Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

I had an amazing day in Birmingham yesterday at the Climate Change Festival sponsored by E.ON. It was fantastic to speak to so many different groups of people – schools, community leaders, the University, the Housing Association amongst others - who were so passionate about doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint and it was really good to see how Birmingham City Council were proactively supporting this.

What I saw was a real collection of tangible, visible projects that were actually making a difference in terms of the City’s footprint and should stand them in good stead to help them with their target to reduce their CO₂ emissions by 60% by 2026. That means that this year, each person in Birmngham needs to reduce their own CO₂ emissions by 100kg.

Go for it, Birmingham!

Ellen

The sun shone for the opening of E.ON’s new building up in Coventry on the 8th May. E.ON are one of our sponsors with whom I am doing work on sustainability within their own company, and with their business customers. 

It was great to see such a wide range of people from the B2B part of the business with a very positive outlook on driving change forward. There were several speeches made for the thousands of staff who work in the building, and as I went round the foyer afterwards visiting stands representing the various business units, it was great to hear the enthusiastic feedback and find out about the practical things - like sharing cars to get to work - that they are doing in order to really make a difference.  

As Jim McDonald, Commercial Director, said in his speech, now that everyone involved in dealing with clients is based in the same building, it is going to be much easier not only to deliver a better service to the client, but to do so in a more sustainable way too. I really believe that simply ‘being joined up’ is important in dealing with sustainability issues, and being able to offer advice to businesses.

Ellen

Last week I attended the Institute of Directors Conference at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a really interesting event with a truly outstanding array of speakers including international business leaders and entrepreneurs. Guest speakers included Bob Geldof, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Dame Fiona Reynolds, CEO of the National Trust, BA’s Willie Walsh and actor/director Kevin Spacey who all gave inspirational leadership messages for the 3,000 delegates.

It was fascinating to see that sustainability was one of the main themes throughout the conference and the fact that we need to move towards working, and of course, living in a more sustainable way. People weren’t talking merely about business, but about the basic building blocks of life, they were stirring emotions with their speeches and making people think. Yes, it was a conference for Directors of Businesses, but there was a real theme of ‘doing the right thing’ which I found both surprising and refreshing.

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to speak to business leaders about my own passion to tackle sustainability. I was wondering just how to address such an audience full of CEO’s and influential people, and I drew to the conclusion that ‘stories work’ so decided to tell a few stories from my life which I feel have taught me a lot. From the absolute necessity of managing your resources at sea, to talking about my first hand experiences of seeing the old abandoned whaling stations and the mis-management of resources on the island of South Georgia in the Southern Ocean. Ultimately, what had been a flourishing whaling industry on South Georgia became unsustainable as whales were killed in such large numbers that the population disappeared completely. The lesson from this is that it is only sensible that all businesses become sustainable as the very meaning of the word ‘sustainable’ implies that the business can continue to exist.

We all have a stake in the planet on which we live, and it’s time for employers to give their staff a stake in energy efficiency measures they’re being asked to implement. If a business is to be sustainable, keeping and motivating its employees is a key element of that. Employers and employees must work together as a team to share the dream of the future of the business so that everyone is an integral part of it and takes responsibility for their own management of resources.

Ellen

I walked through the town of Newport on the Isle of Wight today, really fancying an apple. I would have thought that in a high street that would be quite a straightforward thing to find, but it appears not. I was even tempted by an apple logo on a clothes shop!

It made me realise just how much things have changed in the modern towns of today, in that you can’t always find the essentials.

Maybe I don’t know Newport well enough, but it would appear as if I needed a car to get my apple this lunchtime.

I settled for some dried apple instead!

Ellen

I was asked to speak at the Eco Island conference last week in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The eco-island project is at the core of the Council’s sustainable community strategy, and is something that personally I am hugely excited about!  There must have been over 300 people there, who all seemed motivated by the island’s plans. These plans include everything from energy to food production, to improving open spaces and increasing people’s contentment in living here. There were some great speakers including Professor Bill Wakeham of Southampton University, Professor Sir Ghillean Prance, Scientific Director of The Eden Project, Eugene Dreyer from Sir Terry Farrell’s architecture practice who are designing a new vision for the island and Tony Galloni, Head of Marketing for Sustainable Energy Solutions at E.ON.

When it comes to making a difference, we have the most amazing opportunity. Not only, like other councils, in that the door of sustainability needs to be pushed open and kept open, but also because the island’s geographical boundaries, being surrounded by water, mean that it is a perfect place to try this initiative as measuring what goes on and off the island is so much easier. I believe that the island can be a shining example to other regions, but there is a terrifically long way to go, and the challenge is simply colossal.

I feel though that if you are trying to understand the solution to a problem, you need to break things down and look at things on a smaller scale. You need to understand the big picture, but so many of the changes you make will be small and incremental. Just hopefully millions of them at the same time!

When I spoke at the conference I used the sailing journey analogy of being out there and simply having to manage your resources. Being aware of and on top of the reserves that you have and looking after them and never wasting them. Our island could be an incredible example for this, we have huge food production, but most is exported. We have incredible amenity value in our beaches and open ground which we need to preserve. In effect we need to leave the island in a better state than when we all arrived here, looking after the place, and managing its resources not draining any other area of the country or world.

I really hope that the Isle of Wight people will get behind this project, and that the island will change as we do to be a happier, and more sustainable place to live. 

Ellen