John Elkington
Advisory Board
John Elkington is a writer and thinker, a serial-entrepreneur and an ‘advisor from the future’. He is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Volans, a change agency, that aims to stretch leaders – towards “Breakthrough”; that is, to look beyond incremental change towards systemic challenges.
John is leading a 2-year program in partnership with the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) focussing on the market opportunities around exponential sustainability, titled Project Breakthrough.
John is also Honorary Chairman of SustainAbility, and sits on an A-Z of some 30 boards and advisory boards. He has written 19 books, and his latest is co-authored with Jochen Zeitz, former CEO of PUMA and now co-chair, with Sir Richard Branson, of The B Team. The book, entitled “The Breakthrough Challenge: 10 Ways to Connect Today’s Profits with Tomorrow’s Bottom Line” comes full circle from John’s 1997 “Cannibals with Forks”, where he first introduced the Triple Bottom Line concept. John published The Stretch Agenda in 2015 – a dramatization spotlighting top team dynamics and conversations in the fictional boardroom of a major global company, and their exploration of the opportunity spaces in the decade running 2016-2025. Volans have labeled this period The Breakthrough Decade.
The sustainable choice that is the most fun for me:
The sustainable choice that exercised me for 40 years was London cycling, except that it was borderline sustainable for me. After yet another serious accident, I stopped cycling two years ago – but miss it intently.
What I’d like to see more of in the world:
More cyclists, more cycle lanes – and more laws that make hitting pedestrians and cyclists in a car a serious crime resulting in heavy fine and long term driving ban. That’s something the Dutch have already done.
