tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58038322008-06-14T18:34:57.216+01:00John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger638125This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-12223754405133647092008-06-12T23:34:00.003+01:002008-06-14T18:34:57.246+01:00

Deep, vexing irony today in that I was meant to attend (as a co-founder) a 30th anniversary celebration at the House of Lords this evening for Environmental Data Services (ENDS), hosted by Michael Heseltine, whose company bought ENDS a while back. But because we are in the midst of setting up a new venture, Volans, we have been hugely distracted - and found late today that we have been running

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-82957118830573269522008-06-12T23:05:00.000+01:002008-06-14T13:18:54.381+01:00

Wonderful day spent at Ernst & Young's South Bank offices, cheek-by-jowl with the GLA head-shaped haunt of London's new Mayor, Boris Johnson, and overlooking both HMS Belfast, the forbiddingTraitor's Gate entrance to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Could watch the changing moods of the water and skies all day, alongside the constant shuttle of vessels of all sizes and purposes, but we were

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-9849483849201135572008-06-09T18:50:00.002+01:002008-06-09T19:00:53.360+01:00

A heavenly cycle ride in to the office this morning, with open blue skies and the traffic moderately well behaved, but then heard the news about Sarah Dodds, Director of UnLtd Ventures, who has died after falling into a coma following a cycle accident in northern France. A wonderful tribute by Rod Schwartz can be found on the Catalyst Social Business Blog. I last saw Sarah at the Skoll World

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-33419920975586837282008-06-08T22:01:00.002+01:002008-06-14T13:05:19.277+01:00

There's no question that contrails are implicated in climate change, in various ways, but sometimes the skyscapes they create are wondrous things. Watched the male contrails unfurl across female clouds this weekend - and felt at peace with the world.

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-80231806708139389922008-06-06T22:46:00.002+01:002008-06-14T12:59:40.999+01:00

Now that I'm once again thinking of things taking flight, thanks to the derivation of the first part of our still-evolving Volans Ventures, I am tending to see flight-linkages everywhere I go. Today, as I cycled alongside the Serpentine, I came across the preparations for the second Red Bull Flugtag. Chatted to a couple of the teams, including those sticking a load of white feathers onto their

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-52326249309740700372008-06-04T21:57:00.003+01:002008-06-04T22:16:53.789+01:00

I still find it strange to see terms I have coined out there in the wider world, living their own lives. Green consumer and triple bottom line still pop fairly regularly, whereas today it was the People, Planet, Profit formulation I came up with in 1995 as a more populist version of the TBL. It pops up again as the refrain of the Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards. The awards are a joint

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-66841229487736259072008-06-01T16:27:00.002+01:002008-06-01T16:33:15.086+01:00

Hania, who came back from Greece just before I arrived back from Brazil, took this picture for me while there - in the spirit of my CounterCurrent symbolism. Wish I had taken it!

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-47611781898617253262008-05-30T23:29:00.002+01:002008-06-02T18:11:03.328+01:00

Today, Silvia Thompson and I visited one of the most fascinating social enterprises I have encountered, Turma do Bem. Founded by dentist Dr. Fábio Bibancos, the organisation has inspired thousands of Brazilian dentists to offer their services pro bono to the country's poorest young people (through to age 18) - for whom bad teeth (or no teeth at all) mean not just an inability to smile and engage

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-10692960314380346512008-05-30T22:05:00.003+01:002008-06-01T13:50:07.629+01:00

Spoke at a lunch today hosted by Camargo Correa, a complex Brazilian group straddling areas like cement, construction, environmental engineering, textiles and footwear. Had met one of the shareholders, Renata Camargo Nascimento, a while back at an Alcoa Foundation event. With the aid of people like Carla Duprat and Ciro Fleury, she is encouraging the group down (or is it up?) the sustainability

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-72626827578066958512008-05-29T23:56:00.000+01:002008-06-01T16:26:07.433+01:00

By car this afternoon with Tábata Villares of Ethos to do a TV interview for Rede Globo's Globo News (Conta Corrente). Generous fomat, apparently allowing for over 20 minutes on screen when broadcast next week. Delightful interviewer - the only thing I'm kicking myself over is that when she asked me to list the most ecologically damaging industries I somehow managed to miss the fossil fuels

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-16336089816605465652008-05-29T23:53:00.000+01:002008-06-01T15:54:41.589+01:00

The year Ethos was founded The odyssey continues Year of Gore Now we're 10 The world's watching Interface founder Ray Anderson with Ethos co-founders Ricardo Young da Silva and Oded Grajew Arrived in São Paulo first thing on Monday morning and raced (if that was the word in the midst of intense traffic jams) into the city to take part in the 10th anniversary meeting of Instituto Ethos

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-76654303370284774502008-05-24T22:43:00.002+01:002008-05-24T23:05:08.768+01:00

Apart from the podcast interview with John Varley on Monday, already blogged, I did an advisory board meeting with zouk ventures (where I was delighted to meet Esther Dyson) at the Lanesborough Hotel, flew up to Aberdeen on Tuesday evening to do a speech at a breakfast meeting the next morning, organised by the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, ahead of the 'All Energy' conference on Wednesday, spoke

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-11516525430288149422008-05-24T13:55:00.002+01:002008-05-24T13:58:24.601+01:00

Arnold Schwarzenegger launches A great new report on green innovation is now available from Environmental Defense at http://www.edf.org/documents/7904_innovationsreview2008.pdf. I was part of the Advisory Panel.

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-72544023243088399742008-05-20T17:36:00.003+01:002008-05-20T17:44:16.988+01:00

A podcast I recorded with Barclays CEO John Varley yesterday is posted on their website today at: http://www.barclays.com/sustainabilityreport07/ceo_introduction.html. Short and to the point, but tucks in a question about social entrepreneurship.

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-20854748945509603082008-05-18T23:55:00.002+01:002008-05-24T21:05:16.786+01:00

Some further photographs, of Pat and Tim (holding the model Spitfire and alongside Caroline's 50th anniversary painting from 1998) and of those of some of us who grew up alongside one another all those years ago in Little Rissington and Icomb, taken by Alda Angst. The fleeting smudges may be passing ghosts, like Belinda, or they may be - as Ian (Keay) assures me they are - specks of dust inside

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-15223870530209020702008-05-18T23:37:00.004+01:002008-05-24T14:07:32.666+01:00

Drove west early with Elaine, Gaia and Hania, for Pat and Tim's sixtieth wedding anniversary. Started out fine, then clouds heaped up as we passed Oxford, though by the time the party (with over 70 people and a marquee on the back lawn) got into full swing, the sun was out and about fairly regularly. A wonderful gathering of family and friends from all eras and generations, including a couple of

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-19292746381124475472008-05-14T14:45:00.002+01:002008-05-14T15:13:16.185+01:00

Dinner this evening was at 798 Space, an old factory evidently designed by East German architects - and a bit of an acoustic nightmare for those of us with bats' ears. The vaulted ceiling reminded me of those giant concrete 'ears' that were erected on the British coast to detect the sound of incoming WWII bomber fleets. We took some pretty extraordinary paths on our way to developing those early

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-24246431041792659172008-05-14T09:21:00.003+01:002008-05-14T10:25:38.049+01:00

Arrived in fog- and smog-cloaked Beijing this morning, after easy fight from London. Blown away by the new Terminal 3 here, the biggest in the world, only open for around a month, and stunningly efficient as far as my experience went. Met off the plane by a charming VIP guide and steered through all the formalities, which helped immeasurably. Then into the city by limo, alongside someone who

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-74920260958469492292008-05-11T23:25:00.001+01:002008-05-11T23:28:21.567+01:00

Friday saw the launch of the first version of the revamped SustainAbility website.

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-83136485361513261062008-05-10T22:29:00.002+01:002008-05-14T10:41:56.670+01:00

Front covers of the National Journal, where I was interviewed yesterday Was hoping to fly back from Dulles at 23.00 last night, after doing my lunchtime session at the National Press Club for the World Environment Center. Unfortunately, however, something went wrong with one of the engines, so our take-off was aborted part-way through. We ended up spending a further 3-4 hours in the plane and

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-59401339916357584462008-05-08T22:57:00.002+01:002008-05-09T04:05:35.713+01:00

Israel celebrated it's sixtieth anniversary today. I haven't been there since I was a child, in 1959, when one of the high points - as I remember it - was sitting on the lap of a pilot of a DC3, or Dakota, as we flew across the Dead Sea, and being allowed to 'steer.' Now, with Beirut teetering on the edge again, it's hard not to have mixed feelings about the Near and Middle East, Israel

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-83730212116806339182008-05-08T21:47:00.000+01:002008-05-09T04:09:54.456+01:00

Flashes of lightning and thunder claps as I wrestled once again with Microsoft Outlook over a glacial Internet connection in the JW Marriott Hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue. Cold rain slashing at the window. CNN covering, endlessly, tomorrow's Time magazine cover declaring Barack Obama as the "winner" of the Democratic nomination. But with the process still under way, it's hard not to recall the

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-8424008403806948122008-05-05T22:54:00.002+01:002008-05-11T23:22:40.856+01:00

Started the day with an hour-long interview on the Forum program on KQD, alongside three social entrepreneurs: Stephanie Bernstein (CEO & Founder, To-Go Ware), Matt Flannery (Co-Founder & CEO, Kiva) and Eric Grossberg (CoFounder, Brilliant Earth). Then Matt kindly drove me across to Pier 28 and IDEO, where I met up with Matt (Lee) and we dived into the rest of the day c/o IDEO, where we were

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-68909018522435040412008-05-05T05:43:00.004+01:002008-05-05T06:12:53.035+01:00

Flew to San Francisco on Thursday, with a mad dash to get to T5 because of a taxi that didn't arrive. Then the BA check-in was primeval, following which - with my adrenaline cranked up to unusally high levels - I left my credit card in a machine and didn't wake up to the fact until I was half a T5 away, which was an unbridgeable distance. Plane was late to take off and therefore late into San

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803832.post-85072854799188606262008-05-01T11:17:00.002+01:002008-05-01T11:27:32.165+01:00

As I packed this morning for T5 (God help me) and the US, I tidied up a set of cuttings from recent newspapers, including two obituaries, one from today's Times and the other from yesterday's paper. Today's was for Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who worked with Sandoz and discovered LSD. When we met Shawn Phillips in Positano in 1970 (see under Influences, Music), Hofmann was a key topic of

John Elkingtonnoreply@blogger.com