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Cloud capping Box Hill as we arrived at the Denbies wine estate, where an age-old friend, Kate Pocock, was waiting to steer us around the landscape. Elaine and she worked at Oxford University Press back in the now distant day.

Exquisite winter, spring-like, weather. Wine growing in England is a rare upside of the growing climate emergency, though I hear some continental wineries are now buy land in places as far north as Norway. How long before these bucolic acres are arid wastelands?

The first Green Swan Prize(s) will be announced at our 10 January 2020 event in London, entitled Tomorrow’s Capitalism: Step Up – Or Get Out Of The Way. The linked agenda for change was trailed at our Green Swan Day event at the Barnes Wetland Centre on 23 June.

Meanwhile, we have been working on the trophy with sculptor Nicola Godden. So yesterday Elaine and I drove across to Dockenfield, near Frensham, to meet Nicola and her husband, Michael Rutherford. Love her work, so loved her studio. Afterwards we all had an excellent lunch at The Holly Bush in Frensham.

I first came across Nicola’s work, without knowing who the artist was, when her huge Uncle Sam-like Hammersmith Man was draped across the top floor of a high-rise office building by the Hammersmith flyover, where Polygram used to be based. I have also long loved her sculpture of Sir Peter Scott, which stands outside the Barnes Wetland Centre.

Here are some images from yesterday:

Across to Geneva on Wednesday night with Richard (Roberts) for a WBCSD session on its Vision 2050 Refresh project. Then a train ride on Tuesday morning with Richard and Julian Hill-Landholt of WBCSD to Vevey, chez Nestlé. Duncan Pollard of Nestlé has seen a recent piece Richard and I had done for a Sustainable Development Goal yearbook and decided it would be a useful provocation.

Bumped into Caroline Seow of the Family Business Network International as we boarded the train – and she and I shuttled back and forth to see each other, at first thinking we were going to the same meeting – and then realising we weren’t.

Great to team up with Peter Bakker for the Vevey session, though it seems we are both feeling equally frustrated with the pace of progress in this space – even with the COP25 climate summit, now moved to Spain from Chile because of the riots in the latter country (even if Spain has had its moments recently with Catalonia), imminent.

Then in too the office yesterday, Friday, despite the ongoing train strike in London (though to date it hasn’t much affected me) and the fact that Fridays are now work-from-home days. First to have lunch with Clara Barby of the Impact Management Project, then an impromptu meeting with Luke Nicholson, and later a get-together with Simone Amber (who I once worked with when she was with Schlumberger, developing her SEED initiative aimed at the educational sector) and her sons, Jonathan (who works with the OECD) and Oliver (Bloomberg News).

Elaine spotted a large article in The Times about Sacha Dench, known as “The Human Swan”. So impressed were we that I got in touch via LinkedIn and email – and it just happened she was in Holborn that day, 2 December, so we agreed to meet in Somerset House. Blown away by her – and now she’s speaking at our Tomorrow’s Capitalism event, sub-titled ‘Step Up – Or Get Out Of The Way’.

Just back from a couple of days in Köln, Germany, with Covestro, running one of our new format Imaginariums alongside Louise (Kjellerup Roper), Richard (Roberts) and Julia (Rebholz). It seemed to go extremely well – with very positive feedback from participants. Encouraging – and a great addition to our Imaginarium series, where we have already worked with The Body Shop International and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).