Marjorie Scardino in place of Anita Roddick – women in business (Apr08)
I was originally asked to speak at the Merrill Lynch ‘Shaping the Future’ event last year. Anita Roddick was scheduled to be the key note speaker and I was rather looking forward to seeing her again. She wrote the foreword to our Green Consumer Guide, published in 1988 and I had seen her quite recently […]
Shell (Feb08)
In February 2008 I made a presentation to Shell communication executives on sustainability energy issues. They were looking to be challenged and provoked in an intense session lasting over an hour, which included time for a lengthy Q&A. In 2005 Shell commissioned me to write one of a series of Guidance Notes, on social performance in […]
Unwanted phone directories 50 times as high as Everest! (Feb08)
I don’t use phone directories any more – I always look up numbers on the internet. But I’ve still got a pile of these weighty tomes in the corner of my office, collecting dust and doing nothing useful. I’ve now discovered that 50 million telephone directories are distributed each year and 17.5 million of these […]
Carbon Trust Winter Lecture (Jan08)
Putin apparently joked that ‘climate change is good for Russians because they won’t have to wear fur coats’. But listening to Dr Pachauri, Chairman of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) wasn’t very funny. His Winter Lecture, hosted by the Carbon Trust, was held, rather incongruously at Claridges. The theme was ‘business response to climate […]
A McDonald’s experience (Apr07)
I thought I’d do a bit of comparison on fuel efficiency between the UK and the US. Went to Heathrow in an 8-seater vehicle – it was on its way to collect a large group. But at 36mpg even that was less thirsty than the flashy black Lincoln that collected me from Chicago’s O’Hare airport […]
A few hours in Naples (Mar07)
Should I even admit to flying to Naples for a stint of no more than 3 hours? Perhaps even more heretical was that I went to make a presentation to the European Management team at McDonalds. This is a company I haven’t been very fond of in the past – they tried to get the […]