Journal

Companies helping stabilize the climate

Began to get tweets early this morning about the launch of the Gigaton Awards in Cancun, Mexico, for which I had been one of the judges.

The Gigaton Awards, developed by Sir Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room, are based on the Gigaton Throwdown project, launched in 2007, at the Clinton Global Initiative by Sunil Paul. The project encourages entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers to grow companies that stabilize the climate.

The Awards recognize individual companies across six major sectors for their leadership in emissions reductions and sustainable practices. A pool of 28 nominees across six major sectors was selected based on quantitative data indicating emissions reductions on an annual basis. The six sectors include consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, industrials, telecommunications and utilities.

The 2010 nominees included The Coca-Cola Company, Siemens Wind, Vodafone Group, Anheuser- Busch, Sony Corporation, GDF Suez, and 3M (see the attached appendix for a full list of nominees). Each winner goes home with an elegant Gigaton Award trophy, exclusively designed by renowned artist – Yves Behar. The winner of the top award, the Gigaton Prize, will keep the award until its handed off to next year’s winner.

The Gigaton winners and their sectors are: Suzlon (Energy), Vodafone Group (Telecommunications), Reckitt Benckiser Group (Consumer Staples), Nike (Consumer Discretionary), 3M (Industrials) and GDF Suez (Utilities). For more details, see here.

And Ale’s last day

Poster for Monsters Church Road Richmond Park Stag Elaine Lower lake, still under ice

Strange sense building this week that 2011 is going to take off like a rocket – almost as if Volans is in the process of casting off the booster rockets of its first two-and-a-half years and headed for a new trajectory. The sense of a watershed was in part created by the snow that swept across the country this week, partly by the tempo of requests for our involvement in interesting projects and partly, sadly, by the team’s celebration of Al(jandro Litovsky’s) last day with us. He’s planning to set up a not-for-profit organisation focused on earth security, in effect our first spin-out. More anon.

On Friday, Gaia asked us to go to a viewing of Gareth Edwards’ new film, Monsters, which she had seen ages ago when it was still in production – and had loved. I did, too: quite remarkable, even if you didn’t know that it was made on the proverbial shoe-string. Sadly, I missed a joint get-together of the Volans and SustainAbility teams, but I think/hope there’s another before Christmas.

Picked up a new pair of glasses (spectacles) yesterday, late evening, and walked through a Barnes transformed, with all the snow gone, even if the Pond still sported quite a layer of ice. As we walked through Richmond Park, there was still ice in parts, but the sun was bright and it felt good to be alive. Have been working flat-out on a secret project – and it was wonderful just to be able to stretch my legs and breathe real air.

I wish I could fly

Kids Company 1 Kids Company 2 Kids Company 3 Kids Company 4

Day started in Southwark, with light snow falling, at Kids Company building at 38-40 Blackfriars Road. Glorious, moving artwork by children, including ‘I Wish’ clouds. Given the Volans mission of helping the future take flight, I was particularly touched by the ‘I wish I could fly’ one. This was a meeting of the Trustees of Virgin Unite, together with a number of MDs of Virgin businesses. Very stimulating discussion. I spoke alongside Chris West of the Shell Foundation and Heerad Sabeti of Fourth Sector.

Then back to Volans for series of meetings, including sessions with the likes of Tetrapak and Earthscan, then across to Green Park for a meeting with Tellus Mater Foundation. Heading back to Barnes, I heard that our bid for a session on ageing at the 2011 Skoll World Forum has been successful, which is encouraging.

Another week that was

Amy and Jack Sim Jack, me Charmian holds forth at EMERGE Sara Parkin’s foot Peter Randall Page sculptures at Said Business School

Ice was spreading across Barnes Pond as I walked home this evening after spending the day at the EMERGE conference in Oxford, my session involving a conversation with Solarcentury CEO Jeremy Leggett. Twitter stream here. Charmian (Love) did an excellent session on how-to-get-into-this-sector this morning, during which I sat on the floor next to Forum for the Future co-founder Sara Parkin – and Amy (Birchall) is involved tomorrow. Great discussion with David Grayson this afternoon on a new project we’re planning at Volans, which broke some sort of logjam in my brain.

As often happens with events in Oxford, Volans happily served as a stopover for migrating entrepreneurs – and we had a great session yesterday with Jack Sim of the World Toilet Organization (WTO).

Earlier in the week, on Wednesday and Thursday, I was in Rome, speaking at a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) organisational stakeholder meeting at ENEL’s HQ in Rome. Italy seems to be developing quite an appetite for sustainability reporting. ENEL’s Luigi Ferraris gave one of the most engaging speeches I have ever seen as CFO do, noting that 5% of the energy company’s are now owned by socially responsible investment (SRI) firms.

Loved the stone pines lining the streets as various taxis whisked me around the city, ignoring jams by streaking down tram-tracks, the drivers vigorously texting as they screeched one-handed around corners.

Next time I’ll take my cycle, I think, though had to take that into the cycle shop during the week, because the combination of the sheer weight of stuff I typically carry around in my panniers and the increasingly aggressive potholes that are eating up the London streetscape had created metal fatigue – and a strut gave way as I sped home on Thursday evening. Love the cycle shop, Holdworth’s. Bought a tiny, resonant bell that they had lying around in the workshop for a while, which means I won’t now need to use my industrial klaxon , except in extremis.

Dublin, among other places

Carbon Leapfrog and IUCN conference Dublin: the new Samuel Beckett Bridge And in daylight Conference Centre Another electric car Inside out view Ditto Emergent uniform at SustainAbility? Chris shoots Gary Later Frances and Sam Holland Park Anish Kapoorscape

A bit of a blur of a week, signing contract for the new book, a panel discussion to launch Unilever’s new Sustainable Living Plan, chaired a panel session at the IUCN/Carbon Leapfrog conference, a trip to Dublin with flights horribly scrambled by fog at Heathrow, a Board meeting at SustainAbility, and – today – Hamlet at the National Theatre, with Rory Kinnear. Went with Carys and Mike Cooper. Quite unbelievably good. I understood the play for the first time. And the AK47s made a bunch more sense than cutlasses. Feeling like sleeping, but here comes another week; this time Rome, I think.