Journal

Great couple of days in Cambridge, where we were co-hosting the first Breakthrough Symposium with the UN Global Compact – as part of their annual series of LEAD company events. Co-facilitated with David Christie of Innovation Arts – and with support from our partners Atlas of the Future and Hüman After All.

Slightly taken aback by the venue, to start with, but in the end it worked well. And the Symposium’s first morning coincided with the announcement of the US presidential elections result.  Our American friends were in total shock, but we kept the juggernaut rolling.

The first morning involved a trip across to PA Consulting‘s R&D site in Melbourne, which covered everything from from drone-monitored farming through to 3D printed biscuits, and was an invigorating start to the process.

Met some great people – and moderated three panels, including people from the Braskem, Covestro, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Enel, iDisrupted, Provenance, PA Consulting, Singularity University and Tradeshift.

Great visual capture of the event, with a number of rounds of discussion groups on the floor above, but I’ll aim to distil those in a later blog. So more anon.

Here’s a link to my latest GreenBiz column on the recent Commonwealth Secretariat climate change event I attended – and on falling in love in a car park.

Also published today, here’s a Fast Company/Co-Exist review of our work at Volans.

Sent a link today to a short video capturing some of the essence of this year’s Business for Peace Summit in Oslo. In the middle of it all I’m captured saying that if I have a skill, it’s probably listening – “and, sometimes, remembering what I’ve been told.” Hope that’s both true and lasts.

Clocks went back today: spent the additional time in bed reading Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage. That in turn led me to dig back into the history of the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a band which I knew of and which was featured in the V&A Sixties exhibition, but which I’m pretty sure I hadn’t heard before.

Strikingly parallel to (and presumably an influence on) the Byrds in their Clarence White era and the Flying Burrito Brothers, two of my favourite bands.

Lily Rosenzweig came to lunch, during which a cameraman came to shoot a picture of Bruce McLean‘s garden next door from our top floor. Spied Bruce popping up behind an image of the garden when he and Rosie first moved in, in the Sixties.

I spent yesterday and today in Marlborough House, St James’s, at a conference hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat. The theme: ‘Regenerative Development for Reversing Climate Change.’ Supported by the Cloudburst Foundation and facilitated by the Value Web.

I took the photo above in the car park while our small breakout group was reviewing the rushes of a short video we were making on why we must learn to love carbon.

Left to right: Herbert Girardet (World Future Council), Mauro Paolini (Cloudburst Foundation), Toby Herzlich (Biomimicry for Social Innovation), Baroness Patricia Scotland (Secretary-General, Commonwealth Secretariat) and Janine Benyus (Biomimicry 3.8).

In her introduction, Patricia commented that the experts present (convened under a ceiling depicting various bloodthirsty moments in the Battle of Blenheim) were like a massing of blue whales – in that they/we were large, rare and deeply affected by climate change. Not quite sure what to make of some of that, but I think I know what she meant!

Came away keen to explore how the 52 member states of the Commonwealth might be even better mobilised to drive change. And am devoting my next round of monthly columns to some of the ideas that surfaced during the two days.