Search Results for: Tim elkington

Elaine spotted a large article in The Times about Sacha Dench, known as “The Human Swan”. So impressed were we that I got in touch via LinkedIn and email – and it just happened she was in Holborn that day, 2 December, so we agreed to meet in Somerset House. Blown away by her – and now she’s speaking at our Tomorrow’s Capitalism event, sub-titled ‘Step Up – Or Get Out Of The Way’.

Yesterday, Wednesday 13 November, Elaine and I went across to the Royal Academy to see the Anthony Gormley exhibition, Highlight, at least for me, were his sketchbooks. Pretty busy, so made our way across to Waterstones, where I bought a number of books, including on the history of calculus and exponential thinking: Infinite Powers by Steven Strogatz. Then on to Somerset House, where I joined a meeting with The Body Shop and Elaine met Roxanne (Tibbert) for the first time.

Today, Thursday 14 November, I headed off early to ZSL London Zoo for the latest meeting of the WWF UK Council of Ambassadors. Great talk by Henry Dimbleby on the future of food. Later, walked back through Regent’s Park with WWF UK CEO Tanya Steele, both of his headed back to Somerset House, where WWF now have an office at the same end of the same floor as us.

In the evening, Elaine and met up at Cahoots, part of Kingly Court in Soho, for a gathering of the SustainAbility UK and US teams. Hadn’t realised that there was an old Tube station there – and rather liked the décor of the underground restaurant, where we managed to squeeze some 40 people into a reproduction of an old Tube train. Struck by the Christmas decorations in the Carnaby Street area, huge plastic models of oceanic life forms. Not sure the irony was intended.

Then on to Science Museum for the launch of the Wellcome Galleries on the evolution of medicine and medical technology. They were serving canapés from stretchers and staff were dressed in emergency response uniforms.

Drove across to Little Rissington this morning, to see Pat – now heavily sedated on morphine. House was full with my three siblings, three nephews, our cousin Toby Adamson, a nurse Tanya and another, Sharon, from Kate’s Home Nursing. Kate’s have been beyond wonderful at a taxing time.

Left the trip back until quite late, around 21.30, but hit all sorts of problems on the way back to London. The Oxford ring road was closed eastwards, so I found myself driving right through Oxford and Cowley to get back on track. Then the signs said that the M4, where I would normally head after the M40, was closed. So I stayed on the M40, only to find the junction with the M25 was closed, too. Having been watching Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials on BBC1, am beginning to hanker after my own airship.

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.