Search Results for: Tim elkington

Uncorking – with fire extinguishers (Samphoto) Lubricating the lily 1 (Samphoto) Lubricating the lily 2 (Samphoto)

A memorable day, in all sorts of ways – but primarily because the birthdays of Sam and Volans coincided, as they will do, hopefully, in perpetuity. The office was soon awash with seried ranks of flowers and the air vibrated with incoming calls, mainly for Sam. Outside, the magnolia tree is bursting into bloom, although there is still a serious nip in the air and April is characteristically showery. A lovely grilled haloumi lunch just along from the British Museum. Ale(jandro) and I finished off the text of our new report, The Biosphere Economy, and between times I continue to work on another, The Transparent Economy, for the Global Reporting Initiative.

Arriving for BASE Cranescape 2 Eco-sentiive driving training at BASE Washing down the Excel Centre Statue of window-washer on my way to the Hilton, Edgeware Road

A whirlwind week, this one. But almost over the pestilential cough that has haunted me for a month, thankfully.  Elaine in Edinburgh, tidying up her aunt’s estate, for much of the week.  Small highlights from the Barnes front: our mimosa tree is in blossom, with wonderful scent, and – a less attractive natural input – I discovered that a flock of birds, probably seagulls, had bombarded our glass-roofed kitchen during the night with the most insane quantities of liquid guano. Took quite a while to hose off. Could have done with the hosing mechanism I saw when leaving the Excel Centre in Docklands earlier in the week (see penultimate photo above).

A ferocious amount of writing to be done at the moment. Today has been spent writing the latest round of articles and columns, this time on social networks after the Just Means conference on Friday, and yesterday was largely devoted to doing an essay for the next issue of McKinsey’s What Matters. Fingers crossed on that front, because I took the brief – to be provocative – fairly literally. First time we have been able to sit out for lunch, though it got quite cold as soon as the sun went behind the clouds.

The week has seen a stream of visitors coming through 2 Bloomsbury Place, among them Jill Huntley and Jessica Wilson of Accenture, Richard Cree of Director magazine and Patrice Thramer of Nike’s GreenXchange. On Tuesday, I had a very interesting dinner in Covent Garden with Nick Parker of the Cleantech Group and his son, Sanjay.

Among speaking events there was a panel session at the BASE conference in Docklands and an hour-and-a-half event with Charmian in the Hilton Metropole,  this one with a study group from the National Bank of Australia. Rather got into my stride at both, with energetic feedback.

With Spectator business editor Martin Vander Weyer in the chair, my co-panellists at BASE were: Business in the Community chief executive Stephen Howard; Paul Turner, head of sustainable development at LloydsTSB; Peter White, global sustainability director at Procter & Gamble; and Jeff Whittingham, director of business solutions at British Gas. had a productive coffee with Martin Chilcott of the 2degrees network, where I’m on the Advisory Board.

Then, on the evening of 17 March, Geoff (Lye), Sam and I went across to The Perseverance, near SustainAbility, to have a drink with Chris Guenther and other SA team members, before I shot up north to Highbury for a dinner on social innovation at Charlie Leadbetter’s house, with people like Geoff Mulgan of the Young Foundation, John Grant of Abundancy Partners and Molly Webb of the Climate Group – where we helped think through a new initiative, Bethnal Green Ventures.

Hare Cord and bottles

A couple of the images I too around the kitchen, in hope of stimulating Caroline in her current painting marathon.

Ian (Keay) and I at the Birch-hosted party According to a sample of Oli Barrett’s photos, a good time was had by all Patrin and I – and a book for the flight

Just back from US: my flight from SFO was significantly delayed by a crashing downpour as we were about to take off, then we took a while to get into JFK, probably because snow was slowing things down, so until the last moment I was convinced I would miss my connection – but didn’t. Read two books on the way across: David Siegel’s Pull and Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch, plus the latest editions of Fast Company and Wired. All feeding the ferment in my mind.

Oli Barrett sent two photos as I travelled: one of Ian (Keay, our best man way back in 1973) and I at the Birch/Bebo party, and a collage of the Clean & Cool Mission participants. The images capture the good humour of the enterprise which, in turn, reflected its energy, interconnectivity and productivity. Will be writing up my thoughts on it all in my six monthly columns tomorrow – and, hopefully, the first of a series of blogs for Fast Company.

Truly invigorating week – and nice to tie it off with breakfast on Friday morning with Jennifer (Biringer) and Patrin (Watanatada) of SustainAbility San Francisco. A whole bunch of new ideas now fizzing around our collective brainpan.

Patrin

Ignasi and Ernst Simon Longstaff’s hat Preparing for shoot Joris Nelmara’s office 1 Nelmara’s office 2

Am tapping away in the kitchen, with Monty Don on TV demonstrating a threshing machine which reminds me to some degree of thresher that was such a key feature of my younger days on a farm in Northern Ireland, and recalling the past two days in Amsterdam with the Board of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Have been struggling with flu for much of the time, despite the flu jab I had late last year. Luckily, several other people had the same problem, and, better still, the meeting ended early, so instead of flying back after 21.00, I got on a BMI flight around 15.35–though we had to stand in line to check in for over an hour, which with my damaged back had me swearing never to fly BMI again. Getting ready to fly to San Francisco tomorrow.