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Arrived in Kuala Lumpur late yesterday, for the launch today of a prototype affordable house by Bayer’s Project Sunrise and Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB).

Am delighted that Volans has now been involved for over five years. Some video background here. Also thrilled that Bayer MaterialScience are backing Bertrand Piccard’s round-the-world Solar Impulse project, though am hopeful that Sunrise will have an even greater impact over time. (It was a particular pleasure last year to win a prize in Chile in the glittering wake of the ever-intrepid Piccard.)

The photos above show some aspects of the very successful launch ceremony today in KL. For me, the only fly in the ointment, or polymers headed into the Pacific Garbage Patch, came with the release of a large bunch of balloons to mark the ribbon-cutting. I trust the day will come when such things do not happen at ‘sustainability’ events – though I once went to WWF event in Sweden, of all events and places, where thousands of balloons were released into the skies.

The launch was followed by a fascinating stakeholder session this afternoon with a range of partners in Project Sunrise, among them CIDB, Greenclean Fab India, Habitat for Humanity, Habitat International, Phillips, Podar Enterprises, PU Profile Malaysia, and Square Panels Malaysia.

As a member of the project Sunrise Advisory Board, it was my task to ask some of the ore challenging a questions – though I was impressed how open the partners were not only with upbeat reports on their progress but also with candid views on the barriers they face, both within the emerging Sunrise ecosystem and in the wider economic and political systems.

As a sidebar, on the flight in yesterday I read an extraordinary novel by Laird Hunt, Neverhome – about the American Civil War. I stumbled across the book in the London Review of Books bookshop, around the corner from our office. Blown away by it. Here’s a review in the New York Times that I came across today.

Tweeted a note mentioning that Paul Auster had described the book as “magnificent,’ and suggesting that this was putting it mildly. Heard back from Laird Hunt this morning. What a connected world we now live in – and how totally alien that would have seemed to his extraordinary heroine. I winder when such authors will start to write novels around the dramas of the evolving sustainability revolution?

It’s been a fairly stretched week, what with working on the latest version of our impending White Paper and Eurostarring to Brussels on Thursday for a conference with Bank Degroof. The other speakers were Jeff Grout and Peter Hinssen. Enjoyed the event – and the train rides.

On Monday, there was an F&C private view of the Rubens exhibition at the Royal Academy,  fleshy but interesting, where we bumped into Tessa Tennant and her husband Bill. Then on to a dinner hosted by Jochen Zeitz in Shoreditch.

Yesterday began well when I spotted two herons flying south across our garden. Have always considered herons my totem bird, a sign of good luck, with their attitude and behaviour signalling something about the day ahead. Reading up on the symbolism today, I was struck by the long-legged bird’s role in liminal places, neither wholly of one world or another. Moving between land, water and air. An interesting distillation of the nature of much of my work – and of transitions in general, including the point at which the Volans team currently finds itself.

The heron, I discover, is also associated with longevity. With all the coverage of pensions in the media at the moment, triggered by impending changes in the regulations, I followed a link today to an online life expectancy calculator. It asked lots of questions about lifestyle and health. I put in all the bad things I could think of, and yet it still said I would live to 96. I suspect the idea may have been to encourage me to get better pension protection, but not sure how I would feel about the prospect of living another 30 years.

The website didn’t ask about dangerous pastimes, so I didn’t get to feed in cycling as part of the case for a shorter life expectancy. Around the corner from our Bloomsbury Place office there has been a column of flowers where a young woman cyclist was killed by a truck a couple of weeks ago. There have been several deaths since we moved there – and many accidents, including the one where I was hit by a cycle courier. My elbow is finally almost healed, some 5-6 months after my last accident, that one in Oxford Street, so have been pondering getting back into the swing. Have been missing the exercise.

Spent much of yesterday working on the latest round of columns/blogs, this time looking at a number of breakthrough technologies – and highlighting a new study by LIGTT. Watched the latest part in the Reginald D Hunter BBC2 series last night, Songs of the South. Gentling.

Then the bird theme continued through today, with high swirling clouds of rooks in Richmond Park this afternoon – and a flock of perhaps 20 goldfinches in our leafless apple tree early this evening. I stood for quite a while watching the rooks, thinking about some of the terms that would once have been used to describe what I was saying. That was largely because of an article I read in yesterday’s Guardian, by Robert Macfarlane, on the way in which our languages are losing words for the natural world. Looking forward to reading his book, Landmarks.

The goldfinches felt like some sort of blessing. Then I read that it is linked in Christian symbology to foreknowledge (on the part of Mary and Jesus) of the Crucifixion and the crown of thorns. Apparently, it was believed that the bird got the splash of red on its face when it pulled a thorn out of the crown around Jesus’s head. Intriguing, but I think I’ll stick with this bird as I see it.

Spent much of the week in Mexico City, with Grupo Bimbo. Main reason for being here was to do a session with CEO Daniel Servitje and his senior colleagues.

I was hosted in the city by Mauricio Bonilla Padilla, now a key person on the sustainability side at Grupo Bimbo, who I first met years ago when  I was doing a session at Imperial College.

After a successful session with around 16 top executives of the company, Mauricio took Jim McKeown and I around the city. One particular highlight was the Cantina l’Opera, where – because I felt I had finished for the day – I had my first tequila. Exquisite. Great food, too.

Among other things, we went to the top of the Torre Latinoamericano, from where the views were giddying. I had been feeling the effect of altitude since arriving in Mexico City, thanks to my very low heart rate, but the infinitesimal sway at the top of the tower enhanced the effect significantly. And, no, it wasn’t the tequila.

Earlier in the afternoon, we had been out to a Grupo Bimbo production plant some way from the centre, which was fascinating. Rather different from the Bimbo Bakeries USA plant Amanda (Feldman) and I visited in Pennsylvania late last year. Meanwhile, if all goes well, it looks as though I may be back in Mexico City later in the year. I look forward to it.

Just in from Bali, on a delayed flight (one engine out of two failed for a while, mercifully on the ground in Singapore), and just watched a recording of Part 3 of the BBC’s Wolf Hall. Incredible rendering of the story, including horrific treatment of James Bainham.

Mention of William Tyndale led me to this, by Melvyn Bragg. What an extraordinary contribution to the modern world.

Reminded me of childhood in Northern Ireland, straddling different religions, then endless, self-directed reading about religious wars while at Bryanston. also of the unspeakable burning of a Jordanian pilot by Islamic State while I was in Indonesia.

People.

Met John Hardy of Bali’s Green School here in Nusa Dua (Laguna Resort) last night – and he sent me this link to a presentation on the Bye Bye Plastic Bags campaign by Melati and Isabel Wijsen.

I love the line: “Have you any plastic bags to declare?” and thank heavens they’re 100% of the future.

And now for the airport and home, after keynoting the ASEAN NextGen CSR Network’s Forum.