Journal

After taking part in a Volans salon on the role of Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) in the 2020s, I head off to Dusseldorf for the K-Fair, Europe’s biggest plastics exhibition. Clear that the industry feels under growing pressure, as it should. Spoke at a Covestro event alongside Lise Kingo of the UN Global Compact and Covestro CEO Markus Steilemann. I had interesting meetings with Markus and his new Chief Commercial Officer, Sucheta Govil, while there.

Easy to see why people find plastics so obsessively interesting, but they feature as one of my ‘Black Swan’ case studies in the new book, Green Swans, due to be published by Fast Company Press in April 2020. Few sectors are now in more urgent need to exponentially evolving Green Swan solutions.

Speaking of which, I dropped in on UBQ Materials’ stand – which was throbbing with people. Their carbon-positive plastics have come on by leaps and bounds, offering multiple colours and all made from domestic garbage. They sent me a coat hanger made from UBQ, to use at the Swedish Fashion Council conference I was meant to be speaking at in Stockholm, but that was cancelled at the very last moment, the day before I was meant to travel.

Spoke at the Clean & Cool ‘Stronger Stories’ event at the PwC building on the Embankment, in a session chaired by Cathy Runciman of Atlas of the Future.

Every so often in my life, things seem to go into warp speed, for better or worse. That has certainly happened in the past few weeks, with the diary suggesting that another acceleration is imminent: Germany, Holland and Canada incoming.

Am currently shaking off a bad dose of flu, unsure whether I picked it up in all the air travel this month or whether it came from the 4-way flu jab I had a couple of weeks back as I walked back from somewhere through Fleet Street. Either way, let’s say I haven’t been feeling myself this week.

Still, am also much buoyed by the early responses to my requests for what the publishers cheerfully call “advance praise” for Green Swans. Quite (American sense) moving, some of the comments on the book.

Otherwise, here are some of the things that have been keeping me busy since the last entry – with visits to Amsterdam to speak at the GIIN Investor Forum, Finland to chair the first meeting of the new Neste Sustainability & New Markets Advisory Council, to Copenhagen (to speak at Deloitte’s ‘Dinner on the Edge’ – losing an aircraft engine along the way and having to swap planes at Heathrow – and then, the next morning, to a UN Global Compact breakfast on the future of the restaurant sector), a speech at the London Business School for Michael Norton and a fascinating group of Chinese alumni of the CK Graduate School of Business (speaking alongside Howie Frumkin, head of the Wellcome Trust’s Our Planet, Our Health initiative), and then, on Friday, across to the London Stock Exchange, very early for me, for the launch of their new Green Economy Mark and Sustainable Bonds Market.

Here’s what they say about the LSE initiatives: The Green Economy Mark recognises listed companies with 50% or more of revenues flowing from environmental solutions, while the Sustainable Bond Market (SBM) incorporates new Sustainability, Social and Issuer-Level Segments. These initiatives are designed to support issuers implementing sustainable business models, and investors who are increasingly focusing on environmental products and services supporting the transition to a low carbon economy.

A case of serendipity, the LSE one: was invited by our neighbour Stewart Lloyd-Jones and his partner Tamara Gehring, who works for the LSE.

Delighted to keynote the B Corp Summit in Amsterdam, at the Muziekgebouw. Around 650 attendees, including Sabine Oberhuber, who it was wonderful to catch up with overlooking the water. The Green Swans concept went down a storm. As it did the following day, 24 September, when I was in Brussels, keynoting the SDG Forum in The Square conference centre.

Interesting panel session followed this second keynote, moderated by Annabelle Van Nieuwenhuyse, the Belgian presenter, with (Baron) Pieter Timmermans (CEO of the Belgian Confederation of Industry, FEB), Launy Dondo (UK Belgian Youth Delegate for Sustainable Development), Marc Leemans (Chairman of the Christian Union, a trade union) and Nicolas Van Nuffel (Perspective 2030).

Timmermans could hardly have been more unreconstructed, effectively arguing that industry only creates solutions, not problems. It was almost as if he was trying to be a caricature. At one point he said that Green Swans “might fly, but if they are not fed and watered they will die.” Well, yes. Happily, though, the youth, union and think-tank panellists were all powerfully aligned with the Green Swan agenda. But a perhaps timely reminder of just how far we still have to go in some quarters.

‘We are a group of business leaders, who want to accelerate action on the climate emergency and we are working on a voluntary basis. We have set up a not for profit company to run Business Declares as a campaign to the end of 2020. We welcome help and volunteer support from all those who support our aims.‘

So begins the Business Declares campaign, which we launched earlier today at the ICAEW (Institute of Chatered Accountants for England & Wales). A tremendously engaged and supportive atmosphere, with a standing room only audience. In kicking off, I held up a copy of this week’s astounding Financial Times front page, to underscore the point that the business mode on change is itself changing

Afterwards, some 30-40 of us travelled across to Westminster by bike and Tube to take part in the climate protests. A wonderful spirit abroad, with agitation but great good humour. Amazing what Greta Thunberg has managed to kick off. Later, headed home to do a call and continue the final stages of the book.

A wake-up moment for me this morning was when Stephanie Biden of Bates Wells (who are Volans’ lawyers) explained how they had got to the point of declaring a climate emergency. She noted that they had concluded that there were two necessary steps, rather than one: (1) to recognise the Climate Emergency and, (2), to declare what steps they planned to take in response. For me, it was if the clouds had parted.