Uncategorized

My latest Substack post, discussing last week’s trip to Porto Alegre, Brazil, can be found here. Great fun! And spurred a number of new lines of thought.

The launch event for my Ambassadorship described as “a triumph”

Lucy Parker and I (photo: Julia Hailes)

Gaia, Elaine and Hania (photo: Julia Hailes)

Richard Nugee (centre) reunited with friends (photo: John Elkington)

Earlier this evening, we held the first “In Conversation With …” event for the Churchill Fellowship, my first event as a CF Ambassador, and their first ambassadorship. My take on all of this – on why we are seeing the “end of the beginning” when it comes to the sustainability agenda – is described here. A video of the evening can be found here.

Lucy Parker of Brunswick Group – and Chair of the CF Advisory Council – and I were introduced by CF CEO Julia Weston and CF Chair Jeremy Soames. Jeremy later described the event as “a triumph.” The key thing, for me, though, was that it helped induct a fairly wide range of people to the existence of the Fellowship – and to consider who might be suitable applicants for the next round of Fellowships.

Among those participating were people like Generation Investment Management CEO David Blood, Sir Dave Lewis (former CEO of Tesco and now Chair of WWF-UK), and Paul and Kim Polman – he a former CEO of Unilever. We also managed to include a fair number of younger people, including students from places I teach at like Cranfield University, Imperial College and UCL.

Many highlights of the evening, but one I only heard of towards the end was that Lt-Gen Richard Nugee, who I had first met through his work on climate change for the Ministry of Defence and then had on our Anthropy platform last year, was unexpectedly reunited with two people from his old regiment – friends, if I understood it all, he hadn’t seen for almost 40 years. They were already planning to meet for dinner in a few weeks.

Now, that’s impact!

Kate Hutchinson of Yorkshire Sustainability Week (photo: Julia Hailes)

I experiment with a new channel.

A few weeks ago, I opened a new Substack channel, Surfing the Future. It won’t replace this blog, but it may mean that at times some content that might have appeared here will appear there.

The latest post, my twentieth, reflects on a fascinating week of visits and conversations that helped me refine my thinking on various aspects of system change. It also explains the dragon image above, topical because this is the Year of the Dragon and relevant because of the varying symbolism of dragons in the East and West.

The hummingbird, our Volans mascot, symbolises my year-long quest to work out how I can best advance the change agenda once I have reached the age of 75 in June.

2024 marks my 50^th anniversary working on what is now called “sustainable business”. My 21^st book, Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business On Sustainability, will be published by Fast Company Press in May. The focus: system change.

In a year-long discovery process, I aim to look back 50 years since I began work in 1974, then forward 15-20 years. To challenge and evolve my thinking, I plan to talk to pioneers in fields from AI and neuroscience through to market-based ecosystem regeneration and the science of imagination.

I will post updates on my new Substack channel.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Awards, announced in Davos yesterday. Am delighted to have been on the jury – no easy task. More details here on the winners and shortlisted candidates: https://csoawards.eu.