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Diverse fish in relief, made by Jonathan’s goldsmith grandfather in Munich

Elephant hawk moth caterpillar, I think

VW cushion, with a VW camper van parked outside

Panorama of the garden, with pond in which vicious dragonfly nymphs lurk

Embraced by a tree

Uprooted

Hobbits

Bleached thistles in a landscape

Jonathan and Elaine

Greenhouse, with what may be biological pest control habitats

Blackboard outside the garden shop

Lifebelt

Group shot with Jonathan

Group shot with me

A lovely day in Forest Row, near East Grinstead, with Jonathan Shopley, his wife Andrea, her mother Peggy (who hosted me in Durban when I was there many, many moons ago), and their daughters Arianne and Kira.

Delighted to see Jonathan’s motorbike propped outside, the one which he rode from South Africa to Britain in the mid-1980s, landing up on our doorstep in Barnes, and working with me for several year before heading on to such places as ADL, LBS (for an MBA) and the Carbon Neutral Company.

One of the first things we saw once out in their glorious garden was a huge caterpillar, which I think we have established was an Elephant Hawk Moth, getting ready for greater things.

Jonathan, Elaine and I had a wonderful walk around the area and through the grounds of Michael Hall, the nearby Rudolf Steiner school. Lots of butterflies and moths, plus blackberries and damsons in the hedgerows.

Amazing how much history is clustered nearby, including Chartwell and the hospital where the Guinea Pig Club was founded by WWII casualties who were being treated by the legendary reconstructive plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe.

Rather idiotically, I left my Barbour at the Shopley’s home when we drove off, something I’m increasingly inclined to do, with a debris field extending behind me that is worthy of the most absent-minded professor. Happily it has been found: it’s old, bought for my second Davos in 2003, but a garment to which (despite appearances) I am more than a little attached.

Screen on floor of the first session

Geodesic roof eyes the proceedings

Geoff Kendall facilitates a table

Derek’s badged

Values etched in glass

Values on wheels

Flew to Copenhagen on Thursday evening, for a stakeholder session yesterday – exploring where Novo Nordisk might head next in its sustainability thinking and ambitions.

Arrived very late at the Phoenix Hotel, but luckily found Polly Cortice just checking in – and joined her and Jonathon Porritt for a delightful supper.

The full session the following day was facilitated by Rob Cameron and Geoff Kendall of SustainAbility. In introducing myself up front, for the outsiders and the Novo Nordisk people, I said I had realised the previous evening that I had now worked, off and on, with Novo Nordisk for 25 years.

In 1989, the company’s then-president Mads Ovlisen invited Julia Hailes and I in to do an early environmental audit of the company, in the wake of the publication of The Green Consumer Guide, which had caused problems for the industrial enzymes side of the business.

The company has changed profoundly since, spinning out its enzymes business, rechartering itself around the Triple Bottom Line, and growing like fury. and the growth looks set to continue. In the next 9 years, for example,  it is set to grow from just over 40,000 people to around 60,000.

But the values we were impressed by way back in 1989 remain largely unchanged – though various of the external stakeholders wondered how Novo Nordisk can reconcile further growth (which will drive it up the ranks of global pharmaceutical companies) with its values.

In the afternoon, the Sustainability Committee, which Lise Kingo chairs, joined us for an animated – and animating – discussion. The proceedings were subject to the Chatham House Rule, so much of the detail must remain under wraps until Novo Nordisk publishes the results.

On the flight back, I finished off Helen Macdonald’s wonderful book, H Is For Hawk. Quite simply, it is superb – and deeply intertwined with T.H. White’s The Goshawk, which I read in my early teens (though I confess I failed to realise then just how much abuse White unwittingly did to his hawk.)

It was with immense sadness that I heard of the death of Stephen Lloyd when I was on a flight back from Copenhagen this evening. The story came, indirectly, via the website of The Lawyer.

I tried to post elements of the following appreciation on the website, but apparently failed to test to show that I was a human rather than a bot – which involved typing in the second and fifth letter of the word SOFTWARE. (I look forward to the day when such websites can detect real human emotions …)

And the emotions are very real.

I first met Stephen when he served as legal counsel for the ill-fated Earthlife Foundation in the 1980s. Later he played the same role when I was Chairman of The Environment Foundation, which subsequently morphed into the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, under its then Director Halina Ward.

The story I wanted to share has to do with the period after the Trustees of The Environment Foundation decided to apply to the Charity Commissioners for permission to embrace the charitable objective of sustainable development. We were told point-blank that sustainable development was commercial, ergo couldn’t be a charitable objective. To add insult to injury, the Commissioners then tried to shut us down.

Stephen was utterly incensed. He fought our case for two years, and when it extended into a third year volunteered to continue pro bono. It was a joy to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with such a man, alongside the late Helen Holdaway, during what proved to be a fairly protracted fight.

In the end, thanks to Stephen, we won.

So one key legacy of Stephen’s legal work is the fact that sustainable development is now a charitable objective in this country.

He will be missed hugely, in so many different ways.

Those who knew him better as family members, friends or colleagues will be far closer to the epicentre of this seismic shock. We send them our best wishes – and our thanks for sharing this wonderful man with us.

LATER ADDITION: For obituaries of Stephen, see http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/29/stephen-lloyd and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/stephen-lloyd-lawyer-acclaimed-for-his-efforts-to-modernise-the-charity-sector-and-champion-the-idea-of-social-enterprise-9712963.html

Elaine and I were taken up to the attic studio at Hill House when we were in Little Rissington a couple of weeks ago – and photographed by my eldest sister, Caroline. Although several people in the office didn’t like the Hawaiian shirt I happened to be wearing for the shoot, which I bought a couple of years back in San Francisco, I did.

I also like the heron’s skull, though I well remember its origins. When Gaia was small, she collected skeletons and skulls, and had quite a collection – including the skull of a dolphin with a bullet hole through it, which she had found in Baja California. It’s still here, in the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden.

And the heron’s skull brought back the following memory: Gaia coming back home from the foreshore of the Thames, a couple of blocks away, to ask me to come quick – and bring an axe. I did, to find a dead, and pretty rank, heron lying not far from the waterline. She asked me to remove its head, which I did with a few well-placed strokes of the axe, to the bewilderment of passers-by. Then we took the head home and immersed it in various concoctions, including bleach, to separate out the skull.

I’d love to have a 3D printer with which I could print out all sorts of skulls, including versions combining the skulls of different species. Watch this space!

 

One of the photos made me happier. Having been ticked off by my brother, Gray, for cutting my own hair for the last 35 years, on the basis that I should see a barber, on seeing several of the images I concluded that I hadn’t done too bad a job with what’s left.

One of my longstanding heroes has been Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed and built much of today’s London sewerage system. I learned more about him while writing an article, ‘Breathing Life Into the Thames,’ that appeared in New Scientist on 24 March 1977.

As our species increasingly crowds into cities, such skills will be in growing demand. So I headed back into the office today, after a day out with labyrinthitis, in large part because I wanted to honour a commitment to meet Himanshu Parikh, the Indian engineer who has been a leading figure in the field of slum networking.

He was one 50 pioneers in social innovation spotlighted in our report The Phoenix Economy. Today, he was accompanied by his wife Rashmi and their daughter, Dr. Priti Parikh, who is a lecturer in the environmental and geomatic engineering department at UCL. And Bazalgette was one recurrent theme in our conversation. I am pretty sure he would have been fascinated by the approach Himanshu has pioneered.

Slum networking involves a citywide, community-based sanitation system and environmental improvement programme. It seeks to upgrade the infrastructure of a whole city using the network of slum settlements as a starting point. The result has been a dramatic improvement in the city infrastructure, with a piped sanitation system, clean rivers and a much improved road network – at a fraction of the cost of conventional approaches. The improvements in the infrastructure rapidly lead to a significant increase in the quality of housing, as people begin to invest time and money in their homes. Dramatic improvements are also seen in the health and education standards in the slum.

Illustration via Thames Water.