Uncategorized

Up bright and early for a breakfast session hosted by the UK Ambassador, Fiona Clouder, at her residence, with people from the mining and retail industries, and a number of others. Very engaged discussion.

Then Fernando and I drove across town to the Recycla recycling site, where it all started. A prototypical triple bottom line operation, with a clear environmental benefit, a workforce partly made up of former prison inmates, and a financial bottom line which, though precarious at times, is largely funded by corporate CSR budgets.

To get the business onto a truly sustainable financial footing, Chile would need to adopt its own version of the EU Extended Producer Liability framework, to ensure that those who made products took responsibility from cradle to  grave.

Next port of call was the Ibáñez Atkinson Foundation, where the lunch was co-hosted by Felipe Ibáñez and his wife Heather (née Atkinson) and members of their family.

It all started with a small tragedy, in terms of the size of the victim. As I walked in, I espied a brilliant red model of a DH88 De Havilland Comet, one of my favourite aircraft of all time.

When I asked about it, Felipe took me through to see it. Picked up, it was dropped (happily not by me), and at least one propellor came adrift.

When we looked at the plaque on the model’s base, it turned out that it was the plane flown by one of Felipe’s forebears, C.W.A. Scott – winner of the London to Sydney Air Race, the “the world’s greatest air race,” in 1934.

Scott flew a DH88 named ‘Grosvenor House,’ as is – by no means coincidentally – the model plane we partially crashed.

A fascinating glimpse into a very different part of Chilean society – and a wonderful lunch. We would meet Felipe and Heather later in the day at the Awards ceremony, though that is the subject of the next blog.

And then, after the lunch we headed across to Recycápolis Central to meet another part of the team – and to engage in another book signing session. wonderful people, great buzz.

 

 

Met off the plane from Sao Paulo at Santiago airport by Fernando (Nilo) and Carol (Huber) of Recycla and Recyclápolis, and driven in their Mitsubishi all-electric greenmobile to the Grand Hyatt hotel, where I am to stay while in the city. Along the way, Fernando gave me a copy of the profile that the ‘Economía y Negocios’ section of El Mercurio, the main newspaper, published a few days back, on 31 October.

Great to see Fernando again, who I first met some years back in Davos, and who Pamela (Hartigan) and I profiled in our 2008 book The Power of Unreasonable People, translated into Spanish as the not-quite-catching-the-sense-of-the-title El Poder de la Locura.

After I had a shower and more or less caught my breath, we went on to a lunch hosted by Nicolás Eyzaguirre, senior partner at Claro & Cia, the leading legal firm that has been supporting Recycla’s activities – including helping set up Fernando’s new foundation, Recyclápolis.

Next, we drove across to the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, to meet the Provost, Guillerme Marshall Rivera, and to scout out the setting for tomorrow’s main Awards event. Wonderful cases of exhibits celebrating the university’s history in different sectors, with the communications cabinet catching my eye and camera lens. Following considerable interest (and pressure) from students, the university is now paying much more attention to the sustainability and social innovation agendas.

Then we went on to the Palacio de la Moneda, which I recall seeing photographs of when the coup against President Salvador Allende took place in 1973. He still stirs emotions, it seems. Carol and I wait in the square while Fernando has mysterious forms signed.

Then back to the Grand Hyatt, for a reception in the gardens behind the hotel, ahead of the event this evening. There I meet Marc Lorenz, General Manager of the hotel, who turned out to be probably the most engaging General Manager of a major hotel I have ever encountered.

Having seen the location where Allende committed suicide, or was killed, depending on your source, my often-overly-dramatic brain conjured suitable links when a bottle of 2010 vintage Palo Alto wine I had been presented with, and which had then kindly whisked away to be held for me later, crashed to the ground – and spilled its bloody treasures every which way …

Another bottle was promptly conjured up. Am particularly intrigued to taste it, because it manages to blend no less than five grapes: “Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, Merlot and Petite Sirah.”

Then back into the hotel for the main event of the day, a public lecture which I focus on the ‘Power of Unreasonable People’. Very lively discussion afterwards, followed by conversations with some members of the audience. Then Fernando, his wife Tere and I have a Japanese dinner in the hotel. Then, with an early start tomorrow at the British Ambassador’s residence, I decide to call it a day.

 

Great few days with Sustainia in Copenhagen, including wonderful experience of co-compering the Sustainia 2014 Awards Ceremony with former Danish environment minister Ida Auken.

Stunning presentations from people like poet Sarah Kay, model-turned photographer Helena Christensen, Georg Kell of the UN Global Compact, Erik Rasmussen of Sustainia and Monday Morning, and Connie Hedegaard, on her last night as EU Commissioner for Climate Action.

Something of a whirlwind, with dazzling inputs from the likes of The Pastels, rap artist Stik Op Jakob and The Bottle Boys (you really have to see these guys!). Huge fun – and some deeply serious messages communicated at the same time.

And the 10 finalists from the #100solutions competition were outstanding. The winner, Wecyclers, hit all the buttons, economic, social and environmental. And great that the bicycle, one of our species’ greatest-ever inventions, is at the heart of all they do. The winner of the Sustainia Community Award was Fairphone, the award being picked up by Fairphone’s Chief Sustainability Oficer Sean Ansett.

The day before, I co-facilitated (with Sustainia’s Laura Storm) a high-level workshop on the business case for saving the world, out at the Carlsberg Academy. This is housed in the home that the brewery company gave Niels Bohr after he won his Nobel Prize. Intriguingly, the house had a direct (and free) beer pipeline from the nearby brewery. No wonder Bohr and Einstein had such great conversations there! But the downside would have been that there were no bottles for The Bottle Boys of the day …

The mood, though, was relentlessly upbeat, focused on opportunities and potential. So I ended up fizzing, regardless off how much beer I drank. All of which confirmed my long-standing conviction that “Ich bin ein Sustainian” (see English version here and Danish here).

And a couple of stray photos:

Once again, the last week or two have been a bit of a blur – leaving little time for blogging, though I try to keep the Twitter stream going at @volansjohn.

The week before last started with a visit from a Japanese study tour, with representatives of quite a few leading companies (including the likes of Mitsubishi, Nissan and Panasonic), organised by our longstanding partners in Tokyo, E-Square. Great fun – and apparently very well received.

Our Breakthrough agenda remains a bit of a stretch for such companies, however.

Later on in the week, I flew to Pennsylvania with Amanda (Feldman) for a session with a company where we are subject to a very tight NDA, so that story will heave to be for later. But a lot of driving (Amanda’s) through torrential rain, past at least one road-train that had apparently aquaplaned off the road and then down a slope, leaving its rear end sticking up into the air.

Didn’t stop a Duel-like truck driver from continuing to break the Sound Barrier alongside, however.

This last week, Sam, Astrid and I visited Gallup, to explore areas of shared interest, particularly in the area of well-being, which was fascinating – and on the way back (so the photos are the wrong way around) we stopped to look at part of the old Central Market Building in Covent Garden, which seemed to have taken leave (if not of its senses) of its columns.

Then, on 20 October, Elaine and I went to see Michael Palin’s penultimate show in his Travelling to Work tour. Wonderful, though the front row circle seats we were in were about as cramped as it is possible to be.

Next, on 22 October, we went across to SustainAbility for a celebration of two things: my 27 years with the company (I finally volunteered to step down as a Director earlier in the year) and my appointment as Honorary Chairman: a life sentence, I was told.

(I am beginning, on occasion, to feel a bit like an Elder in the sustainability space, and the delightful speeches celebrating my contributions to the firm, the team and the wider field strengthened the impression.)

Then they announced that, in honour of my work to date, SustainAbility was  sponsoring the release of 1,000 eels for each year that I have been involved with SustainAbility, which by most people’s calculations added up to 27,000, via the Sustainable Eel Group. This builds out from the eel release Elaine and I were involved in earlier this autumn.

Talk about a gift that will (hopefully) keep on giving …

(This blog’s title, incidentally, was accidentally suggested by Gaia’s husband, Paul Eros, when they came through yesterday to pick up the car en route to Little Rissington.)

Afterwards, with Rob Cameron, Tom Delfgaauw, Julia Harrison, Mark Lee, Geoff Lye, and John and Maureen Schaetzl, we went on to dinner at the Lutyens Restaurant – which was remarkable good, and remarkably quiet (in an acoustic sense).

Intriguingly, there was a blue plaque visible through one of the windows, looking onto a building where the first  edition of The Sunday Times was edited. And the building we were in used to be occupied, in the glory days of Fleet Street, by Reuters. The old ticker tape days are echoed in the marble floor.

And now I’m preparing for the Sustainia business case session and 2014 awards ceremony in Copenhagen in the coming week – and then for the trip to Chile that follows hot on their heels.

Flew from Berlin Tegel to Bern in a small plane – and was then picked up by car for the ride to Lausanne. Arrived slightly late for the reception at the Museum of the Olympics, but in good time for the subsequent dinner. some great people and conversations. And a lovely Moon as we walked out towards the lake afterwards to catch our bus back to the hotel.

The next day saw the 2014 Creating Shared Value Forum, where I was on a panel on sustainable supply chains.

And the overall message of the event? Business must reject short-term thinking and focus instead on long-term value creation for shareholders and society, was the way Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke put it. “The global debt crisis was, in many ways, a values crisis,” he argued.

The President of the Swiss Confederation, Didier Burkhalter, gave an interesting speech – focusing on what he called “blue diplomacy,” which involves improving access to good quality water worldwide. For some background, see here.

Nestlé’s Chairman Peter Brabeck, told the Forum that, “We believe that there should be universal access to truly safe, not only improved, drinking water by 2025,” adding that the goal should be to accelerate the provision of access to improved sanitation to at least 120 million additional people per year.

Sadly, 2014 is to be Peter’s last CSV Council session. When he announced that in the Council meeting today, I made a short, unscheduled interjection to celebrate the role he has played, in both the Shared Value and water spaces.

The Council meetings are confidential, but it was great to hear an update on the evolution of the Shared Value Initiative from Mark Kramer. Am feeling much more positive about all of that now the Shared Value/Sustainability tensions have subsided.

For me, one key development this year at the Forum was the fact that Honey Care Africa won the Nestlé CSV Prize. I have long loved what they do, since meeting them through the Skoll World Forum, I think. I remember co-founder Farouk Jiwa telling me that the enterprise was developed along what we might dub triple bottom lines.

Another highlight was a great catch-up with SustainAbility co-Executive Director Rob Cameron and Peter Zollinger, a former SustainAbility CEO and now a founder of Globalance Bank in Zurich.

Then rode out to Geneva airport with Kraisid Tontisirin, Director of the Institute of Nutrition at Mahidol University in Thailand and FAO’s former Director of the Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division.

Another great conversation, alongside so many others this week. Thank you all.