Search Results for: Tim elkington

Some years back, I had what I recall as a particularly stimulating 3-hour breakfast in New York with Niels Christiansen, the man who in 2005 had coined the term ‘Creating Shared Value’ (CSV) for Nestlé. We were both in the city for one of a series of Nestlé CSV Forums.

The company’s original mapping of the CSV agenda is shown below:
The CSV concept had been pushed into the mainstream by a 2011 article in the Harvard Business Review by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, but the former had triggered a fairly animated debate by insisting that Shared Value would replace both the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability agendas.

Though I enormously respect Porter and Kramer, I disagreed – see here and here. And now Niels has plunged back into the debate, concluding that CSV has been “lost in translation” and proposing 6 steps for those who want to create true shared value in their businesses. Recommended: well worth reading.

My new passport was stuffed into the letterbox of 2 Bloomsbury Place a day or two back. Have had to have two passports for many years, to help us cope with the challenge of getting multiple visas, while travelling all the while, but they were stuffed to the gills with official stamps. So time for a new one.

This time, though, the Passport Office had been a little stickier about giving me one, perhaps wondering whether I was using the spare to shuttle in and out of countries with malign regimes, or similar?

As it happens, I have been travelling somewhat less in recent months, for all sorts of reasons – including health issues. Indeed, BA downgraded me from Gold to Silver a week or so ago, which I should welcome as a sign that my carbon bubble has shrunk – though we have offset our emissions since the outset.

All of that said, I scarcely expected to be genuinely thrilled when opening the new passport. The first thing that caught my eye, immediately below an echo image of me on the official identity page, was the image of a tern, rendered in blue. And that struck me as topical, since I have been standing to watch the aerobatics of a tern over Barnes Pond in recent days. The first time I can remember seeing one there.

Other pages sport images of fountains, sundials, shadowed trout, a dragonfly, what is likely a snowy owl, beachside huts, a Cotswold village and the like. It truly is a wonder, a treasure, with an acorn floating over the page where you have to register the names of contacts in case of Emergencies. A sense of potential there, a great oak in prospect. In the same way, I sense that the coming decade 2015-2025, could be extraordinary. The Breakthrough Decade, possibly. So it’s interesting, serendipitous, that the new passport expires in 2025.

Moth, as I leave home – no idea what sort it is

Tapman, Old Street

Mother Earth spotted in Old Street

Front window of the new Innovation Arts HQ

Where you find fruit …

… you sometimes find monkeys

… and they sometimes find you: monkeyed

Marble Arch the next day

Gloriously interesting couple of days, involving a visit with Sam yesterday to the new office of Innovation Arts, just off Old Street, and then today, with Amanda and Amy, to see Ancora Management Consulting. Wonderful discussion with David Christie at Innovation Arts and Tom Pütter at AMC. Arrived early for the AMC meeting and wandered across to see the decapitated horse sculpture by Nic Fidian Green at nearby Marble Arch. (Not sure why the new image conversion is introducing the banding into images, but will try to sort it out.)

A taste of the Raj, with salt collector rim

Birthday card and candles

Had a delayed birthday today, with Elaine, Gaia and Hania. G and H brewed up a fruit-based cocktail that apparently livened up the Raj times, with salt crystals around the rims of the glasses. Couldn’t help remembering Gandhi’s extraordinary march to the sea, where he boiled salt water in protest against the British salt tax. Delicious, though.

Sat them down later to watch again the Grammy’s celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the first appearance of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Night That Changed America, with Paul’s rendition of Happy Birthday being a highlight in the circumstances.

I confess I raised an eyebrow when I first heard that Jochen Zeitz, my co-author on the new book due out in September, was on the Board of Harley-Davidson – and is responsible for sustainability issues. But reading Time‘s account of the company’s evolving LiveWire battery-powered bike had me rethinking. It’ll be interesting to see how riders take to whining rather than throbbing, but has to be a step in the right direction