Journal

A few days off, with clippers

Cutty Sark 1 The distant Shard from the deck of the Cutty Sark Rigging Hullscape 1 Hullscape 2 Emily Young 1 Emily Young 2 Emily Young 3 Church of St John, Clerkenwell St John’s: floorscape St John’s Gate Museum: galley St John’s Gate Museum: helmets St John’s Gate Museum: the other side

Took a few days off this week to recuperate. Went to Greenwich for the first time, on a Thames clipperwith Elaine, to see the Cutty Sark, and various other delights–including the National Maritime Museum and the extraordinarily beautiful exhibition, Visions of the Universe. Not sure which is my favourite nebula, but a number of them features. Dropped into Waterstones to buy some books, and among other things came away with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, which I had been meaning to read for ages. Dived in and haven’t surfaced since. Overwhelming.

Among other things, we went to the exhibition of work by one of my favourite sculptors, Emily Young, at the Fine Art Society. We had a wonderful lunch at The Modern Pantry in St John’s Square, Clerkenwell, and then dropped into the Church of St John across the way, where I loved the 12th century Crypt. Fascinated to see physical evidence of the history of the Knights Hospitaller, aka the Knights of St John. We also visited the Museum of the Order of St John, at inside nearby St John’s Gate, which brought back an extraordinary era that still sends out its repercussions today.

But time to blog

Less than an hour before the Iberia flight back to Madrid, and thence to London, was due to take off, someone came to say that the plane had been withdrawn, due to mechanical problems. We would have to stay over until tomorrow. So I found my way to a different Hotel Camino Real, this time at the airport, and checked in.

With nothing much to do,  except to listen to the hum of the air conditioning competing with my tinnitus, and unable to go back into the city to hear Paul Hawken speak at the Walmart event because the airline was going to call at some undetermined time to announce its plans, I caught up with blogging for this site-. This is something that had pretty much stalled on while doing the latest version of the new book. But sad to miss Paul–he told me a few days ago that he was going to be even more radical than usual …

Sustainability Summit, take 2

The ribbon is cut, by about 20 pairs of scissors CEO panel Tigers

Headed out early to the conference venue for the Walmart sustainability event, the second in a series that started in 2010. The ribbon was cut by an extraordinary number of dignitaries, everyone ending up with their fragment. The working day started with a session with perhaps 20 CEOs listening to the Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources. Parallel sessions included people like Paul Simpson of CDP, who I would have very much liked to hear, but I was repeatedly hooked away to do interviews for business magazines and a green TV channel.

When it came to my 60-minute plenary session, I was introduced by Juan Carlos Carmago of Walmart de Mexico, who also moderated the discussion. One of my themes here has been corruption, not just for Walmart but for Mexico as a whole. I have always felt that corruption narrows vision when we want open minds, shrinks time-scales when we want people to build their Future Quotient, and skews investment in critical sectors like urban infratsructure construction.

On the upside, I was very impressed by the commitment to change of the Walmart people I met–and one of the surprises was how much renewable energy Walmart is now producing in Mexico.

in the evening, in a torrential downpour, I was driven from the hotel to the residency of the British Ambassador for a dinner including people from CDP, Walmart and PEMEX. Once I had dried out, I really enjoyed the discussion, and found myself sitting next to Daniel Zapata, an advisor to the CEO of PEMEX, who reminded me he came to see me at SustainAbility when looking for a job perhaps as long as ten years ago. Remarkable guy. A highlight of the evening was the signing of an agreement between CDP and Brazil’s Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Arriving in Mexico City

Hotel Camino Real 1 Hotel Camino Real 2 Camino Real flowers

Even though it is overcast, and inclined to toss down buckets of rain several times a day, among the first things to strike me about Mexico City was the colour. And the interminable queue to get through immigration, though I was met by a charming young woman and driven into the city. And the bad roads.

The sculptures of Jorge Marin

Jorge Marin 1 Jorge Marin 2 Jorge Marin 3 Jorge Marin 4 Jorge Marin 5 Jorge Marin 6

I have always been a sucker for wings, so I was sideswiped when Mauricio (Bonilla) and I were walking back to the hotel from the National Museum of Anthropology–and came across the long line of sculptures, ‘Wings of a City,’ by Jorge Marin. Made me feel I wanted to be fitted out for a new pair of wings on the spot.