John Elkington
on Green Swans
If you could, what would you ask an Ambassador from the Future?
This is your chance! Ask John Elkington!
If you are familiar with his work, bravo!
If not, this can be a good incentive to start the discovery of "The Godfather of Sustainability"’s legacy.
He’s someone who does “everything, everywhere, all at once.” Not even he could keep the score of the thousands of events he spoke at or the interviews he has been featured in. Author, advisor, Chief Pollinator and Founder of Volans, father of “the triple bottom line” and “green swans” terms. You name it.
Today, though, let’s take a moment to forget about numbers and notoriety and learn why John is an #inspirator.
First of all, because his website actually has the structure of the #inspirators questionnaire. You would probably go straight to the “Our Work” section, but, guess what? If you are a bit curious, you can travel with him through his “past lives”. It feels like a (personal) history lesson, told by a generous storyteller.
You can see his “bonsai family tree”, admire his photographs (he always carries a camera with him), understand why he has a passion for wings, and tune in to his favourite songs. Everything there has a story: “Revolution by The Beatles. I was 18, in my first year at university. Had just met Elaine, in her final year. And what a year: April, Martin Luther King killed; May, the Paris barricades; our university, Essex, erupted; June, Bobby Kennedy killed".
One of the most important sections on his website are “Family” and “My influences”.
John, we suggest deleting this disclaimer: “This section is not really for wider consumption; it began as part of a process of identifying all the people who had had a major impact on my being and thinking over the years.”
This is exactly what should be on the frontline of any regenerator’s website. Regeneration is also about passing the baton of inspiration, and this public invitation into the “behind the scenes” of the Self should not be a random discovery, but the normality.
Why are these little personal things relevant? Because you understand what shaped, impacted, and energized a person to become who he/she is now.
Maybe it can make you see from a different light all these “little things” that bring you joy and you will not underestimate their force anymore.
John's life’s secret?
Conversation. That’s how he learned the most about the world and himself: "I have probably learned most from talking to people. So, if I were to pick an iconic symbol of my learning over the decades, it might be the sofa”.
What’s your “past lives” list?
Thank you, John, for being an Ambassador from the Future!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: John Elkington
Company / Institution: Volans
Title: Founder, member of the Board & Chief Pollinator
Website: https://volans.com and https://johnelkington.com
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-elkington-2907568/
Country of origin: UK
Country you currently live in: UK
Your personal definition of Sustainability: A mindset and linked compass points that encourage the most powerful species on Earth to change its default setting from degeneration to regeneration – of all the systems on which we depend, biological, ecological, social, economic and political.
In effect, a system change agenda fit for the Anthropocene, involving the co-evolution, as Buckminster Fuller put it, of an operating manual for Spaceship Earth.
Main business challenge you face: In 1968, I dropped out of university economics after one year, concluding that it failed to address critical social and environmental problems. Later, I found myself agreeing with David Suzuki that conventional economics is a form of brain damage. The thinking of most economists on the nature of things like value and wealth remains our number one challenge.
What we need, as Fritz Schumacher indicated, is forms of economics that are genuinely science-based, rather than ideological, and operate as if people and planet matter – now and for generational timescales into the future.
Main driver that keeps you going: Curiosity.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: An ability to think around corners.
The trait you most value in others: The capacity to put up with me as I stumble this way and that trying to find ways forward.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: Books, wildlife, and my wife of 55 years, our children, and the teams I work with.
The #inspirators who determined you to take the sustainability path:
So many people contributed, directly or indirectly.
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring
Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Max Nicholson and Sir Peter Scott (co-founders of WWF, whom I would later work with in various ways)
Gro Harlem Brundtland.
A hint or starting point for companies or professionals that are taking the first steps in the sustainability journey: Talk to people who have already travelled the routes you intend to take – and listen between the lines to what they say.
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you:
‘It’s a journey’, by which so many people mean that it’s only just getting started and it doesn’t matter much if you never arrive.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope:
Pessimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The people who change the world are often seen to be unreasonable because they dismiss elements of the current reality. This is an angle we explored in our book The Power of Unreasonable People.
Also, hopelessness is pretty miserable, whereas hope and tempered optimism can be full of fun, even joy.
Books that had a major impact on you: Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, in all its forms.
Must-reads for any Sustainability professional: Read way beyond the area currently understood to constitute ‘sustainability’.
From archaeology and history through biographies to science and sci-fi.
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again: Having met Frank Herbert back in the early 1980s, I was disappointed by attempts to film his series of Dune books – but, for me, Denis Villeneuve caught the spirit of the thing. One of the earliest examples of eco sci-fi.
Blogs / Websites / Podcasts etc. you visit frequently: BBC and New York Times. Twitter and LinkedIn, too.
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: Roger Payne’s recordings of the songs of the humpback whale from 1970.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Having worked in 50+ countries, it’s hard to say, but the countries which I lived in and visited before I was 9 left deep impressions: England, Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Israel.
Global Sustainability Voices you recommend us to follow: Anyone and anything associated with the Earthshot Prize.
Trends in Sustainability we should keep an eye on: The impact, benign and malign, of AI.
Best places for business networking (online or offline): Nowadays, almost any conversation you have can loop back to sustainability or the climate emergency.
Events we should attend: I mainly attend events where I have been invited to speak – and that’s well over 300 since 2020.
Associations, business clubs, tribes you belong to – and why: At any one time, I am on 15-20 boards and advisory boards. So hard to choose among the tribes. The most useful network I find is Pi Capital.
Sustainable Development courses / trainings / certifications that really teach us how to have an impact: So many to choose from now.
I am a visiting professor at Cranfield University, Imperial College and UCL, but there is a growing spectrum of providers.
There are many lists of the ‘best’ schools, but in the end, it depends on which country you want to be in and what links you want to explore between your course and others.
That said, this is becoming an increasingly important part of what we do at Volans, where we have been involved in initiatives like the ‘Future of Capitalism’ MBA course developed by a number of business schools, including Japan’s Shizenkan University and Spain’s IESE.
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: We may be stupid as a species, but we’re not that stupid!
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: Too often, the exponentials driving system breakdowns are still moving more powerfully – and on a broader front – than the relevant solutions.
In the end, this is a political choice. Do we want to survive - and do we want other people and other lifeforms to survive, too?
Or do we plan to end up living on the planetary equivalent of a traffic island?
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: The ability to scan wider, dig deeper, aim higher and invest over longer timescales than pretty much all political leaders in office today.
Our message to leaders in all sectors: ‘Step Up - Or Get Out Of The Way!’
Quote that inspires you:
Ernest Hemingway’s line of dialogue in his novel The Sun Also Rises. Often now quoted by Silicon Valley folk. Asked how he went bankrupt, a key character says:
“Gradually, then suddenly.”
We now live in a gradually, then suddenly world, where breakdowns and breakthroughs move exponentially.
Your own quote that will inspire us:
