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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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Journal

Toasting Taormina

John Elkington · 2 October 2018 · Leave a Comment

The Sea Cloud
Held up by a road crash
Still on the way up to Taormina
Greek theatre, Taormina
And again, staggeringly beautiful

After Etna, back to Taormina, for a visit to the Greek theatre and then on the verandah of the Hotel Villa Schuler – where we had a glorious farewell evening enjoying their Etna-grown house wine. Toasting Taormina and other wonders across this extraordinary island. Would love to come back here. Huge thanks to Rosaria.

Mama Etna: Mountain Of Fire

John Elkington · 2 October 2018 · Leave a Comment

A pause, en route up the flanks of Etna
Higher up
Cushion plants
Panorama
Ditto
Elaine
Words in rocks in a crater

Something I have wanted to do for a fair while, climb an active volcano. So here we are on the flanks of Mama Etna. The panoramas are out of this world. Didn’t go to the peak, knowing that the height would probably be a problem, given my low heart rate. Totally uplifting, even if the clinkerscape slightly shredded my old shoes.

Medieval Cefalù

John Elkington · 1 October 2018 · Leave a Comment

Cefalù from a distance
Datura, I think
Door
Norman cathedral
The other direction
Spotted

Would have loved to have got up onto the mountain top behind Cefalù, to see the ruins, given that that was where the town was once located, but Elaine and I did have a wonderful lunch on a verandah overlooking the sea.

Then a stop, en route to Taormina, to view Calabria across the straits from Messina.

Calabria across the water

A Monreale Moon

John Elkington · 30 September 2018 · Leave a Comment

Inside the cathedral
Outside the cathedral
Columns 1
Columns 2
The Moon
Rooted
Panorama from behind the cathedral

 

Wonderful Norman gothic cathedral today in Monreale, the Moon pale and distant overhead.

Out And About In Palermo

John Elkington · 30 September 2018 · Leave a Comment

At speed, the white blob in the middle is the building from which the bomb that killed Judge Giovanni Falcone was triggered in 1992
Church of San Cataldo
Ditto
Interior
Detail of curtain by door
Interior of Church of La Martorana
Looking from La Martorana to San Cataldo
What’s behind the yellow door?
Ditto
A message that also adorns the white building from which the Falcone assassination was initiated
Palermo panorama
Byzantine crab, my birth sign, on mosaic floor of the Cathedral
Interior of Palatine Chapel
View from our lunch table in Palermo
Luggage seen during visit to Palazzo Conte Federico
A family that loves its racing cars so much they come home with them to dribble oil on the floors

 

I saw the little white building from many miles away – amazing how news images can lodge in the brain. Hugely admire all those of who have fought the Mafia over the decades, including Judge Giovanni Falcone, whose assassination was triggered from that inconspicuous blob in the landscape. That same fated year of 1992 also saw the assassination of his colleague and friend Paolo Borsellino.

Palermo, where we stayed at the Hotel Excelsior, was incredibly noisy. But chapels, churches and cathedrals really were miraculous – particularly the Church of San Cataldo, with its three faded pink domes. Felt something particularly powerful there.

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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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About

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.

Contact

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

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