Journal

Sacha Dench, one of my heroes – and friends, on BBC4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028v02

March has been slightly mad, with my hareing too and fro across the country. And the coming week looks set to be busier still. Among speaking gigs were a Founders Forum event, “Landed,” on 27th February; a Cranfield University event on 4th March; a WWF event spotlighting their Nature-based Solutions Accelerator at Insurance Hall on 5th March; an Imperial event soft-launching their new School of Convergence Science on the same day; an Andy Haldane breakfast with Pi Capital on 6th March; and a dinner, after visiting the Somerset House Soil exhibition, with Nathan and Susannah Furr on the same day.

I have always enjoyed getting photographs from people showing my books in unlikely places around there world, including The Power of Unreasonable People (I think it was) in a wayside book shrine in the Norwegian fjords, and Sun Traps in the Himalayas. Was reminded of that today when I received this photo from lawyer Joshua Domb, who had spotted The Zeronauts in an Avon bookshelf.

Meanwhile, I am busily working on my new website for Countercurrent, on the new book, and on a series of four posts for my Rewilding Markets Substack channel on why we now need to retune our mindsets – and how we can do so. The first one was posted yesterday, the second goes out around midday today, before I head off to do a speech at Cranfield University.

Elaine asked me this evening to track down once again a video of Barnes she saw years ago, taken by John McCready in 1974. Last posted here in 2020. Extraordinary to look back and see that has changed – and what not. We arrived the following year, so 2025 marks our 50th year here.

During yesterday’s Market Open ceremony at the London Stock Exchange, Anthropy celebrated the launch of the UK’s largest shared agenda, to be addressed at the upcoming national gathering: Anthropy25, on 26-28 March. The full Anthropy25 Agenda is now public on the Anthropy website. 

LSEG, the London Stock Exchange Group, also joins leading businesses around the UK as an Anthropy member (as Volans already is) and will be participating in the national gathering held at the Eden Project.

And it was wonderful to be invited to join some interesting folk on the balcony of the London Stock Exchange as Anthropology founder John O’Brien opened the market. “While the London Stock Exchange deals in shares and bonds, convening people and capital,” he said, “we at Anthropy deal in something just as valuable. We trade in ideas. We invest in optimism.”

“That is why today marks the launch of the Anthropy25 national Agenda,” he explained, “and I can’t think of a better place to introduce this vision than here, among those who understand what it means to create value. Real value is built in many ways, through financial capital, and also through social capital, cultural capital, natural capital, through the strength of our institutions and the ambition of our people.”

Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of London Stock Exchange plc, said: “We are delighted to welcome Anthropy to the London Stock Exchange to celebrate the launch of their Anthropy25 Agenda. Working in partnership to shape the future of Britain is a cause that we are fully committed to, ensuring that companies and sovereigns can access the capital they need to finance innovation, growth, jobs, infrastructure and the low-carbon transition.”