Journal

 We mainly get The Times for the obituaries, but today it ran an article that resonated strongly, entitled ‘A peasants’ revolt in the new age of brutality’.  I have been warning for some years that the golden age of CSR is more or less over, which is the theme of this piece, but it sets the arguments in the context of the work of one of my favourite historians, Barbara Tuchman, and her book The Distant Mirror, which sits at my bedside.  Not comfortable reading.

Stepping into the future: Vestas windmill Raising the bar: Dr Pachauri My vehicle of choice for dealing with opposition to climate action Lise Kingo Final session: Blood, Rogers, Gowing, Tickell Blood and water: Shai Agassi waters David Blood Media@work Every which way: artwork at airport (detail) Airborne

After a pretty muddled start, with panels of CEOs allowed to meander on about corporate citizenship, the World Business Summit on Climate Change finally took off with a speech by Cate Blanchett and, the next morning, a panel moderated by the BBC’s Nik Gowing, who took the gloves off and really got to work on the agenda set at the beginning of the event by Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri.  Video coverage can be found here.

Really enjoyed meeting Tim Flannery – and running a forestry session with him. Wonderful dinners with Novo Nordisk, including an intimate session with Al Gore, and at the Danish National Gallery, where I caught up with Nicky Gavron of the London Assembly, among others.

The final statement, dubbed The Copenhagen Call, was somewhat stronger than some of the sessions had led me to expect – one virtue of such things being drafted in parallel to such events.  It proposes six action steps.

Maybe it was just the sessions I was in, but Australia seemed in the ascendant at the World Business Summit on Climate Change, with Tim Flannery as Chairman and Cate Blanchett dropping into the session he and I did on forestry today – and then giving the final plenary speech.  A moving end, especially when she spoke of fellow Australians cooked in their cars when the flame front swept through towns in the recent fires.  Last night, a wonderful dinner with Novo Nordisk and Al Gore, where both he and Lise Kingo of Novo Nordisk gave special mention to the work we have done over the years.  Wonderful to see Mads Øvlisen, who first brought us into Novo at the every end of 1988 or early in 1989.

No Speed Limit Anymore

Girding my loins to fly to Copenhagen this afternoon, I have been tidying up, among other things uploading recent photographs from my camera to my laptop.  When Doug Miller of GlobeScan asked me last night at dinner in Whit’s how I was feeling, the answer was/is that after a period of wanting to hold back as the downturn took serious hold, partly because I thought that any approach to possible partners and clients would lead to stonewalling, I’m now beginning to feel much more open to the world and to opportunity.  

Speaking to a Brazilian visitor yesterday, who had been reading the Volans Flyer, I underscored my faith in serendipity (a word that features prominently on the front of the Flyer), if the conditions are prepared, and she agreed.

A year in to Volans, I’m beginning to feel a mood coming on that aligns with the card Sam gave me as we began to set up the new organisation, NO SPEED LIMIT ANYMORE.  And the strapline: ‘Go as fast as you want, like in Germany’. Though I hate German driving styles, nose-to-tail at close to warp speed, the sentiment is exactly right. The time has come to get ourselves organised and put our feet to the floor.

Across to Brick Lane with Charmian late in the day to take part in a panel discussion for Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP).  Speaking alongside Jon Sopel of BBC News 24, Gib Bulloch of ADP, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart of Anglo-American and Charles Badenoch of World Vision. Lively and the time whistled by, an experience I don’t normally share with the rest of humanity. First time I had been to The Brickhouse, an interesting venue, a bit like playing the Jazz Cafe. The subject of the debate, a new paper by Gib and Jane Nelson, called Development Collaboration: None of Our Business?