Journal

The citizen’s eye view of Breakthrough cities

Evergreen Brick Works garden, with part of leaning chimney on right Evergreen, smiles Peter (Love), John (Brodhead), Geoff (Cape) Chairs In session, Aaron on right Discussion One wall, of four walls that were seeing similar activity Roofscape Reception (detail) Bridge Graffito

Our final Toronto session was out at the Evergreen Brick Works, an extraordinary reclamation project that is greening the quarry and brickworks that produced most of the bricks used to build the city. Astronishing project. Find out more about the story here. This really is an extraordinary social enterprise: can’t wait to go back and take a proper prowl around. Wonderful to see a little of Char’s father Peter, too.

This last event in our Toronto series focused on cities and was orgnaised by Evergreen CityWorks, led by John Brodhead. They had convened a group of perhaps 20 Toronto citizens to explore issues related to the city, and to Breakthrough urban innovation. Having originally trained as a city planner at UCL, I felt I was coming full circle.

A fascinating session, and I was sad to have to leave part-way through to take a cab into the city for an interview with CBC. Luckily Char made it across — her youngest son Peter has been ill (and this would prevent her and her sons flying back for over week, as events would turn out) — for the afternoon part of the session. We were both inspired to think how we might use similar processes in our wider Breakthrough work, hopefully working alongside our Canadian friends and partners.

But thrilled to have the opportunity to have a wonderful lunch, with a delicious craft beer (it was Friday) with Evergreen co-founder and Executive Director Geoff Cape. Afterwards, he and I took a rapid walk around some of the site, allowing me to snap some of the facilities and the space still to be developed.

Loved the graffiti, including one of what may have been a wolf, which was appropriate since a mental image that came to mind at one point during the citizens’ panel session, at a moment when there was something of a existential outpouring on the proliferation of choices in our consumer societies, had been that of a howling grey wolf.

Tim Smit of the Eden Project, a member of the Volans Advisory Board, kept coming to mind as I talked to Geoff, so I put them in touch as soon as I got back to London.

Artwork in CBC building CBC

Taking our message to MaRS

The field of play for our main event at MaRS, Alan Gelberg of MaRS on right Bob Willard, top left, during one of the working group sessions Charmian Love of Volans as we wind down Someone’s left a paperclip Joeri (van den Steenhoven, top) and Aaron (Williamson, Value Web) finish up on the visuals

We’ll be posting more on the Volans website imminently, and including a report in our latest newsletter, but in headlines our first Breakthrough Canada events went wonderfully well. we started off with a CEO breakfast, introduced by Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of the MaRS Discovery District. And what an amazing place MaRS proved to be.  But then our team member Char(mian) Love knew that already, having worked there as an intern some six years ago, before coming to Volans.

Later in the day, we swung into our first major Breakthrough Canada event, also held at MaRS. I will include a link here to the report-back when it’s available, but meanwhile huge thanks to Aaron Williamson (of our longstanding Breakthrough partners, The Value Web), and to all the others who helped the session take flight–including Ilse, who kicked it off. Among our other key partners in the event were the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, RBC (Royal Bank of Canada), KPMG, Summerhill and two other key parts of MaRS–Social Innovation Generation (SiG) and the MaRS Solutions Lab.

Great to see a fair few people I knew at the sessions, including Nick Parker of the Cleantech Group, who Char and I had dinner with the previous evening, together with some of Nick’s friends. After the MaRS events, a group of us also went off to another wonderful dinner, hosted by Tim Draimin, Executive Director of of SiG. A different world from Colombia, a week or two back, but the sense of being at home–and of warm hospitality–has been very much the same.

CBSR annual conference

Some of CSBR team, CBSR ED Steven Fish centre, plus Lorraine Smith of SustainAbility NYC, left Exterior of Shangri-La hotel, as I walked past Shangri-La, again

Turned out that our Breakthrough Canada events more or less coincided with Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR)’s 11th annual conference, with the result that I was asked to kick off the CBSR event with an opening plenary. Great fun–and wonderful to be introduced so warmly to the audience by Doug Miller of GlobeScan, a long-standing friend and colleague. The focus of the event was on what CBSR call the Transformational Company.

A world before Electric Ladyland

Steve in hippier days And younger still

A lovely evening with the Warshals and friends, celebrating Steve’s seventieth birthday. He still seems ageless. First came across him and his wife Sandar when he was a Director of Greenpeace UK and was organising conferences, including one built around our Green Consumer agenda, way back in the late 1980s. Great conversation with Peter Melchett about a range of issues, including sustainable food. In terms of the question on the second slide above, the famous musician Steve went to school with back in Seattle was Jimi Hendrix.

A Halloween lunch and walkabout

Jaime Garzón photos in background On the threshold Corner Even the doors have eyebrows Storm clouds The birds and the cage Graffito Juanita’s T-shirt Aerial figure Wings Palm Kimono Halloween llamas Photograph Disappearing tram tracks Where the revolution began Fidel gives the finger Halloween cakes Shot from a speeding car, airport-bound

Worked at a fair pace this morning in the hotel, taking a number of phone calls including one with Amy (Birchall) from London and another with a headhunter from New York. Then by car to El Patio Restaurant for a lunch hosted by María López, and including Margarita Marino de Botero, Felipe Arango, Juanita Rico and Marco Volpe of Coca-Cola Colombia.

Couldn’t resist telling Marco that I hadn’t drunk Coca-Cola since I was in a school bus in Cyprus in the late 1950s when it was driven off the road by a truck and ended up crashing through the wall of a Coca-Cola factory.

The café-restaurant had a number of photographs and press cuttings in memory of the murdered Colombian and humourist journalist Jaime Garzón–a powerful, moving reminder of the 50-year war that the country has endured. Hopefully there will be a definitive peace agreement next year.

Then Juanita and Felipe took me for a walkabout through the streets of the city, which was full of people in Halloween costume. Impressive to see the Plaze de Bolívar, the scene of so much history, including the M-19 siege at the Palace of Justice. Came away feeling I need to read more about Simón Bolívar.

Then back to the Sheraton to pick up my things and on to the airport. As I finished Of Love and Other Demons as we winged back to Frankfurt, I found myself pondering the history of Colombia and its prospects for realising its dream of becoming a developed economy by 2050. Although Colombia is intensely hierarchical, I can just about imagine the dream happening.