Cop26 The Time to Act is Now (Nov21)
Al Gore was forthright. He said that at the Paris COP in 2015, the key challenge was denial. In Glasgow, the message is clear – it’s delay. The exciting thing about joining the marches with Greta was the feeling of being one of many who recognised the dire predicament the world is facing. There were […]
READY, STEADY, STOP AT BIG YELLOW (Jan21)
I was excited to join the board of the Big Yellow in March 2020 to ‘provide oversight regarding their strategic environmental objectives, with deliverable targets’. Sadly, my approach does not chime with the executive board and I’ve decided to resign. Perhaps I was too ambitious in hoping to help Big Yellow become an exemplar in […]
TV Clips of Julia Hailes – Green Consumer Compilation from 1988/1989/1990 (posted Nov20)
Many people will be surprised to know how much interest there was about green consumerism in the late 80s and early 1990s. It was kicked off by the publication of The Green Consumer Guide, co-authored by myself and John Elkington, in 1988. The book had 11 print runs in the first month, shot to the […]
Turning the Big Yellow green
I’ve just been appointed a board member of FTSE 250 company The Big Yellow Self Storage! I’ll be chairing the new Board Sustainability Committee and am looking forward to seeing how I can help turn The Big Yellow green… In 2007 I gave the key note speech at the Self Storage Association annual meeting. Had […]
Second Nature Advisory Board (Oct12)
I sit on the Advisory board of Second Nature – their mission is making sustainability ‘second nature’ for the organisations they work with. Charles Perry and Mark Griffiths are the company’s founders – and they have a lot of experience between them, with particular emphasis on business strategy and expertise in energy, built-environment, clean tech […]
Speaking at Ashridge (jun12)
Ashridge Business School – booked me to come and talk to their MsC students, who are taking a 2 year masters in ‘sustainability’ and ‘responsibility’. The programme was aimed at people already working in business and corporations, including consultants, activists, public sector managers and NGO professionals, which means there was a pretty mixed bunch. My […]
Interface Carpets – Tomorrow’s Natural Business (Jul11)
Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Carpets radically changed his approach to business in 1994, after reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawkens. I went to a workshop at Interface hosted by Andy Middleton from Tyf. Entitled ‘Tomorrow’s Natural Business’, the workshop aimed to show how biomimicry could be used as a template for creating organisations fit for a different […]
Newcastle University MBA Sustainability Challenge (Jun11)
Procter & Gamble recommended me for the inaugural public lecture at Newcastle University’s Sustainable Business Week, where MBA Business students from Scotland and Northern took part in a competition. The central theme was about the role of consumers in greening business. The students had to respond to a question posed by P&G – ‘How can our company influence […]
P & G 4th Expert Baby Care Advisory Group (Jun11)
I’ve sat on P&G’s Expert Advisory Panel for Babycare since is started a few years ago. The fourth meeting was held in June in Geneva and had several new participants. Most interesting to me was the new focus of looking at nappies and baby care in developing countries. Also the innovations that are coming through. […]
Oglivy Earth (Apr11)
OgilvyEarth, O&M’s global sustainability practice, has been named one of the world’s top agencies offering “genuine expertise in sustainability communications,” I’ve started working with them on an ad hoc basis. The first project was with Ogivly Earth US with advice on Siemens.
