Journal

Up early yesterday to head across to the Business Design Centre in Islington for my first major face-to-face speech, after over 250 virtual ones through the lockdowns of the last couple of years. This was the edie Sustainability Leadership Forum. Chaired by Soli(taire) Townsend of Futerra. She kicked off by talking about the need to let emotion into our work, so I gave her a very public as she brought me onto the stage.

Went rather well, I think, with three of our team in the room: Sophie, Josh and Álvaro. edie.net’s summary here.

Then, with others, we went on to the House Commons to launch the next round of the Bankers for Net Zero initiative that we have been co-evolving for the past couple of years. Bumped into Nick Robins, a former colleague and friend, now a Professor at LSE, as we were walking across to Parliament – and, unexpectedly, very much enjoyed the evening.

Welcome to the world, TOPIA, and delighted to have several posts in the launch edition.

I have literally lost count of the scores of keynotes and speeches I have done in recent months, but one that stands out – and I was reminded of it by an email today – was India’s first Green Literature Festival, where I did the opening speech on Wednesday 10th December. A fireside chat format, with Santhosh Jayaram, Global Head – Sustainability, at HCL Technologies Limited.

Did that from home, then made my way into Somerset House for Christmas celebration with the team. We had three competing teams playing Hidden City‘s Hunt for the Cheshire Cat. I played along for a couple of hours, but then my persistent cough got the better of me and I unhooked. Bt not before I had enjoyed many aspects of the hunt, including finding the blackbirds in Leicester Square:

Went back to Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, where the hunt had briefly taken us earlier and, unexpectedly, bumped into Elaine – who had been meant to meet us later in the evening at St Katharine’s Docks.

We went back to Somerset House a little later to meet up with the team and then catch the Uber boat down to the Tower. Glorious London-at-night spectacle and wonderful to walk by the Tower and into St Katharine’s.

We started with a drink at The Dickens Inn, before moving across to Kilikya, a delightful Turkish restaurant overlooking the dock itself. Then into a taxi back to Barnes and Richmond with Louise and Mark Roper, the latter having organised the day.

My review of Paul Hawken‘s stunning new book, ‘Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation’ appears on Medium today: https://medium.com/@volansjohn/hiding-seeds-in-our-hair-25a4034b038e…. Wanted to post before #GreenSwans Bookclub session tomorrow: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqf-moqT0pHtEI86zT1GDt9IZIi_HdgvE8…. Delighted to say that the EU and Commonwealth edition ends with an afterword from me.

The International Society of Sustainability Professionals has posted my piece on the generational aspects of the COP26 climate summit.