Search Results for: Tim elkington

Scene in a Mexico City hotel, a reminder of the many serendipitous encounters on such trips

David Oakey and Janine Benyus in his studio in Georgia, during a Biomimicry 3.8 Institute board meeting

This section is an updating of an earlier listing of some of the organizations and initiatives that I recommend people get in touch with and, ideally, support. And, of course, pride of place in my heart is taken by Volans and by its sibling, SustainAbility. But, first, a few comments on what makes relationships with such people and organisations involved “sticky,” at least for me.

Clearly, they have to be doing important, effective work. But longer term the key, at least for me, is to build a portfolio of engagements that mean that you can both have a diversified impact and also, critically, have fun as you go along. In the early days of SustainAbility we had a 3-point mission: to make a difference, to make a profit (we were, after all, a business) and to have fun (and learn) in the process. I can remember things that come in threes.

Elements of this philosophy are indicated in the images immediately below, dating from a visit Elaine, Pamela and I made to The Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan some years back. Founder Tim Smit, also a member of the Volans Advisory Board, gave us the most wonderful guided tour. The fun element hopefully comes through.

My earlier selection of proposed links stands, but I have updated several, dropping a couple that had closed, and added a number of new initiatives. So here’s my current A-to-Z:

Acumen Fund

A leading organization in the field of social entrepreneurship.

Amnesty International

Fighting for human rights.

Ashoka

Aims to make everyone a changemaker.

ASrIA

Spreading the word on socially responsible investment in Asia.

B Lab

Both Volans and SustainAbility are now certified B Corps.

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

Spin-off from Amnesty. I was on the board of trustees until 2007—and am now a Senior Advisor.

Carbon Neutral Company

Aim to slow climate change and regenerate forests. Run by Jonathan Shopley, a long-time colleague and friend.

Carbon Tracker Initiative

If you don’t already know them and their work on stranded assets,  take a look.

Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES)

Originally founded as the Valdez Society in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, CERES has been a partner in such areas as reporting and corporate governance.

Common Ground

One of the most delightful NGOs, blending the arts and environment, promoting everything from parish maps to apple days.

Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield University

Formed with funding from a private equity investor, the late Nigel Doughty, and with David Grayson as Professor. I am a Visiting Professor.

Earth Policy Institute

Lester Brown is, as they say, The Man. And he has been for many decades. A brilliant guiding star in the sustainability space.

Earthwatch

Our daughters, Gaia and Hania, have both done Earthwatch projects in Baja California – and found the process transformational.

The Eden Project

As they say, “if you believe there should be a place … that celebrates life and puts champagne in the veins … is all about education but doesn’t feel like school …to hold conversations that might just go somewhere … where research isn’t white coats in secret but shared exploration to help us all … that is a sanctuary for all who think the future too precious to leave to the few – because it belongs to us all. Then welcome.”

Endeavor

Another of my favourite organisations in the field of social entrepreneurship.

Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) 

They fund legal actions in defence of the environment. I was on ELF’s Council for years.

Environmental Data Services (ENDS) 

Britain’s leading environmental information source for business. I was part of the founding team in 1978.

Friends of the Earth

One of my favourite environmental NGOs.

Global Footprint Network

These people do great work on defining the methodologies for environmental footprinting, at all levels of the economy, but critically at the level of countries, where it can impact things like bond markets.

Greenpeace

Long may they rule the waves and waive the rules.

Julia Hailes

Since we met in 1986, nothing has been the same. We co-founded SustainAbility in 1987 and wrote 8 books together.

The Haller Foundation

The Foundation is committed to sustainable ecosystem thinking. Its primary objective is to raise money to support and promote the pioneering work and principles of Dr. René Haller, a Swiss naturalist, working in Kenya.

London Cycling Campaign

As a cyclist, traveling from Barnes to Hyde Park Corner, and more recently to Holborn and then Bloomsbury, I have found them hugely useful.

London Wildlife Trust

It’s a real pleasure to support them.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) 

MSF is an international humanitarian aid organisation that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 80 countries. In countries where health structures are insufficient or even non-existent, MSF collaborates with authorities such as the Ministry of Health to provide assistance. MSF works in rehabilitation of hospitals and dispensaries, vaccination programmes and water and sanitation projects. MSF also works in remote health care centres, slum areas and provides training of local personnel.

New Economics Foundation

I co-founded The Other Economic Summit (TOES), from which NEF was a spin-out and was a Patron of NEF for many years.

Physic Ventures

A San Francisco-based venture capital fund where I sat on the Advisory Board. They focus on health, wellbeing and sustainable lifestyles.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

Founded by Klaus Schwab, who also founded the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Foundation identifies, celebrates, networks and supports leading social entrepreneurs.

Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

Founded by Jeff Skoll of eBay and Participant Productions, the Foundation granted-aided SustainAbility and then Volans over a period of three years.

SustainAbility

Among many other things, co-founded by Julia Hailes and I in 1987. I like their recent work on sustainable business models.

Transparency International

Fighting corruption. Critically important.

UN Global 500 Roll of Honour

The Roll was opened in 1987. Julia and I were elected to the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1989 for “outstanding environmental achievements.” Now dubbed ‘The Champions of the Earth’.

Volans Ventures

Helping the Future Take Flight. I am loving our work on Breakthrough Capitalism. And our next book, The Breakthrough Challenge, launched in September 2014.

World Economic Forum (WEF)

Convenes some of the most influential summit meetings. For seven years from 2002, I spoke at these events and facilitated sessions—in New York, Davos, Palo Alto and Dalian, China.

World Resources Institute (WRI) 

I worked with them during the 1980s and several SustainAbility people have come across from WRI.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 

I raised money for them in 1961, aged 11, and have worked with them many times over the years, among other things now being on the WWF UK Council of Ambassadors.

Zouk Capital

Where I serve on a Cleantech Industry Advisory Board.

Great white shark: this was actually on a dockside poster I passed in Cape Town

It always pays to look up, to see bats, shooting stars, or this statue at the top of Haymarket, London

Sometimes an image speaks way louder than words, a key reason why I have always used visuals in my presentations. This started with carting around carousels of 35mm slides, with slides made by external designers at considerable cost, through the present day, where it is very much DIY. There are few things I enjoy as much as photography, shading through into the task of creating engaging slide presentations.

I remember the architect Moshe Safdie saying decades ago that he threw his camera away because he ended up seeing everything in a frame—and wanted to see the world as it was. While I sympathise, it’s also the case that carrying a camera can encourage you to look at the world with much greater attention than you might otherwise, or at least that has been my experience.

My camera continues to be a key element of my toolkit—not the one in my BlackBerry (which I have almost never used), nor the one in my MacBook Air (though I sometimes use that for Skype sessions), but the third of the Leica D-Lux 4s I have owned, whose size and optics suit me very well. The results can be found in the blog/Journal section of this website.

The underbelly of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge

This habit is something else I got from my father, who carried a camera with him wherever he went, even in Russia during WWII. He also got me into the habit of keeping massive photograph albums, early ones in RAF albums, later ones from the wonderful—and sadly missed—business run by Tessa Fantoni.

That said, many of the images in the blog section of this website, at least up to July 2014, have degraded since we were forced to migrate the website to a new server.

Part of what I love is ‘found structure,’ as shown in the photo above of part of San Francisco’s MOMA building

I have been delighted when my photographs have been used by others, though sometimes the circumstances are sad. Among the highlights of 2011, for example, was the use of a photograph I had taken many years ago of (Sir) Geoffrey Chandler, who sadly died during the year, in obituaries published in The Financial Times, The Guardian and The Times.

In what follows, I will run a short sequence of images on wings, one of my fetishes, and then a number that go way further back.

So, first, wings:

Shot in a Bond Street window

Winged skateboarder in Toronto’s extraordinary Kensington area

A moment of respite: photographed when I was in Holland to talk to the board of a major company

Spied in the streets of Bogotá, Colombia

In the streets of Adelaide, Australia

Spotted in San Francisco airport

Over more than 40 years of photography, I have owned an extraordinary evolutionary sequence of cameras, starting off with a Box Brownie and then running through a Braun Super Paxette (which I borrowed from my father when six of us set off for Greece in 1970—and managed to mash up with a bag-full of prickly pears), a Leica M3 (which I bought from a German friend, Frank Stop, in the early 1970s and which Elaine sold at auction for significantly more than I paid for it some 20 years later), a Nikon (AF/F-801), a Sony (DSC-F717) and then a series of Canon IXUS cameras, including one I was given by a Canon Managing Director on a visit to the company in Japan. That gift sparked quite a debate back at the office about what gifts we should and should not accept. SustainAbility then developed Guidelines—Volans, too.

Most of the images on this site were taken digitally, though some—like the one of Gaia on Gigha in this section—were shot from print originals in photograph albums. Whatever the camera of the moment may have been, one of my great pleasures over the years has involved compiling huge, complex albums of the results, collaging the images together in ways that probably have their roots in my childhood—when I loved poring through my father’s many photograph albums and lined my room in collages cut from my father’s and his mother’s National Geographic magazines.

In the end, that way of storing photographs became too much, so that I was constantly at least 2-3 years behind. And then came the blog—and an alternative way of sharing images and the stories that go with them.

With photographs scattered throughout this website and blog, I don’t need to say much more on just how pervasive this vice has been in my life, but what I originally hoped to do in this section was to create a gallery for some the photos that wouldn’t otherwise have made it onto the site:

For me, a graffito in Bogotá captures the way ideas are captured in hard or soft cages, including books

I have been lucky enough to be asked to contribute chapters, articles and forewords to many different books and reports over the years. Among those that stick out in my mind is the chapter I wrote on the London Thames for The English Landscape (2000). That was a real pleasure to write, given my passion for flowing water and its myriad influences.

Otherwise, this section is now well over a decade out-of-date, but is included here as a reminder …

2005

Debating Globalization
Chapter 10, Globalization’s Reality Check
David Held (Editor)
McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-142954-9, Polity Press
ISBN 0-7456-3524-5 (hb), 0-7456-3525-3 (pb)

Bryanston Reflections: Et Nova et Vetera
This river runs through me,
Angela Holdsworth (editor), pages 151-152,
Third Millennium Publishing, ISBN 1-903942 38 1

2004

Societal and Environmental Reporting
John Elkington and Peter Zollinger
Chapter 10 Governance and Risk: An Analytical Handbook for Investors, Managers, Directors & Stakeholders
George Dallas (Editor)
McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-142954-9

The Triple Bottom Line: Does It All Add Up?
Edited by Adrian Henriques and Julie Richardson

2002

‘Economy’ in Our World in Focus: Moving Towards a Sustainable Future
Vision on Publishing and Earth Pledge Foundation
ISBN 1 903399 68 8

Illustrated with remarkable photographs from the legendary photographers’ cooperative Magnum Photos, the book contains essays by the likes of The Dalai Lama, Queen Noor and Maurice Strong. My short essay looked at the prospects for ‘The Chrysalis Economy’.

The Triple Bottom Line

Business: The Ultimate Resource

Bloomsbury Publishing, London

2000

London and the Thames

The English Landscape
Profile Books, London, ISBN 1 86197 113 3

Fantasy Feast 2000: The Fantasy Millennium Parties of the Rich, the Powerful, the Intriguing and the Celebrated
Hector Proud and Idea Generation for Save the Children
ISBN 1 84159 000 2

The idea was that hundreds of “leading personalities” would introduce their ideas for their Millennium parties for 31 December 1999. Those contributing included: Jeffrey Archer, Boy George, Joan Collins, Barry Humphries, Monica Lewinsky, Ozzy Osbourne, Margaret Thatcher, Peter Ustinov—and Dennis the Menace. John’s contribution to Fantasy Feast can be read here.

1999

Boardroom Barometer Survey
John Elkington and Francesca van Dijk
The Sustainable Development Agenda 1999
Environmental Strategy/Campden Publishing Ltd, London
ISBN 1 898750 48 3

1998

Accounting for the Triple Bottom Line
John Elkington and Niklas Kreander
The Sustainable Development Agenda 1998
Environmental Strategy/Campden Publishing Ltd, London
ISBN 1 898750 40 8

1996

Environmental Accounting, Reporting and Benchmarking
Towards Corporate Environmental Excellence: The Role of Business in Sustainable Development
Edited by Teoh Cheng Hai and Martin Abraham for the Global 500 Forum and Golden Hope Plantations Berhad
ISBN 983 99160 0 9

1989

The Natural House Book: Creating a Healthy, Harmonious and Ecologically Sound Home Environment
Foreword for this book by David Pearson, Simon & Schuster.

1984

Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management
Anchor Press/Doubleday & Company, New York, 1984—co-editor on this Gaia Books publication, whose general editor was Dr Norman Myers

1984

Environment Special Report: Poisons—To Bury or to Burn?
Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year, 1984
ISBN 0 85229 417 4

My co-author Jochen Zeitz campaigns even when he’s in his kitchen

No single skill has shaped my working life more than writing. I began the process fairly early, writing short stories at prep school and reading them out to the other boys when (as some form of class monitor) I was meant to be keeping them quiet in the after-lunch rest period. 

I once tried to calculate how many words I had written, ending up somewhere in the millions. The key thing, though, is what impact the words have on their readers. What follows is a brief survey of the books, reports, articles and blogs I have produced, with a sub-section devoted to each. Of these, the books have been the biggest challenge—and the greatest learning opportunities. I truly feel most alive, regardless of what I happen to be doing at the time, when I am in the process of research and writing a new book.

Finally, a couple of images from the earlier version of this website, from inside the walls of the book factory:

Paris-based EcoVadis, one of many businesses and NGOs I have served as Board or Advisory Board member (left to right: co-founders Sylvain Guyoton, Frederic Trinel, me, Pierre-Francois Thaler)

It is an immense privilege—and a blessing for anyone born as curious as I was—to be invited to join Boards and Advisory Boards. But it is also crucial to keep an eye on the impacts you produce in the process—and to continually question whether particular roles really do have the potential to drive meaningful change in the relevant organizations.

Early in 2014, for example, I resigned from two company advisory boards, in both cases because I felt they were not living up to their original potential. Although it was not remotely my intention, in one case the company promptly decided to shut the advisory board down, while in the second case the other members all decided to resign, too. Happily, these were exceptional cases, and in the second case discussions were soon under way to see how the process could be reactivated under different rules, but they underscore the semi-political nature of some of these roles.

I am hugely grateful to my colleagues over the years for supporting me in this work, most of which has been pro bono. All such engagements are run through Volans, where Sam Lakha holds the reins as our Director of Outreach (sam@volans.com).

Despite continuous efforts to prune the number of memberships, invitations continue to come in. At the time of writing, in mid-2014, for example, I am involved in over 20 Boards and Advisory Boards, many mentioned here. To give some sense of how this side of my work has evolved over time, here are some of the places where I have played the role of Chairman: 

• Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) Advisory Council, UK.
• Environment Department, Herning Institute of Business Administration & Technology, Denmark.
• Environment Foundation, UK.
• Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, UK.
• Social and Environmental Committee, Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants, UK.
• SustainAbility, UK/USA.
• Volans Ventures, UK/Singapore.

In addition to the organizations listed above, I have served on Boards, Advisory Boards and committees for, among others:

• 2degrees Network.
• AccountAbility, see ISEA.
• Aflatoun.
• Anglian Water (Board Sustainability Committee, 1996-2003).
• Association of Environmental Consultancies (AEC) from 1993-1995.
• Biomimicry 3.8 Institute (now the Biomimicry Institute).
• Bioresources.
• BP.
• Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (B&HRRC).
• Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB).
• Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR)
• Climate Group.
• Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI).
• Earthlife.
• EcoVadis.
• Environmental Data Services (ENDS).
• European Union Consultative Forum on the Environment and Sustainable Development (1994-2001).
• European Partners for the Environment (EPE).
• Evian Group Brains Trust.
• F&C Committee of Reference.
• Friends of the Earth (FoE).
• Gaia Energy.
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
• Haller Foundation.
• HP.
• ICI Polyurethanes.
• ING Sustainability Investment Fund Advisory Board (ING).
• Institute for Social and Ethical Accountability (ISEA).
• Institute of Environmental Management (IEM).
• Instituo Ethos.
• International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).
• Kering (originally as PPR).
• Merlin Ecology Fund.
• National Provident Institution (NPI).
• National Wildlife Federation’s Corporate Conservation Council (NWF, US).
• Nature Conservancy Council (NCC).
• Nestlé.
• New Economics Foundation (NEF).
• Newsweek.
• Physic Ventures.
• Polecat.
• Recyclebank.
• Royal Society of Arts.
• State of the World Commission on Globalization.
• Storebrand.
• Tesco.
• The Other Economic Summit (TOES).
• Tioxide.
• Tomorrow’s Global Company Inquiry Team.
• Turntoo Foundation
• World Business Awards, in support of the Millennium Development Goals. 
• World Resources Institute (WRI).
• World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).
• Zouk Capital.

In addition, it has been my privilege and pleasure to serve as a Visiting Professor at:

• Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility, Cranfield School of Management
• Imperial College London
• University College London (UCL)