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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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Journal

Tilos, The Green

John Elkington · 6 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

Tilos is generally seen as the greenest of the Dodecanese Islands, having switched entirely to renewable energy and, even more remarkably, having banned bird hunting. Would love to more about the politics that led to this outcome.

While on Tilos, we found our way to the precipitous heights occupied by the Monastery of St Panteleimon, with vertiginous views on the way up and down. We also learned more about the pygmy elephants found on the island, an example of so-called insular dwarfism, but not much to see on that front as yet, given that a museum is still under development. Would love to come back here.

Into the wind
From the monastery of St Panteleimon
Escher-like view of part of the monastery
Elaine
Lighting a candle
Aflame

Nisyros And The Crater

John Elkington · 5 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

This was another mind-bending visit, from our mooring in Mandraki. En route, we stopped off in the cove of Giali for a swim. Then passed a giant quarry on the island of Yali, that apparently extracts volcanic materials like pumice and perlite. long ago it was a key source of obsidian, too.

A sense of the history of mining in the region can be gained here. From the Internet, I learned that the miners are committed to sustainable development. Let’s see what that means when the site is worked out.

A good deal of quarrying must have gone into building the astonishing castle at Paliokastro, though the real astonishment lay in the close-cut, irregular masonry used to build the walls. Probably to ward off earthquakes, but strongly reminiscent of Inca stonework.

Going down into the crater that lurks at the heart of Nisyros was a special treat, though I wondered whether Elaine would manage with the smell of hydrogen sulphide – given that she had such problems at Larderello, Italy, when I was researching my book Sun Traps back in the 1980s. The reality turned out to be rather glorious, with the group drinking a local nut milk concoction under giant eucalyptus trees, whose prolific blossoms were thrumming with aerial legions of bees.

In the evening we headed up into a hilltop village that looks down on the crater, for a stunning meal in a little family-owned restaurant. Pretty sure that this was the Emporeiou taverna. Would love to go again if I happened to be passing.

En route, a vast quarry for volcanic materials
The extraordinary, close-cut stone blocks of the castle at Paliokastro
Closer in
Gateway to the castle
Michael on the walls, the red blob being the device he used to whisper in our ears
Elaine enjoys shade
Amanda and Pia enjoy the view
Nota looks down into the Stefanos crater
Looking down into the crater, the pumping heart of Nisyros
Eucalyptus blossoms, in the crater bottom, thrumming with bees
A slightly sulphurous spot
As we walk up into a village overlooking the crater
Wending our way
Our restaurant looks down onto the crater – and terracing
Nota and Michael explain where we are
The cats greet us
Looking back towards the crater

Kos And Its Asklepieion

John Elkington · 4 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

Kos was a bit of a shock when we arrived and docked within the shadow of Nerantzia castle, originally built by the Knights of St John. It is described here. Somewhat raucous by contrast with other islands we have visited. But once we got inside the castle and then out into the hinterland, to visit the Asklepieion, things settled down. The island was once famed for its wine – and for this huge shrine to Asklepios, the god of healing.

Also struck by the modern, floating shrines to Captain Jack Sparrow, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, given that our own captain – Captain Ergun Malatyali – has much of the pirate to him. He is great company, excellent at engaging his passengers, but you only need to squint a bit to be reminded of the pirates who were such a feature of these waters for so long – and one of the key reasons that there were so many hilltop castles and fortifications.

Probably the best-known story of a pirate captive was that of Julius Caesar. As John Leonard recalled:

Julius Caesar, a prominent investor in the region, once endured an infamous kidnapping by pirates (74 BC), records the biographer Plutarch (Jul. Caes. 1,2), near the Dodecanese island of Pharmakoussa (Farmakonisi). Ultimately ransomed after thirty-eight days, during which he calmly wrote poetry and speeches, Caesar promptly hired a ship, tracked down his former captors and had them crucified. 

Tree beneath Nerantzia castle
On the battlements
Nota gives a bigger picture
And shows how columns were cut to a template
Kos Town, latter day shrine to Captain Jack Sparrow
Monument to a dead hoplite
Welcome
This hornet has expired
Must have been magnificent in its day
A remnant decency
The front facade of the Asklepieion
Verdant, which must have been part of the charm – and healing process
Apparently in rude good health
Back in Kos Town, apparently the result of a seismic tremor

Leros And Ginger Baker’s Father

John Elkington · 3 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

This, for me at least, was one of the real highlights of this remarkable series of islands. For me a real joy was our visit to the Castle of Pantelli, in fact three castles built one around the other, reviewing the history of fortification from the early works of the Knights of St John through to the arrival of gunpowder. And bastions.

While we were there, Michael did a tour de force presentation on the battles that raged across the island in October-November 1943, as the British were outwitted and Leros passed from Italian to German hands. Strong elements of Louis de Bernières’ Captain Correlli’s Mandolin lay in wait for some of the captured Italians.

The Greek curator of the castle, not a happy camper for other reasons, mentioned that the father of Ginger Baker, drummer with Cream, was among the British and Commonwealth forces killed. Their last signal: “Situation desperate.” Later, we visited a Commonwealth cemetery: hugely poignant.

Earlier, we had walked around Lakki Town, into which we had sailed that morning, once called Porto Lago, and a major Italian military town in the 1930s. The architecture is eerie. As Peter Sommers’ brochure put it: “built in the style of ‘Razionalismo’, an odd combination of fascist aesthetics, Bauhaus modernism and Art Deco eclecticism.”

One link to the books that I have been devouring as we sailed was that the Italians used seaplanes as a key means of scouting and communications at the time – and we saw the crane that used to list the seaplanes into and out of the water. On the flight across to Bodrum I had finished Graham Hoyland’s powerful Merlin.

One link here was the speech that my father, Tim, did at the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby back in 2015, to thank them for all their engines he had flown behind.

After the castle and cemetery, we had a glorious lunch at a small winery, the Hatzidakis Winery, in Smalou. I thought their dry white wine exquisite – indeed bought a couple of bottles to take home. Fell in love with the co-owner, Haridimos, and we said goodbye with an embrace.

Then we set sail for a cove off Kalymnos, en route to Kos.

The style’s hard to nail – and like …
Some of it has not weathered the tests of time
Echoes of fascism
Michael shepherds his flock
Looking back, part way up to the Castle of Panteli
Shredded flag atop castle
That extraordinary eagle-eye view that high places afford
Michael in full flow on the Battle of Leros, 1943
Jug leans into the lunch at the winery
Haridimos offers insights into the magic
Passing the castle again, on our way back
Anons, in the cemetery
On our way again, millpond conditions

Samos And The Heraion

John Elkington · 2 June 2022 · Leave a Comment

We arrived in Pythagoreio yesterday, a port village built on the ruins of the ancient capital of Samos. Named after the island’s most famous son, Pythagoras. And make a mistake in interpreting a navigational structure on the harbour mole as an Antony Gormley statue in honour of the ancient mathematician. Even knowing I was wrong, I can’t help but still see the linkage. Here’s the structure closer to:

Navigational structure which I mistook for an Antony Gormley sculpture in honour of Pythagoras

In any event, one high point of the visit to Samos was the Heraion, said to be the birthplace of the goddess Hera. I was fascinated to hear that because the massive shrine was originally built on a wetland, a marsh, liminal land, the buildings kept subsiding. The scale of the ritual slaughter that was practised here back in the day beggars the imagination. I wonder if there were animal liberation activists here back in the sixth century BC.

Afterwards, we visit the museum in the island’s modern capital of Vathi, which contains many fascinating finds from the Heraion site. Among them, a colossal kouros, or male nude figure. Then, the next day, 2 June, we visit the Tunnel of Eupalinos, on a hill overlooking the port. Dug in the sixth century BC, it is an engineering marvel, cut through solid rock for over a kilometre, and designed to be invisible to attackers and besiegers.

When it came to it, though, I chickened out. I put on a safety helmet and started down the rock-cut steps into the tunnel, but my age-old claustrophobia returned with a vengeance – and I decided to sit out this one with some older members of the party. The story of how the tunnel was cut from both ends simultaneously, and how they managed to meet in the middle, was some sort of ancient miracle.

One story that stuck in my mind was the, perhaps deservedly, grisly end of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos. He made the mistake of trusting another tyrant and went to the wonderfully named Magnesia. His fate is thought to have involved some combination of impaling and crucifixion, with one account suggesting that he may have been able to see Samos in the distance as he died. Perhaps wishful thinking on the part of his enemies?

Later in the day we set sail for Leros.

One of manycoastal protection vessels we saw, the Clipper in the background
Spotted on the mole
Remnant column at the Heraion
Vista from beneath a shading mulberry tree
View of column across remnant marshland
Nota and colossal kouros in the Vathi museum
Upstairs
Other finds
Ditto
And ditto
Rampant lion
Wasp waisted
Welcome shade in Pythagoreio
Towards the Tunnel of Eupalinos
Helmets and torch
Get ready …
The view back as we wait for the bold tunnellers to surface
A fake (I think) skeleton in the museum
Michael at ease by an Egyptian gift
Incoming boat, as we leave for Leros, with mountain on which the tyrant Polycrates may have been crucified in the background
Looking back at Samos as we leave
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Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

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John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

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john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

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