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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.

As we start to crank up for the publicity drive for our new book, The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Connect Today’s Profits With Tomorrow’s Bottom Line (John Elkington & Jochen Zeitz, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, September 2014), our antennae are increasingly sensitive to news indicating that our agenda is engaging.

Given that one of the key arguments in the book is that we need to change not only accounting but also capitalism’s master discipline of economics, it was interesting to see the front page story in today’s Financial Times, headlined ‘China puts quality of life ahead of GDP.’

The FT concludes that the move, “which follows a directive issued by top leaders last year, is among the first concrete signs of China switching its blind pursuit of economic growth at all costs towards measures that encourage better quality of life.”

The logic behind the move is interesting. As the FT reports, “Analysts say that adherence to GDP as a performance metric – thus linking it to local officials’ promotion – has contributed to environmental degradation and urban sprawl as officials encouraged heavy industry and bulldozed agricultural land to build housing developments.” Among others, the FT quotes Xie Yaxuan, head of macroeconomic analysis at China Merchants Securities in Shenzhen. His view: “Using GDP as the main assessment method has caused a lot of problems, like unequal income distribution, problems with the social welfare system and environmental costs.”

The initiatives spotlighted largely relate to smaller cities and counties, and the FT notes that larger cities and regions are still riddled with patronage and other forms of corruption (a subject the paper also covers, this time with a full-page story on page 7). But big things can grow from small seeds – and major breakthroughs often start with Aha! moments that most people would ignore.

Woke this morning to find myself once again in the indelicate, disorientating embrace of labyrinthitis. Like being on some form of hallucinogen.

This time, though, instead of the world spinning around in line with my body, my head was spinning around, chin over forehead, like a wheel on an axle. A bit like being in a space capsule, spinning out of control.

Have had to cancel a meeting with a bank in Canary Wharf and am working away at home, partly on the latest phase of our Breakthrough Capitalism Program, partly on a new report on progress in Europe with Interface’s Mission Zero.

Discovered that labyrinthitis can come back, though typically (and hopefully) less severe second time around.

The body is a weird and wonderful thing, the ear almost more so. Amazing that we take these things for granted so much of the time.

Have always loved spirals – and rather look forward to this one sorting itself out.

Illustration: 123Tagged

Volans is delighted to be one of the signatories of the Trillion Tonne Communiqué. This supports the global call from business for a policy response to the increasingly explicit (and worrying) scientific warnings of the risks posed by the continuing rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases.

The logic is that if atmospheric emissions exceed more than a trillion tonnes of carbon from CO2 then the global average temperature increase is likely to exceed 2°C. We are already over half way there.

Signatories believe that climate risks can be successfully managed and that the transition to a net-zero emission economy can be delivered in ways that create new business opportunities, with manageable costs. We urge companies to join the global call and sign the Communiqué.

As readers hopefully know, 2014 will be an important year for action on climate change, from the release of the final sections of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment report (IPCC AR5) to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s Climate Summit of world leaders in September.

The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group aims to help build momentum for global action by publishing the Communiqué. This is a global ‘call to arms’ from businesses who take the science of climate change seriously and are demanding a proactive policy response.

By way of context, in 2012 The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group released The Carbon Price Communiqué. In the process, business leaders made the case for a strong carbon price as a tool that can deliver appropriate carbon emission reductions.

The Carbon Price Communiqué is still open for sign-up alongside The Trillion Tonne Communiqué as a clear and transparent price on carbon emissions remains one of the main building blocks of a cost-effective, pro-business policy framework for climate change. For more details, see here.

 

Gaia went to have breakfast at the RAF Club this morning with Tim (Elkington) and Tessa (Elkington), and then Tim, Tessa and my nephew Kipp (Elkington) went on to the Russian Ambassador’s residence in Kensington Palace Gardens where Tim was to be awarded the Ushakov Medal, alongside others who took part in the Arctic convoys to Russia in WWII.

Tim went to Russia on the aircraft carrier Argus. With the Putin-driven horrors in today’s Ukraine, there are real ethical issues here, but the ceremony celebrated the extraordinary endurance and courage of those who took part in the convoys in unspeakable conditions, against incredible odds.

After the presentation, tea and coffee were offered to the assembled company. When Tim muttered he wanted something stronger, Kipp found a table of shot glasses and a bottle of vodka – and the proceedings took on a distinctly Russian flavour.