I headed back to Montréal. My car didn’t arrive, so I hitched a lift south with some delightful Mexicans: Emilio Cadena, Yoelle Rojas Quintero and Alejandro Mendoza of Grupo Prodensa. Had met – and liked – them already at the QG100 event, which made it easier – but very much enjoyed their company as we sped back citywards.

While in Montréal, Lorraine (Smith) took me to a fascinating exhibition of Haida art at the McCord Museum, after which we walked through the library of McGill University, where Elaine’s father, Stanley, studied before WWII.

Then I flew to Edmonton, where there was snow and the signs by the road showed a temperature of -11 degrees C. Was speaking at a major event, SPARK 2019, organised by Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), exploring ways for the fossil fuels driven province to migrate towards new forms of energy. ERA are a major funder of clean technology. But as I had arrived at Edmonton airport, I got an email from one of the CEOs I had met the QG100 event, asking if (1) I had arrived in Alberta yet, and if so, (2), whether I had been lynched yet? Actually enjoyed myself, even if part of the process was a bit like telling turkeys about incoming Christmas, and learned a lot.

Then back to Montréal, where I stayed overnight, then walked across to Lorraine’s apartment via the waterfront. There I spotted both Moshe Safdie’s ‘Habitat’ complex across the water (which I was fascinated by in the late 1960s/early 1970s, particularly when doing my M. Phil. At UCL in city planning. And then, also across the water, I spotted Buckminster Fuller’s dome (now called The Biosphère) – which I had forgotten was in the city. Stunning.

Fascinating brunch with a range of Lorraine’s friends, including at least one Mohawk, before heading out to see a hydroponics farm, La Boîte Maraîchère) in driving rain (luckily it is indoors), and then on to airport.

World Pension Summit

Spoke at the World Pension Summit today, held at the Louwman Museum, an extraordinary tribute to the age of the private motor car, and organised by Pensions & Investments. The dinner on the first day was held at the M.C. Escher Museum, somewhere I had always wanted to visit – and which we could wander around at our leisure. A reminder of what an extraordinary mind his was.

Black Swans – And Green – At K-Fair

After taking part in a Volans salon on the role of Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) in the 2020s, I head off to Dusseldorf for the K-Fair, Europe’s biggest plastics exhibition. Clear that the industry feels under growing pressure, as it should. Spoke at a Covestro event alongside Lise Kingo of the UN Global Compact and Covestro CEO Markus Steilemann. I had interesting meetings with Markus and his new Chief Commercial Officer, Sucheta Govil, while there.

Easy to see why people find plastics so obsessively interesting, but they feature as one of my ‘Black Swan’ case studies in the new book, Green Swans, due to be published by Fast Company Press in April 2020. Few sectors are now in more urgent need to exponentially evolving Green Swan solutions.

Speaking of which, I dropped in on UBQ Materials’ stand – which was throbbing with people. Their carbon-positive plastics have come on by leaps and bounds, offering multiple colours and all made from domestic garbage. They sent me a coat hanger made from UBQ, to use at the Swedish Fashion Council conference I was meant to be speaking at in Stockholm, but that was cancelled at the very last moment, the day before I was meant to travel.