Search Results for: Tim elkington

As part of the latest phase in my working life, I have been taking stock of my parallel life as a Committee Person. With some regret, late in 2007 I resigned several committee memberships—notably the Chairmanship of the Advisory Council of the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD), my membership of the RSA Advisory Council and my role as a Trustee at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (B&HRRC: http://www.business-humanrights.org/Home). Happily, however, in this third case my colleague Kavita Prakash-Mani seamlessly took over from me as a Trustee and I continue to serve as Senior Advisor. At the same time, I have found myself drawn into a number of new roles that better align with my growing focus on scalable entrepreneurial solutions, including advisory board memberships with organizations like 2degrees, EcoVadis (http://www.ecovadis.com), Physic Ventures (http://www.physicventures.com) and zouk ventures (http://www.zouk.com). Then late in 2007 I was also invited to become a Visiting Professor at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at the Cranfield University School of Management (http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/research/centres/ccr/).

I never thought of myself as a potential ‘Committee Man’, certainly not in the Sixties, but this type of work has taken a good deal of my time over the years. Since the late 1970s, I calculate, it has been my privilege to sit on over 30 boards, advisory boards, councils and committees. Some of that time has been squandered, inevitably. My seven years with the European Commission’s Consultative Forum on Sustainable Development, for example, were pretty taxing at times.

But, again, I can remember meetings when we were able to make a real difference. For example, I recall a meeting of the Global Reporting Initiative steering committee in the early days, high up in a New York skyscraper looking out towards the Statue of Liberty. With a couple of colleagues I pushed hard to have the GRI embrace a triple bottom line agenda, rather than their evolving into simply another set of environmental reporting guidelines. And we carried the day.

I have really enjoyed chairing The Environment Foundation, though the legal battle we fought over several years with the Charity Commissioners to get sustainable development accepted as a charitable objective had me wanting to do a Guy Fawkes on them. In the event, we won, and I am infinitely grateful to Helen Holdaway, the Foundation’s Director, and to Stephen Lloyd, who took up the legal cudgels on our behalf.

I am also enormously grateful to my colleagues at SustainAbility for allowing me to do this work, almost all of which is done pro bono.

Currently, in addition to my SustainAbility and Volans roles, I am:

Member of Advisory Board, 2degrees, details to come once the organisation is launched.

Chairman, Impact and Policy Analysis Steering Group, Aflatoun (Child Savings International). Aflatoun equips children with the knowledge and skills to become economically self-reliant citizens and empowers them to break the cycle of poverty through Child Social and Financial Education (CSFE). See www.aflatoun.org

Senior Advisor to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, spun off (but still supported) by Amnesty International. A fantastic organisation. The purpose of the Centre’s website is to promote greater awareness and informed discussion of important issues relating to business and human rights. The online library covers over 150 topics, over 160 countries, over 150 industry sectors. The site is composed of links to a wide range of materials published by companies, NGOs, governments, intergovernmental organisations, journalists, academics, etc. It includes reports of corporate misconduct, as well as positive examples of ‘best practice’ by companies. Run by the indefatigable Chris Avery. www.business-humanrights.org

Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) I am pretty much a sleeping partner here, but (Professor) Rob Gray has been a long-standing colleague and friend. CSEAR was established in 1991 as networking institution which gathers and disseminates information about the practice and theory of social and environmental accounting and reporting. CSEAR provides a mechanism for academics and practitioners to make contact and support each other. It currently has over 300 members in over 30 countries. www.gla.ac.uk/departments/accounting/csear

Visiting Professor, Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield University School of Management, http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/research/centres/ccr/

Advisory Board Member of Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes I was invited to join the new DJSI Advisory Board in late 2003. Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. Currently 60 DJSI licenses are held by asset managers in 15 countries to manage a variety of financial products including active and passive funds, certificates and segregated accounts. In total, these licensees presently manage over 5 billion USD based on the DJSI. www.sustainability-index.com

Advisory Board Member, EcoVadis, Paris. EcoVadis was incorporated early in 2007 with the objective of becoming a trusted partner for procurement organizations aiming to implement sustainable supply management practices. Leveraging innovative information technologies and service expertise on sustainable procurement, EcoVadis helps procurement organizations improve their performance, while reducing the costs associated to suppliers CSR performance assessment (http://www.ecovadis.com/)

Member of the Advisory Council of The Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) ELF is the national UK charity linking communities and individuals to legal and technical expertise to prevent damage to the environment and to improve its quality for all. Through its network of members, ELF provides people with information and advice on how the law can help resolve environmental problems such as pollution, development and health. www.elflaw.org

Chair of The Environment Foundation A financial sector charity founded in 1983, The Environment Foundation was launched in 1983 and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2003. I joined as a Trustee in 1994 and was invited to take over as Chairman in 1995. Among other things, the Foundation has sponsored a series of Consultations at St George’s House, Windsor Castle. A major coup was achieved when the Foundation fought the Charity Commissioners to establish sustainable development as a charitable objective for the first time—and won, with the invaluable help of Stephen Lloyd of Bates, Wells & Braithwaite.www.environmentfoundation.net

Member, Evian Group Brain Trust.

Member, International Board, Instituto Ethos, Brazil Ethos Institute is a leading CSR organization in South America and an emerging global reference point on the theme. Its mission is “to mobilize, encourage and help companies manage their business in a socially responsible way, making them partners in building a sustainable and fair society.” www.ethos.org.br

Patron of The Haller Foundation Julia (Hailes) and I first came across Dr Rene Haller through the UN Global 500 network. He is working to transform the desert-like, lunar landscapes of a limestone quarry in Kenya into a series of interlinked wildlife conservation and sustainable agriculture projects.www.thehallerfoundation.com

Advisory Board Member, Physic Ventures, San Francisco. Physic Ventures combines the teams, sector expertise and portfolio experiences of Great Spirit Ventures and Unilever Technology Ventures. It works closely with entrepreneurial teams and invests in technology-enabled, consumer-driven businesses in North America, primarily early to mid-stage. Physic Ventures broadly characterizes its investments in terms of the four P’s: Prevention—technologies, products or services that have the ability to prevent or delay the onset of decline or disease and sustain our personal and environmental vitality. Prediction—technologies, products or services that have the ability to predict and diagnose the potential and onset of disease. Personalization—technologies, products and programs that enable more individualized approaches to maintaining health or that offer patients more control over their preventive or therapeutic regimens. And Performance—technologies, products and services that enhance human performance or perhaps delay the onset of cognitive, physical or biological decline. This area of interest also relates to performance materials that contribute to personal health or address resource scarcity or ecosystem safety issues.

Founder, Board member and Managing Partner, Volans Ventures. See www.volans.com.

Member, WWF UK Council of Ambassadors. 
See http://www.wwf.org.uk/annualreview/0506/ambassadors.asp

Cleantech Industry Advisory Board member, zouk ventures, London. Seehttp://www.zouk.com/iagtable.php?pageid=w

Previous memberships

• Member, Tomorrow’s Global Company Inquiry Team
• Chairman, Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) Advisory Council
• Trustee, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
• Chair of the Social and Environmental Committee, Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants
• Commissioner, State of the World Forum Commission on Globalisation
• Member, International Selection Committee, World Business Awards in support of the Millennium Development Goals
• Non-executive director of the Association of Environmental Consultancies (AEC) from 1993-1995.
• Chairman of Board of the Environment Faculty, Herning Institute of Business Administration & Technology, Denmark, from 1995 to 1998.
• Member of the European Union Consultative Forum on the Environment and Sustainable Development (1994-2001).

I have also served on committees, among others, for:

• AccountAbility, see ISEA.
• Anglian Water (Board Sustainability Committee, 1996-2003).
• BP.
• Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB).
• European Partners for the Environment (EPE).
• Friends of the Earth (FoE).
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
• ICI Polyurethanes.
• ING Sustainability Investment Fund Advisory Board (ING)
• Institute for Social and Ethical Accountability (ISEA).
• Institute of Environmental Management (IEM).
• Merlin Ecology Fund.
• National Provident Institution (NPI).
• National Wildlife Federation’s Corporate Conservation Council (NWF, US)
• Nature Conservancy Council (NCC).
• New Economics Foundation (NEF).
• Royal Society of Arts
• Storebrand.
• The Other Economic Summit (TOES).
• Tioxide.
• World Resources Institute (WRI, US).
• World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

My first published report, co-authored with John Roberts and Roger McGlynn, appeared in 1976. At the time, we were focusing on a range of issues like improving the pedestrian’s environment and the provision of urban air quality and waste services. The diversity of subjects on which ( and sundry teams have produced reports in subsequent years is fairly mind-boggling. The latest, published in the summer of 2003, focuses on the challenges now facing NGOs, which have done so much to drive the agenda over recent decades. Several more reports are in preparation.

2004

Risk & Opportunity: Best Practice in Non-Financial Reporting
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Standard & Poor’s. ISBN 1-903168-12-0

2003

The 21st Century NGO: In the Market for Change
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Global Compact, the International Finance Corporation and others. ISBN 1903168082

2002

Trust Us: The Global Reporters 2002 Survey of Corporate Sustainability Reporting
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 1903168066

Good News & Bad: The Media, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development
SustainAbility with Ketchum and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 190316804X

2001

Buried Treasure: Uncovering the Business Case for Corporate Sustainable Development
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 1903168023

Driving Sustainability: Can the Auto Sector Deliver Sustainable Mobility?
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 1903168031

2000

The Global Reporters: The First International Benchmark Survey of Corporate Sustainability Reporting
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 1903168015

Life & Science: Accountability, Transparency, Citizenship and Governance in the Life Sciences Sector
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 1903168007

1999

The Oil Sector Report: A Review of Environmental Disclosure in the Oil Industry
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190494

The Internet Reporting Report: “The network economy is founded on technology, but it can only be built on relationships. It starts with chips and ends with trust”
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190451

The Social Reporting Report
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), sponsored by Royal Dutch/Shell Group. ISBN 0952190427

1998

The CEO Agenda: Can Business Leaders Satisfy the Triple Bottom Line?
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190478

The Non-Reporting Report
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190486

1997

Strange Attractor: The Business-ENGO Partnership
A Strategic Review of BP’s Relationships with Environmental NGOs, SustainAbility for BP

The 1997 Benchmark Survey: Third International Progress Report on Company Environmental Reporting
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 095219046X

1996

Engaging Stakeholders: The Case Studies
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190443

Engaging Stakeholders: The Benchmark Survey
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ISBN 0952190435

1995

Who Needs It? Market Implications of Sustainable Lifestyles
SustainAbility with Dow Chemical. ISBN 0952190419

1994

Company Environmental Reporting: A Measure of the Progress of Business and Industry towards Sustainable Development
SustainAbility with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP IE Technical Report 24

1993

Coming Clean: Corporate Environmental Reporting – Opening Up for Sustainable Development
SustainAbility with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu International (DTTI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). ISBN 0942640039

The LCA Sourcebook: A European Business Guide to Life-Cycle Assessment
SustainAbility with the Society for the Promotion of LCA Development (SPOLD) and Business in the Environment (BiE). ISBN 0952190400

1990

Automotive Polymers and the Environment: Issues and Views in Europe
SustainAbility with Dow Plastics

The Green Wave: A Report on the 1990 GreenWorld Survey
SustainAbility sponsored by British Gas, London

1989

Cleaning Up: US Waste Management Technology and Third World Development
With Jonathan Shopley, for the World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, DC. ISBN 0915825287

1988

The Shrinking Planet: US Information Technology and Sustainable Development
With Jonathan Shopley, for the World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, DC. ISBN 0915825201

1987

Thailand Natural Resources Profile: Is the Resource Base for Thailand’s Development Sustainable?
Co-editor with Dr Dhira Phantumvanit, for the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), the National Environment Board, the Department of Technical and Economic Co-operation and the US Agency for International Development (USAID)

1986

Double Dividends? US Biotechnology and Third World Development
For the World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, DC. ISBN 0915825163

1986

Nature Conservation Guidelines for Onshore Oil and Gas Development
John Elkington Associates for Nature Conservancy Council and BP. ISBN 0861393465

1985

Bio-Japan: The Emerging Japanese Challenge in Biotechnology
John Elkington, Oyez Scientific & Technical Services, London. ISBN 0907822525

1983

The Conservation and Development Programme for the UK: A response to the World Conservation Strategy
Kogan Page, London. ISBN 085038768X.

Cleaner Technologies: Making Pollution Prevention Pay
Oyez Scientific & Technical Services, London

1981

Pollution 1990: The Environmental Implications of Britain’s Industrial Structure and Technologies
Environmental Data Services (ENDS), London, for the Department of the Environment. ISBN 0907673007

1980

Environmental Impact Assessment
Oyez Publishing, London. ISBN 0851205488

1978

Europe 1990: Patterns of Environmental Protection and Planning
John Elkington and John Roberts, for Hudson Research Europe, Paris

1976

The Pedestrian: Planning and Research
John Elkington, Roger McGlynn and John Roberts, Transport and Environment Studies (TEST), London. ISBN 090554501X

My first article appeared in 1974. Elaine reminds me that I had had so many rejections by that time that I sent the piece off to the Architectural Association Quarterly saying to her that if they didn’t take it I’d give up on writing. The threat, though silent, seems to have worked. Having now written several thousands of articles, it has all become a bit of blur. But digging through the boxes at home, I surfaced a number which were important to me at the time—and they are a key part of the Articles section here.

There is little point in listing the literally thousands of articles I have written for publications likeBiotechnology Bulletin, Earthlife News, The ENDS Report and The Guardian – let alone the many occasional pieces written for the likes of BP Shield, Director Magazine, Glaxo World, ICI Magazine, The International Herald Tribune, Management Today, New Scientist, The Observer, Resurgence, The Sunday Times and so on. Worth mentioning, though, are the columns I wrote for publications like Tomorrow, Nikkei Ecology and The Guardian—notably, in the latter case, ‘From the Top’ (1996-2000).

I used to regularly interview leading figures in the CSR and SD areas for SustainAbility’s newsletter,Radar. Recent interviews have profiled Ed Gibson (Microsoft UK’s Chief Security Advisor), Al Gore(former US vice-president), Kevin Kelly (Chief Maverick, Wired magazine, among many other things),Jed Emerson (originator of the ‘Blended Value Proposition’), Sara Fox (new Building Director for Swiss Re’s London HQ, the ‘Erotic Gherkin’), Paul Rice (President and CEO, TransFair USA), David Stubbs(Head of Environment, London 2012 Olympics bid) and Angela Wilkinson (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS). See www.sustainability.com/radar for details. See also the monthly ‘Full Disclosure’ columns I contribute to Grist magazine with Mark Lee (http://www.grist.org/biz/fd).

The first decade: Winding the clock back, pieces that stand out in my memory from the first decade of writing include:

1974: ‘Paolo Soleri: A Flight from Flatness,’ Architectural Association Quarterly, vol 6, no 1. The 6-page article also featured 10 of my photographs of Arcosanti.

1975: ‘Strangers in the Playground,’ New Behaviour, 18 September. A report on some of the school playground greening projects I had been involved in around London.

1975-on: ‘Beware the Wrath of Osiris,’ New Scientist, 11 December 1975. This 3-page article was high-risk, exposing problems with a major development project I had been involved with in Egypt. In the event, however, it led to a restructuring of the work in Egypt—and to New Scientist commissioning dozens of contributions over the next 5 years. One early article in which I switched from international issues like desertification back to UK issues, was ‘Breathing Life into the Thames,’ which appeared in the 24 March

1977 issue of New Scientist. A longer treatment of the subject appears in the book The English Landscape, 2000.

An unusual set of contributions was commissioned by then-Editor Dr Bernard Dixon. It focused on the role and contributions of the ecologists who were increasingly being employed by planning authorities. The 3 articles in this series were co-authored with John Roberts of TEST. They were: ‘Who Needs Ecologists?’, 27 October 1977; ‘Is There an Ecologist in the House?’, 3 November 1977; and ‘The Ecology of Tomorrow’s World,’ 17 November 1977.

These articles, in turn, led to a series of articles in which I explored the ways in which business was adapting to the environmental challenge. One of these was ‘Reclaiming the Cornish Moonscape,’ focusing on English China Clays (5 January 1978). And the New Scientist writing, done while I continued to work with TEST, led directly to my being invited to be a co-founder of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) in 1978 – and the founder-Editor of The ENDS Report.

1977: ‘The Impact of Development Projects on Estuarine and Other Wetland Ecosystems,’ Environmental Conservation, vol 4, no 2, Summer 1977. Commissioned by Professor Nicholas Polunin, this was probably the most widely referenced piece of work of mine in the scientific world. It built on the New Scientist article on Egypt’s Lake Manzala (1975), but went much wider. Among other things, it led to my being invited to Nicholas Polunin’s Second International Conference on the Environmental Future, held in Reykjavik in 1977. I wrote a 3-page article on the conference on the flight back to London, which appeared as ‘The Reykjavik Imperative’ in Is 23 June 1977 issue. This was also the event where I met people like Teddy Goldsmith, Editor of The Ecologist (we platonically shared a bedroom for a number of days) and Buckminster Fuller, a long-time hero.

1978: ‘Red Herrings in the Inner City,’ The New Ecologist, no 3, May/June. A direct follow-on from the meeting with Teddy Goldsmith. Although I have prioritised publication in business media, I have also enormously valued such opportunities to publish in what would once have been viewed as ‘alternative media’. A case in point has been my writing through the 1990s for Resurgence.

1978: A key piece in the development of my own thinking appeared in New Scientist on 7 September 1978, in which I reviewed the various handbooks produced by Social Audit. Much later, in the mid-1990s, Social Audit founder Charles Medawar would become a member of SustainAbility’s Council. The notion of auditing companies was to resurface both at ENDS and in SustainAbility’s work from 1990 on.

1980: ‘The Environmental Pressure,’ Management Today, January. The first of several contributions to the magazine, as part of an effort to mainstream the environmental agenda. Management Today gave a full-page review to my first book, The Ecology of Tomorrow’s World, in its February 1981 edition. Another major piece – ‘Making Money out of Sunshine’—appeared in Management Today in December 1981.

1985: Outside the first decade horizon, but building on earlier work, Director Magazine published my piece ‘Please: No More Bhopals’ (their choice of title) in its March 1985 issue.

The last decade: While continuing to write Biotechnology Bulletin until a few years ago, a project that started in 1983, I also did regular columns for publications like The Guardian, Tomorrow and Nikkei Ecology. In addition, I have been a regular contributor to magazines like Resurgence and to SustainAbility’s own Radar, available on SustainAbility’s website.

As an illustration of the nature and diversity of current articles, here are several pieces written during 2003:

– A column for Forbes magazine’s special issue on sustainable development.

– My second piece of the year for the openDemocracy website (www.opendemocracy,net), this time on biotechnology and sustainable development.

– A profile of Jed Emerson and his Blended Value Project for the October-November issue of Radar.

– My October piece for Nikkei Ecology, which focused on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

– An obituary of Max Nicholson for Resurgence magazine.

All of my books to date have been written in the back study of our family home in Barnes. At least one, The Green Consumer Guide, was written with builders’ feet crashing through the ceiling above our heads – Julia (Hailes) and I wrote back to back at that point, with desks facing opposing walls. The books listed here have been categorised under four headings: business; consumer and lifestyle; science and technology; and other. I’m not really sure where the latest book would fall. Written with Pamela Hartigan, Managing Director of The Schwab Foundation (www.schwabfound.org), it is published by Harvard Business School Press [http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu]. The focus this time around is on social and environmental entrepreneurs—and on what they can teach mainstream business people and government policy-makers.

Business:

The Ecology of Tomorrow’s World (1980). – More

The Green Capitalists (1987).

Green Pages (1988).

The Green Business Guide (1991).

Cannibals with Forks (1997).

The Chrysalis Economy (2001).

The Power of Unreasonable People (2008).

Consumer and lifestyle:

The Green Consumer Guide (1988).

The Green Consumer’s Supermarket Shopping Guide (1989).

The Young Green Consumer’s Guide (1990).

Holidays That Don’t Cost the Earth (1992).

Manual 2000 (1998).

The New Foods Guide (2001).

Science and technology

(which invariably also has business dimensions):

Sun Traps (1984).

The Poisoned Womb (1985).

The Gene Factory (1985).

Other: To date, there is only one book in this category:

A Year in the Greenhouse (1990)

I am often asked what exactly it is that I do, whether at SustainAbility or elsewhere. Difficult. When filling in the ‘Please state profession’ line on passports and other forms I have long been tempted to write ‘Babelfish’, which I’ll explain in a moment.

But for 30 years the question I have been asked most often is what first switched me on to environmentalism and, later, sustainable development? Some answers can be found in my book A Year in the Greenhouse, in the Influences and Timelines sections of this website, and in an article I wrote some time ago for Jain Spirit magazine.

And the website? It’s a fairly natural outflow from work I have done under the guise of John Elkington Associates (JEA), founded by my wife Elaine and I in 1983.

The site in no way diminishes my commitment to SustainAbility, rather it provides a channel for material (some might say flotsam and jetsam) and meandering commentary that would not naturally find a home on the SustainAbility website (www.sustainability.com). Probably the most conspicuous example of that is my ‘blog’, which can be found on the Journal page.

Propellants In compiling this website, with the help of Rupert Bassett and Lynne Elvins, I was forced to plumb my core values, powerfully shaped by pressures and opportunities described elsewhere on the site.

Eight values that bubbled to the surface were:

– Evolution Real change happens over generations

– Sustainability Future generations as stakeholders today

– Diversity Evolution feeds on difference

– Transparency Sustainable economies are see-through

– Conversation Wellspring of insight

– Memory Capture lessons of experience*

– Intuition Facts only get you so far

– Serendipity Learn from mistakes and fortunate accidents.

These values also eddy through the visual aspects of the site, including the logo. Click here for Rupert’s explanation of how the imagery evolved.

And the Babelfish? Here’s the story. My work has often run counter-current, hence the imagery of fish swimming against the flow. At Volans Ventures and SustainAbility, too, we aim to drive the discussion of problems upstream – from symptoms to causes – in pursuit of real cures. But maybe the story runs deeper still. I was born in a mill-house cottage on an island in the Kennet, a tributary of the Thames. Later, as a child, I would find myself surrounded by elvers on a moonless night in Northern Ireland, or communing with wildlife along rivers in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset.

Looking back, you see links. My first major professional project involved fighting to protect part of the Nile Delta wetlands. That, in turn, led to my first article for New Scientist, in 1975. Several years of writing for New Scientist, while working with John Roberts at TEST, led directly to 1978’s invitation from Max Nicholson andDavid Layton to co-found Environmental Data Services (ENDS). And when I left ENDS in 1983, we leveraged my experience with business to launch JEA and then, in 1987, SustainAbility.
Post-1987, JEA served as a flag of convenience for a series of book projects. The website project, however, helped refloat the vessel. And once we had decided to use fish for our new logo, the imagery proved surprisingly apt.

Fish, it turns out, symbolise reproduction, life, freedom, the emotions, our unconscious, the quest for enlightenment, flashes of intuition, prophecy, fertility, plenty, prosperity, good luck, longevity and rebirth. Salmon, the ultimate homing fish and recently returned to the upper Thames, near our London home, symbolise wisdom – vital in a world flooded with data and information.

And that’s where the Babelfish fits in. Brainchild of the late, great sci-fi author Douglas Adams, it was billed as the universal translator. Slip the creature into your ear, we were told, and you could suddenly understand all the Galaxy’s languages. If any one organism symbolises my aspirations, and my work across the turbulent, blurring boundaries between business, financial markets, governments and civil society, this is it.

And, finally One {LOWER CASE O] ingredient that several people missed when I circulated a late draft of the website for comment was Elaine’s view on all of this, on – as Francesca van Dijk put it—’how you, and SustainAbility, have developed over the years’. So Elaine’s perspective is also available on this website. By the time the site launched in 2003, she and I had been together for 35 years and married for 30. Our ongoing conversation has been a crucial wellspring of much of my thinking. Her constant support, in all sorts of ways, has been key through all the ups and downs.

So my profound thanks to Elaine and to our daughters, Gaia and Hania, for their forbearance, support and advice.

John Elkington, March 2004; updated May 2008

* Given our work over the years on such issues as corporate reporting and assurance, some might expect to see some sort of verification statement here. What’s fact, what might be fiction? As a form of verification, we sent out drafts of the website for comment. Changes were made—and in some cases are noted. Interestingly, however, the science of memory suggests that memories are far from static. The process of remembering something can render the memory fluid, open to reinterpretation and embellishment (John McCrone, ‘Not-so total recall,’ New Scientist, 3 May 2003—and www.newscientist.com). So the invitation to comment is ongoing.