Thanks to the Marketing Society for a great Annual Lecture last night – by Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever… If the assembled 300 audience didn’t realise it before, by the end we were quite clear he’s one of the most influential men on the planet, outgunning David Cameron et al by some margin… running an organisation that operates in…
Another great evening with the Marketing Society last night; this time an audience with Sir Terry Leahy, the maestro of Tesco’s phenomenal success, who started out as a Tesco marketer and worked his way up to the top. It’s so easy to take Tesco for granted, but in the 14 years of his reign as CEO, he took it…
We all know the mantra ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’…. What this is meant to mean is firstly reduce your materials and impacts by changing your product/service, then try reusing your finished products (straight reuse or value added upcycling) then when all else fails, recycle into something else. Somedays it seems folks only think about the last one, but sadly we’re…
So, the swingeing cuts have included the government funding for the ‘arms length’ Sustainable Development Commission – for which I have been an expert panel member since its inception in 2006. I’ve just received a letter telling me it will close at the end of 2010 unless the devolved administrations want to keep some form of it going for…
The last month I’ve seen so many articles and news items on green/sustainable claims – even the One Show (hardly the cutting edge of journalism) got in on the act last week and did a spot on greenclaims in household cleaners and how misleading and unregulated they are. The comparison was drawn with Fairtrade, which everyone understands and which…
Watching the ‘Women’ triad of documentaries on BBC gave me food for thought – not just over how lucky my generation is to have choices we take for granted, but also the similarities between how those ‘feminists’ felt in the 1960s vs how many sustainability advocates feel now. Of course, ‘feminism’ is a dirty word nowadays, seems to have…
Congratulations to the Ecology Building Society! They’ve been winning awards left right and centre for the hard work they do in creating genuinely ethical savings products – Ethical Consumer Magaxine’s ‘best buy’ 2009, and What Mortgage’s ‘best environmental lender’ awards and even ‘Mortgage Finance Gazette’s’ ‘best green lender’ award. Its because they are very strict on who they lend…
As December’s climate talks in Copenhagen draw near, the political shenanigans are rife – today the Guardian report that China and many developing nations think the developed nations are trying to sabotage reaching an agreement on the successor to Kyoto – the agreement to address climate change by cutting carbon emissions through various market and policy mechanisms. So are…
In July I was priviledged to be invited to a Sustainable Development Commission conference that shared the winning entries from their competition to find breakthrough ideas that could change society to be more sustainable in the 21st century. The event was a big occasion, with Jonathan Dimbleby chairing, Anna Ford and Jonathan Porritt on hand, and even Prince Charles…
As if the current credit crunch, recession, political instability and climate change aren’t enough to worry about, anyone who scours enough media sources will spot a growing concern in the background – that this year will see another oil price hike similar to last year but more sustained. Is an oil price surge the kick we need to get…
In a world of decaying trust, where…
A fascinating panel discussion of experienced Chairmen…
