Meet my mentor: sustainability guru John Elkington

John Elkington has worked in the fields of environmental and sustainable development since the 1970s. He was the co-founder of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) and also co-founded SustainAbility consultancy. He served as the organisation’s Chairman from 1995 to 2005, and is now Chief Entrepreneur. He has been a powerful figure in the corporate responsibility movement for over three decades.

I first had the pleasure of meeting John a few years ago, at a SustainAbility talk. I was so engaged and empowered after his speech that I went over afterwards to congratulate him. When we started talking, we found out that our offices were only a few blocks away, and he very kindly told me to pop by any time I wanted. I took him up on the offer and now every few months, I go and see him for a catch up. John is my mentor. Not just because he is extremely charismatic and engaging, experienced and full of insights, but also because he is incredibly human.

John recently told me that he is in the middle of writing a new book, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World (Harvard Business School Press). The book is written with Pamela Hartigan and addresses the switch from things like sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement to the replication and scaling of high potential, high leverage entrepreneurial solutions outlined through the ten great divides. I personally can’t wait to read it.

In light of the book, he was telling me how he thinks attitudes towards sustainability are changing. John said, “The corporate appetite to address real sustainability issues is growing. Even companies like Wal-Mart now use the S-word without blinking. Our own organisation, SustainAbility, is 21 this year and we have never seen such a fierce acceleration in interest in our agenda, with many new actors being attracted into the space.”

John also went on to predict some of the future trends for the sustainability movement: “I have been predicting a deeper-than-normal recession for some 18 months now and think that's what we're now headed into… I have seen previous cycles squeeze corporate investment and head-counts in areas like safety, health and environment. Now I think we will see the same trends in relation to CSR… societal and environmental pressures aren't going away, so the net effect will be to drive these agendas even deeper into companies, with boards finding it increasingly impossible to avoid active, strategic engagement.”

As the discussion came to a close, John gave some encouraging insights for the increasing uptake of the sustainability agenda: “We have seen it in places like the World Economic Forum and Clinton Global Initiative for some time, but now issues like climate change are jumping this agenda to prime Ministerial and CEO level, worldwide.” John also gave a warning for those not joining the movement: “Businesses and countries that find themselves on the wrong side of all of this will suffer profound consequences. It is increasingly clear that History is far from ended.” He added, “Fasten your safety belts.”