Journal

Leif Utne and I

Helen Spaull of the Noah Foundation took this photo of Leif Utne of Zanby and I in the Big Tent at Tallberg. He and I were part of a mentoring programme this year – perhaps that’s why I look so serious?

Flag: it must be Sweden Hotel

Just in from 4-5 days at the Tallberg Forum in Sweden. much better than last time I was there, a couple of years back. Met a fair few people I knew, and many I didn’t – including Leif Utne of Zanby, who seemed to Twitter non-stop.  We mutually mentored. I took a couple of lovely walks down by the lake, one with Wouter van Dieren and his wife Jeanette.

I took part in a closed session on planetary boundaries, with the outputs confidential until Nature publishes the related story in September.  I also spoke at a parallel session of entrepreneurship and scale, with Alejandro, and moderated a plenary session on the last morning, with speakers like Ray Anderson of Interface, Iqbal Qadir of the MIT Legatum Center for the Entrepreneurial Development and Mia Horn af Rantzien, Deputy Director General of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. We managed to get a good dynamic going with the participants in the tent, which was a strong positive as far as I was concerned. Session topped and tailed by Carl Mossfeldt.

Stand-out sessions by people like Charles Handy and by John Liu, the latter on the ecological restoration of China’s Loess Plateau. Great conversation on the 3-hour bus back to Arlande airport with Nicky Gavron. Later addition: My mother was taken seriously ill while I was away – and was shipped off to hospital in Moreton-in-Marsh. Very sadly, the mother of another of my panelists, Emmanuel Dennis Ngongo, who plays a key role in developing the YES Campaign across Africa, died while he was away.

Lake 1, around 23.30 Lake 2 Lake 3 Camera and sitting posts Cameras

Study in blue

If this is climate change, then – terrible thing to say – there are moments when I rather like it. Sadly, though, the mood here at the Tällberg Forum is often closer to that you might find in a small village as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride in.

A few snippets from Paul Gilding’s speech yesterday: we are all in denial, no-one is going to change, growth is finished and we are headed for global, cataclysmic collapse.

On the other hand, there was Gro Harlem Brundtland, who said in relation to solving the climate change, “We can, we must, we will.” And sessions focusing on Rwanda and on the Loess Plateau of China showed what can be done once people get serious about change.

Alejandro (Litovsky) led a great session yesterday on entrepreneurship and scale, in which the Volans corona (and our 5-stage Pathways to Scale model) featured rather nicely.

Something of a relief, though, to sit by the lake this morning and collect my thoughts.

Geoff, Sarah, Sophia Fran and Shelly

As I pack for Sweden, several wonderful days of celebration come to an end, both of my first 60 years and of the first year of Volans, a milestone we passed on 1 April. A number of photos taken during the Bloomsbury Place party last night appear below, taken by several people – including Sam – with my camera.

Romy, Godfrey, Elaine Mark and Julia Jennifer and David Hania

Dorothy and Julia

Tom Sarah and Nigerian flames Talking with Molly Geoffrey and Elaine Candles

Patrin of the Cup Cakes

Sam and Patrin came armed with legions of extraordinary cup-cakes to the party this evening, some more extraordinary than others.

XXX