www.johnelkington.com

A co-founder of SustainAbility in 1987, John Elkington has worked in this field for 30 years and is one of the world’s leading authorities on sustainable development and on ‘triple bottom line’ business strategy. 

He has authored or co-authored 16 books and some 40 published reports, his latest book being The Chrysalis Economy: How Citizen CEOs and Corporations Can Fuse Values and Value Creation (Capstone/Wiley 2001). 

In 1989, he was elected to the UN Global 500 Roll of Honour for his ‘outstanding environmental achievements’.

• The Chrysalis Economy: How Citizen CEOs and Corporations Can Fuse Values and Value Creation.

Since 1974, he has undertaken consultancy work for a wide range of national and international government and non-governmental agencies, including: 

• Greenpeace International.
• IIED.
• OECD.
• SIDA.
• UNDP.
• UNEP.
• USAID.
• WRI.
• WWF.

He has visited hundreds of companies worldwide and worked for numerous corporate clients. 

• SustainAbility's client list.

John has spoken at several hundred conferences and other events throughout the world, notably:

• World Economic Forum summits in New York (2002) and Davos (2003).
• Chaired sixth Greenpeace Business conference (2001).
• Globe '98 (Vancouver 1998).
• Rabobank 100th anniversary conference (Zeist, 1998).
• Annual sustainability conference series in Australia (and now New Zealand) since 1998.
• the first and second Greenpeace Business Conferences (London, 1996, 1997).
• UN Global 500 Corporate Environmental Excellence Conference (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1995).
• Second Southern African Industry Conference on Environmental Management (SAICEM 2, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, 1994).
• Second World Industry Conference on Environmental Management (WICEM 2, Rotterdam, 1993).
• 1993 Greening of Industry Conference (Cambridge, MA).
• Globe '90 (Vancouver).
• 20th Anniversary OECD Environment Committee Conference (Paris).

In addition to his role at SustainAbility, John is:

• Chair of The Environment Foundation.
• Chair of the Social and Environmental Committee, Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (UK).
• Commissioner, State of the World Forum Commission on Globalization.
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, recently spun off by Amnesty International.
• Member, Advisory Board, Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI).
• Member of the Export Credit Guarantee Department Advisory (ECGD) Council.
• Member, Sustainability Advisory Board, ING.
• Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR).

He has also been a member of the Councils or Steering Committees of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability (ISEA). 

Previously John has been a non-executive director of the Association of Environmental Consultancies (AEC) from 1993-1995 and served on committees, among others, for:

• BP.
• Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB).
• Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA).
• Environmental Law Foundation (ELF).
• ICI Polyurethanes.
• Institute of Environmental Management (IEM).
• Merlin Ecology Fund.
• National Provident Institution (NPI).
• National Wildlife Federation's Corporate Conservation Council (NWF, US).
• Nature Conservancy Council (NCC).
• Storebrand.
• Tioxide.
• World Resources Institute (WRI, US).

He was an advisor to the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) in the run-up to UNCED and to the BioIndustry Association (1991-93), and Chairman of the Board of the Environment Faculty, Herning Institute of Business Administration & Technology, Denmark, from 1995 to 1998. He was also a member of the European Union Consultative Forum on the Environment and Sustainable Development (1994-2001).

From 1983-88, John ran an independent environmental consultancy, subsequently merged into SustainAbility. He was a co-founder of Environmental Data Services Ltd (ENDS) in 1978, was founder-Editor of the highly respected ENDS Report, and was Managing Director of ENDS from 1981 to 1983. Prior to that he worked as Senior Planner and Associate at Transport & Environment Studies (TEST: 1974-1978).

John has a BA in Sociology & Social Psychology from the University of Essex (1970) and an M Phil in Urban & Regional Planning from University College London (1974). A 1981 Churchill Fellow, he is currently a Fellow both of the Institute of Directors (IoD) and Royal Society of Arts (RSA). 

He was a long-standing member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Strategic Planning Society, and is currently: a member of the Editorial Advisory Panel of Community Affairs Briefing and a Patron of the New Economics Foundation (NEF).

Publications:

John Elkington is the author or co-author of over 30 books and published reports, including the No.1 best-selling Green Consumer Guide. 

2001 saw the publication of his most recent book: 

• The Chrysalis Economy: How Citizen CEOs and Corporations Can Fuse Values and Value Creation (Capstone, Oxford/John Wiley, New York).

Other books have included:

• The Ecology of Tomorrow’s World (ABP, 1980).
• Sun Traps (Pelican, 1984).
• The Poisoned Womb (Viking/Pelican, 1985).
• The Gene Factory (Century, 1985).
• Green Pages (Routledge, 1987).
• The Green Capitalists (Gollancz, 1987).
• The Green Business Guide (Gollancz, 1988).
• The Green Consumer’s Supermarket Shopping Guide (Gollancz, 1989).
• The Young Green Consumer Guide (Gollancz, 1990).
• Holidays That Don’t Cost the Earth (Gollancz, 1992).
• Manual 2000: Life Choices for the Future You Want (Hodder & Stoughton, 1998).
• The New Foods Guide (Gollancz, 1999).

His book Cannibals With Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business (Capstone, 1997/New Society 1998) was a finalist in the Global Business Book of the Year Award, organised by the Financial Times and Booz-Allen Hamilton.

John has written hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines and journals, and was Editor of Biotechnology Bulletin from 1982 to 1995, producing over 170 issues. He has also been a regular contributor to New Scientist on environmental, energy and development issues (1975-78), Tomorrow magazine (1995-2000) and The Guardian (1981-2001). He contributes regular columns to Nikkei Ecology in Japan.

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Gavin Power

Gavin Power is a Senior Advisor at the United Nations Global Compact, working in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. In this capacity, Gavin leads financial-markets initiatives for the Global Compact program, which today includes more than 1,800 companies operating in 70 countries. Gavin also has responsibility for the Global Compact in North America and Japan; in addition, he heads public affairs and communications for the Compact globally. Gavin has a diverse background in corporate reputation management, corporate social responsibility and financial journalism. Prior to joining the United Nations, he advised Global 500 companies on issues of reputation management, transparency, accountability and stakeholder communications. For five years, Gavin was a senior manager at Levi Strauss & Co. where he worked on a range of corporate reputation, communication and CSR issues. Prior to joining Levi Strauss, Gavin was a business editor, reporter and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle where he covered economic trends, financial markets, the apparel/retail industry, and business ethics. Gavin lives in New York City, where he also dabbles in playwriting.

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