If corporate sustainability reports are not the reality, but rather the shadow cast on the wall of Plato’s cave, what comes next to propel continuous improvements in actual corporate behavior across an integrated or triple-bottom line?
A sense of change is in the air – and not just the crispness of the Fall air in the bucolic hills of Vermont, where I presented at the Dana Meadows Sustainability Institute.
Power generated from the sun streaming down on the earth today is what we have come to call solar power. But what we forget at our peril is the fossil part of fossil fuels. Oil, gas and coal are also forms of solar power; the sun just created them a very long time ago.
When I began to unhook from SustainAbility in 2008, after 20+ years, to co-found Volans, Jonathan was working with the US end of SustainAbility — and sent the London end of the Volans team a large cardboard box of multi-colored felt rocks, which initially I couldn't make head nor tail of. I thought he was mad, or overly American.
But I have to say that, over time, those felt rocks have become a central feature of the Volans culture, thrown by team members at other team members (or guests) on the slightest provocation. That aside, he's a consummate professional, creative collaborator, skilled communicator, and keen intellect—and I am delighted both to have had Jonathan as a colleague and to now count him as a friend.
John Elkington
Founding Partner & Executive Chairman of Volans, Co-Founder & Non-Executive Member of the Board of SustainAbility