Journal

Latest GreenBiz blog published here. Quite pleased with it.

Flew to Tel Aviv on Wednesday – and was again helpfully and delightfully steered through the VIP channel. Next day up early for the trip to the UBQ Materials factory, which I first visited earlier in the year – as reported in a previous entry on this site and in a subsequent GreenBiz blog.

I knew President Trump would probably be making an inflammatory announcement this week, but had hoped that sanity would prevail – but  it almost never does with the delinquent denizen of today’s White House. A cool assessment of the implications can be found here in the New York Times.

All of that seemed quite a long way away, however, as we began the kick-off meeting of the UBQ International Advisory Board – even though several of our group were heading to Jerusalem on Saturday, the day after the slated “Day of Rage”.

In alphabetical order of first name, the other IAB members are: Connie Hedegaard (former European Commissioner for Climate Action), Ilan Cohn (senior partner at Reinhold Cohn, Israel’s largest intellectual property firm), Oded Shoseyov (professor in plant molecular biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a pioneer in nano-composite materials and a renowned winemaker), Roger Kornberg (professor of structural biology at Stanford University School of Medicine and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006) and Scott Tobin (managing partner at Battery Ventures, an international venture capital fund).

The visit included a trip to the UBQ factory, based on a kibbutz in the Negev, where things have been coming along by leaps and bounds. Fascinating conversations every step of the journey, and again fascinated to see the former desert areas where multiple crops now flourish. Including potatoes which, because of the irrigated sandy soils, apparently emerge from the ground perfectly formed.

A useful insight into the UBQ approach is given by an interview we filmed with their CEO, Jack (Tato) Bigio, during our Reimagining Carbon Basecamp at the Royal Society of Arts in June.

After an intensive couple of days, I had much of Saturday off ahead off the flight back to London. Visible in the distance from the top floor of the Hilton Hotel, where I was staying, was the peninsula part of Jaffa. Having been there briefly on our last trip, ably guided by UBQ Chief Sustainability Officer Chris Sveen, I decided to walk there along the coast – around 5 kilometres either way.

To say the city has had a complicated history is to put it mildly. But I enormously enjoyed the opportunity to freewheel for a change – and spent an interesting half hour pottering around the old town before heading back to the hotel. Then out to the airport, passing through cordons of heavily armed plainclothes guards on the approaches.

During the trip, I read Andy Weir’s new novel, Artemis. Had enormously enjoyed both his earlier book, The Martian, and the subsequent film – and very much look forward to this one being filmed. The heroine, Jazz Beshara, is wonderfully rendered and, like astronaut Mark Watney in The Martian, funny.

With Artemis set some 70 years in the future, and this time on the Moon, it is tempting to imagine what sort of Middle East the 2,000 citizens of the first lunar city would be looking down upon. And also, a couple of generations post-Brexit, what sort of hinterland to my own city of London.

Great couple of days in Barcelona, speaking at the Ship2B Foundation‘s Impact Forum. Picked up from the hotel by Ship2B co-founder Xavi(er) Post and taken on a long perambulation around the city.

One of the places we passed through was Plaça de Sant Felip, with its extensively pockmarked walls. Was told that this was where executions were carried out in the Civil War, but the size of the impact holes had me thinking of the bomb damage we still see in London – so was interested to see this blog later. Interesting how stories can mutate.

Fascinating visit to the City Council to see Francesca Bria, Barcelona’s chief technology and digital innovation officer. We share interests in such people as Nikolai Kondratiev and Joseph Schumpeter, Chris Freeman and Carlota Perez, and Manuel Castells.

Really enjoyed the 2017 Impact Forum on Thursday, themes around ‘Change Is Happening’ and held in the Mazda Space, alongside the old central market building – which is where we had lunch. Sadly, I had to be whipped away to be taken across to the airport.

As we arrived at the airport, I suddenly realised that my assertion that I had only once been to Barcelona before, in 1968, en route to Ibiza, was wrong. I have spoken at least one of the local business schools, but many years back. Checking back through this blog, I found an entry for 18 February 2004, on a visit to speak at ESADE.

I’m beginning to wish for a biochip memory implant …

3D graphics image by Quince Creative, https://quincemedia.com.

One of the ideas for a new book I have been playing with has been around the parallels between the bids to end slavery and to create the National Health Service in Britain, on the one hand, and the increasingly urgent need to ward off runaway climate change on the other. Some headlines on that line of thought in this piece posted this week on LinkedIn.

On Monday evening, I spoke at the 6 Heads anniversary event a Freshfields’ HQ. Tom Burke and I did an opening session on the ‘Unlock the Impossible‘ theme.

Then on Tuesday up to Nottingham with the team to run the first of our three city-focused events for Innovate UK, this one focusing in air quality.

Among other things, I did an on-stage conversation with Robyn Scott of Apolitical and then a panel session with Jane Lumb (Head of Energy & Sustainability Policy, Nottingham City Council), Mark Saunders (UK project Director, Ferrovial’s Centre of Excellence for Cities) and Phi Ellis (co-founder and COO of the cycle light company Blaze).

Nice drink on our way back to the station at the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, billed as the oldest inn in England. Whatever, it is the only inn or pub I have ever in that has rooms carved out of the living rock – in this case the sandstone outcrop on which the castle stands. enjoyed a round of drinks bought by Jean-Marc de Royére of Air Liquide.

Otherwise, this week has largely been about phone calls as part of the next phase of our Carbon Productivity work – with a new line of thought starting to surface as a result.

A delightful supper with Alois Flatz on Thursday evening, who I have known since his days with Sustainable Asset Management, and then Zouk Capital and now Generation Investment Management.