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Friday, 19 March 2010
What a week!
Finally back in Terra Infirma Towers after a whirlwind week, particularly yesterday where I travelled from London to York, gave a presentation on the business case for sustainability and sustainability strategy to the Sustainability Committee of a major client, then got two hours at home before heading off to the business awards.My hosts Muckle LLP were runners up in the CSR stakes - I was gutted for them as I thought they deserved to win and not just because I was sitting with them. Following the Service Nework event I did last month, I wrote a short piece on the business case for service sector companies to go green and featured Muckle as a case study. They're also featuring in the Green Executive.
The business awards themselves were very glitzy - all pounding music, video clips and sparkling, swirling lights. Keynote speaker was TV presenter Tom Gutteridge who told a fascinating anecdote about Jeremy Clarkson came within three inches of getting decapitated by a flying saw blade in the first series of Robot Wars (a guilty pleasure of mine - Robot Wars that is, not Clarkson dodging death).
Anyway, back to the grindstone - while I was away another project got the green light and I've pinned down another couple of interviewees for The Green Executive. Happy days!
Labels: green executive, seminar, service sector
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:01
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Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Base 2010: Day 2
Unexpected pleasure last night - steady on - an organic/biodynamic wine tasting session hosted by Sommelier of the Year 2009, Laura Rhys. None of this swishing and spitting nonsense either - not a drop of this wine went to waste. With two young kids, I've got out of practice of handling drink on an empty stomach, so afterwards I had a quick dinner and retired to my room with a lemonade and a book...
No ill effects this morning, so I went running again, this time over to the Thames Barrier and its park before coming back over the Victoria Dock Bridge (see pic - and, yes, I did run up the stairs).
First up this morning was Ed Miliband MP, UK Climate Change and Energy Secretary. Like his brother before him, he was very clued up as to the issues and fairly honest about Government efforts. I say 'fairly' as I asked him how he squared his excellent Copenhagen "Martin Luther King didn't say 'I had a nightmare'" line (which he repeated here) with his department's 'nightmare fairy tales' TV adverts. He said it had been cleared by the Advertising Standards Agency when they had in fact criticised one or two elements. Tut tut. His answer was a bit evasive too, saying we needed to warn of both the dream and the nightmare.
Mid-morning I delivered the 'Three Secrets' presentation to a small-ish but very responsive audience - great questions (remember you can see a previous version of this here). I followed this with a lengthy discussion over coffee about the Green Executive with Earthscan, then some chats in the VIP enclave - I'm finding some of these conversations more rewarding than the formal sessions.
But I did break out again to go and see Vince Cable, Lib Dem shadow chancellor and the most respected politician in the UK. I knew he had worked for Shell, but I didn't realise he had participated in the Brundtland Report or an early international political investigation of climate change. He was very realistic on the impact the recession was having on sustainability and sketched out some ways of getting back on track, particularly making the EU Emissions Trading Scheme work as it should. But he had some gloomy things to say about the state of the economy and the consequences.
Another great day!
Labels: base 2010, seminar, three secrets of green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 18:00
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Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Base 2010: Day 1
The first thing I saw this morning was the sight of two swans skimming low over the Royal Victoria Dock outside my hotel window - the dock is so huge I at first assumed it was the Thames itself. I went for a jog and found that just outside the immediate and somewhat sterile bubble of the Excel conference centre and its cluster of hotels and restaurants, the real East End of London is alive and well - fishmongers unloading their vans, small chemical works and some old traditional mills - all with a rough around the edges charm.
The Base 2010 event itself is very well organised, but the organisers were dwelt a blow by the gods of transport, and the first session by Bjorn Stigson (of WBCSD) had about three times as many people in it at the end that at the start. There was a surreal moment jsut before kick-off where I realised I was surrounded by dozens of people all leafing through my book. Stigson gave a very clear view of the enormity of the task ahead of us.
I'm trying to ration the sessions I attend to avoid powerpoint overload, so I keep retiring to the funky little VIP area with its air-hostess hostesses (it's sponsored by Qatar Airlines), leather furniture and complimentary food and drink.
The second session I went to was about the business case for sustainable development. There were some great contributions from Paul Turner of Lloyds TSB, John Elkington (founder of SustainAbility), Stephen Howard of Business and the Community and Peter White of P&G. Interestingly in the latter, when the executive in charge of sustainability, Bob McDonald, was promoted to CEO, he insisted on keeping the sustainability portfolio. There were so many quotable lines from this talk I can't put them all in this post, but several will be added to the Green Executive, but it was (guess who) P&G's "no trade offs" approach to sustainability that stuck in my mind - great product AND great environmental performance, never 'OR'.
After lunch I facilitated a round table discussion on, again, the business case for sustainability. We had a great conversation based around my model and how it applied in different cases - from finance to plastic bags by way of legal services. Who would have thought that there was a distinct market for legal advice on renewables?
After that I retired for a glass of red wine from the Qatar ladies (it's tough at the top) and to write this. More tomorrow!
Labels: business case, seminar, three secrets of green business
# posted by Gareth Kane : 17:26
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Friday, 12 March 2010
Low Carbon Business Seminar - feedback
It was a long trundle on the train down to Birmingham on Wednesday, and a longer one back, for the Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange (bring on high speed rail!). But the environmental strategy session went great. I tried out my business case model on the participants and it did a really good job of getting the message across - if you want the higher benefits then you can't expect a direct ROI (you'll probably get one, but don't aim for one...). The message came back loud and clear from delegates - new business is the priority and you could see the penny drop about investment decisions (more on this in this month's Low Carbon Agenda).In the second half of the seminar we looked at forecasting and backcasting approaches. I challenged the participants to create a vision of their business in 2020 - a tall order - and it really made them think. The best answer was a bit of a cheat as it came from the lady from Hilton hotels and it was pinched from their subsidiary Scandic - "if you stay in our hotel, you footprint will be smaller than if you stayed at home". Genius - relevant, understandable and clear. The great thing is that Scandic have already achieved it.
The other session I attended was about business opportunities in the Low Carbon Economy. It was a good discussion, but I broke my promise to listen 10 times more than talk...
Well worth the trundle!
Labels: low carbon best practice exchange, seminar
# posted by Gareth Kane : 13:06
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A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
