John Elkington & Louise Kjellerup Roper: Avoiding Disruption

This episode of the Future in Sound podcast dives into the world of sustainable business with two powerhouse figures. John Elkington, dubbed the 'godfather of sustainability' is the Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

Joining him is Louise Kjellerup Roper, CEO of Volans, who honed her skills with cutting-edge software companies before pivoting to ignite the power of business for good. Louise's impressive track record includes bringing sustainable giants like method and gDiapers to Europe, and helping smaller businesses embrace circular economy models.

Listen as we explore the evolution of sustainable business models, the increasing demands placed on responsible leadership, and the strategic imperative of aligning corporate goals with the critical environmental and social challenges of our time.

Related links: 

• Read John's work here.
• The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
• Exponential View by Azeem Azhar
• The Alternative Newsletter  
• Volans’ Book Club

Click here for the episode web page.

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This podcast is brought to you by Re:Co, a tech-powered advisory company helping private market investors pursue sustainability objectives and value creation in tandem. 

Produced by Chris Attaway
Artwork by Harriet Richardson
Music by Cody Martin

Transcript

John: I think we are about to see more change in the next 10 to 15 years than we saw in the last 50. So, you know, almost buckle up your seatbelts because this is going to be an extraordinary time of change, but it won't automatically go in the right direction. 

Louise: If you continue to justify the actions. To create a new system with old system logic, you're going to run out of runway at some point because we're still measuring by the same measurements.

You then get, well, it wasn't really that good, was it? It was rubbish.

Jenn: Welcome to the Future in Sound podcast. I'm your host, Jenn Wilson. This is a podcast where we discuss people, planet, and profit. In each episode, we'll learn from world leading experts who can help us see the future we want and our role in it.

This is episode 25. Avoiding disruption.

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable capitalism, a bestselling author and a serial entrepreneur. Currently, he's founding partner and chief pollinator at Volans. Volans integrates future thinking, sustainability, and innovation into corporate strategy. This episode is going to be a little bit different.

We're going to have two interviewees rather than one. Louise Roper is CEO of Volans. Louise has a history of launching cradle to cradle and B Lab pioneering companies like Method, GDiapers, and others into Europe and bringing circular economy business models.

I wanted to start with quick intros, maybe starting with you, Louise, do you mind sharing just a brief overview on your background? 

Louise: Sure. Um, so my name is Louise Kjellerup Roper. I'm Danish, very Danish as John would say, but, um, I've lived actually more than half my life in the UK now. Um, I was educated here. And, um, through my career, I've been very lucky to be, I'm going to say, at the bleeding edge of new things being created. So starting off in tech and cybersecurity and then into the purposeful business sort of era that I guess for me started in 2007. So getting very deeply involved with Cradle to Cradle and then onto circular economy and so on.

So always looking at how do you use innovation? How do you use business and new business models in particular for change or for good? And now I'm CEO of Volans, um, and John's business partner. Um, and I've been that for six years and sort of get to, to help mostly big companies re-imagine where they're, where they should be going and what their models could be like.

Jenn: Thank you, Louise. And John, I'd love an intro from you as well.

John: Well, I always struggle. I've always refused to have a, uh, an elevator pitch, but this year marks 50 years that I've been professionally involved in the environmental and sustainability space. And in that time, you know, we're all told nowadays we've got to have an impact statement, and I don't. But, um, Try and put it in numbers. And, um, so 50 years, uh, 21 books. I've just finished the, uh, 21st. I've set up four companies since 1978 in one way or another. They all, uh, still exist. I've served on over 80 boards under advisory boards, and I'm still trying to work out what the hell it is I'm meant to be doing on this earth of ours. But the bulk of my career has been focused on getting business to open up and, and, and financial markets to open up to the future. 

Jenn: It's so interesting because one of the questions that I love to ask on this podcast has to do with sort of contextualizing sustainability and thinking about, you know, where we've come from, where we are and where we're going. Uh, because it can be so easy, especially after what we saw in 2020, 2021, where ESG became. A catchphrase, there was, you know, quite a bit of interest and almost a historian. In some cases, we lose sight of the bigger picture. So John, I wanted to start with just a question for you. When you look throughout your career, what's really changed? What's the story of the past couple of decades and sustainability and, and how we've seen basically how we've landed where we are today. 

John: Well, it's, it's funny because, um, younger people often say, uh, you know, what the hell have you all been doing for 50 years? Because nothing seems to have changed. I remember though, when I first started approaching companies back in the late seventies and they absolutely did not want to talk to people from uh, the environmental space at all. I mean, there was, it was before the watermelon, uh, analogy of, you know, green on the outside, uh, red on the inside, but people really did think that if you were interested in the environment, you were a communist and it didn't, wasn't just the business, uh, side that was a problem.

For this new book, I've just been getting endorsements and one of them came from Paul Gilding, actually this morning, who used to be the executive director of Greenpeace International, and we've been friends and colleagues for 30 plus years now, but he was recalling this morning that when he first was running Greenpeace. Somebody I mentioned in the new book, Peter Melchett, who was then executive director of Greenpeace UK, sent an instruction around the Greenpeace directors internationally that they should not talk to me because I was interested in business. And Greenpeace was not, you know, just so, you know, business wasn't there and, and, and the NGO world, uh, was struggling to be anywhere near there as, as well.

So I feel we've made very considerable progress in opening up business, but we struggled to get the same effect in the financial markets, although that's beginning to happen. And although. Governments and policymakers go in and out of all of this. We've really struggled to get them to shape markets in the way that they should have been doing and now will need to do.

Jenn: It’s interesting, Louise, I want to bring you in there, obviously with your interest in innovation. I’m wondering if you’ve seen trends leading us to where we are today and, you know, shifting landscape from your perspective. 

Louise: Well, absolutely. And, but actually, if I can, we had a really interesting conversation this morning where one of our team brought up that she'd been looking at an article from 2011, which was very worried about the world running out of oil or reaching peak oil before 2020. And there was all this anxiety around it. And, and she brought up the point, which I think is a brilliant one to make, that now we're working to stop using oil by 2030 and that the conversation has flipped. So I want to give a little bit of kudos to John's generation and all that work. I do think all of those things have to play together. The innovation has happened. There's so much fantastic climate tech. I think we could say there is, we have the technology we need to have a sustainable world really. What we don't have necessarily is the innovation in, um, how to deploy it. So both in the business models, sometimes in how to get the investments to it. And there's definitely innovation to happen there as John referred to the sort of financial sector, but, but everything is moving together. And that has been fascinating to see that we can't rely just on business or just on government or just on the financial sector or just on civil society. But all of those things have been clearly moving in the right direction. 

Jenn: I want to get. Oh, sorry, John. I was going to say, I want to get back into investment models and, um, and also business models. But before we, we do, John, go ahead. 

John: I was just simply going to say that the thing that really has changed through my working life has been that for much of that time, Uh, change has been at best incremental and very often went in cycles and sometimes we go backwards. And now what we see, particularly in renewable energy with solar and wind and batteries and so on, is this exponential dynamic coming in very, very, very powerfully indeed. So the fossil fuel majors who for a very long time thought they could fend people like us off indefinitely using lawyers and PR people and so on, are suddenly finding the ground cut from underneath their feet because energy markets are changing in a way that they have no experience of previously. So I think this is a, both a very exciting time, but if you're an incumbent dug into the wrong sort of sectors, it's a terrifying time potentially. 

Jenn: Yes I absolutely hear that. And it's interesting. One of our other interviewees on the podcast, Amory Lovins, who of course is one of the co- founders of a Rocky mountain Institute talks a lot about how we have energy efficiency, uh, technology that could be implemented. Now we don't need further innovation in order to meet our climate goals. And at the same time, coming to where we are today, we aren't where we need to be today. Uh, we talked a little bit about, you know, investment and business models, but where do we find ourselves today? We've had this big rush of ESG in the investment space, how do you describe a current phase of sustainability in business. 

John: I think we're at an inflection point in the sense that things have been moving incrementally for quite some time. And then for all sorts of reasons, exponential technology trends is one set of reasons, but there's a generational shift. Going on with younger people coming in at every level, we're starting to see this agenda slamming into the mainstream, was reading on the train coming back home just now, this sort of latest Financial Times report on responsible business education and sustainability is every second word in there. But the point is made in, in, in this sort of supplement based on a set of new set of rankings that in many ways, the business education system has, um, betrayed generations of students, including MBA students. So where are we now? I think we are about to see more change in the next 10 to 15 years than we saw in the last 50. So, you know, almost buckle up your seatbelts because this is going to be an extraordinary time of change, but it won't automatically go in the right direction. Uh, and therefore the politics all has come in.

Louise: Well, maybe I can add to that. Um, because we are at this incredible time of uncertainty, and I think we're seeing that with some of that you referred to the backlash, Jenn, and sort of ESG coming in. And so the first trend is we've moved from, I believe, the why to the how in for many people, but not for everyone.

But there is a general consensus there. I think that things must change, but it's not changing fast enough. We're not quite there. And ESG was an attempt at changing that, but it's almost like without changing the entire system or without changing the mindset. And I think that's where it comes up against the wall. And there is this backlash because if, if you continue to as a leader in particular, but justify the actions to create a new system, which this has to be with old system logic, you're going to run out of runway at some point. And I think that's what we have seen with, with the ESG is like, yes, we're going to do this. Great. But then it isn't always a guarantee because. When, when the oil prices change and, and suddenly, actually, the renewables aren't looking so good, then because we're still measuring by the same measurements, we're still using that same logic for what we're investing in or what we're, how we're acting as businesses.

You then get, well, it wasn't really that good, was it? It was rubbish and, and I don't think it was, uh, you know, the, the, obviously the environmental, social and governance agendas still have to be moved on, but there is a massive piece to be done around leadership and mindset now, and it isn't just an incremental change, it's, it's a real qualitative shift in how we act and what leadership looks like and how we then measure value.

Jenn: I'm really interested in getting into a specific example for audience members who are saying, Louise, this sounds great. How could we have inoculated ourselves against, you know, oil prices really influencing, you know, business models? What's an example of shifting the mindset, maybe having a bit more of sort of systems thinking so that we have the leadership we need to have more of a continuous focus on sustainability in our businesses?

Louise: Yes. Um, so I would like to use the Acciona example. What do you think, John? Is that helpful?

John: There are masses of them, but it's not a particularly well known one. So give it a go.

Louise: So first I should declare it's one of our clients and they've done a lot of things before we've touched them. So this is not, um, this is not our doing per se, but, um, Acciona was always mainly family owned, um, infrastructure company, now also energy company. And they moved from leading on straight CSR, sustainability, ESG, being quite involved in the EU taxonomy, trying to push that agenda to when they challenged themselves. And as we did help them with to look at the future, they came to the fact that it had to be regenerative. And when I say regenerative, the biggest mindset shift is around creating conditions for the future rather than just creating an outcome.

So that means that as a, as an infrastructure company, They now spend a lot more time analyzing the local communities and context, not just communities, but the whole context in which they're operating and how they finance their projects accordingly so that they're not just putting in a new metro or a new bridge or something, but their projects and the ripple effects of their projects, I guess, will go far into the future. For example the metro in Sao Paulo. They're currently creating the extension, the orange line, um, creating a lot of mess. I hear from people living in Sao Paulo, but, but the background to the, and I think the financing is really interesting. That line runs from, um, Brasiliada, northern suburb, which has about 70 percent that live in a favela. And when they did the contextual regenerative, um, I think regenerative lens and said, okay, what does this community need apart from a two hour faster trip into the center of town, which in itself is huge if you, if you're working and you normally take two and a half hours, you'd take half. And they discovered that there was a lack of qualified people in the area that especially females did not have jobs or training. They discovered that there were no startups around mobility. and low carbon or circular solutions. And so they committed in their financing deal, which was, I believe, sort of 12 different banks they got to finance. This is an enormous project. It's the biggest ever infrastructure project in Brazil. To not only did they commit to improving on these five criteria, EU taxonomy as well, but on helping people becoming certified in the jobs that are needed over the next 10 to 20 years in the area, creating new businesses and helping to fund, which is kind of not that unusual. But what they did is they said, and if we don't make these targets, we will then pay for NGOs to provide those outcomes. So it means that when they move away and the project is done, not only will those people have had. a bit of a job, hopefully that community and that economy will be better in terms of self sustaining and create outcomes in the future. So that's a small example of changing how you look at things. And I think Acciona in particular have done it really well. As I said, they've now gone into energy and are looking at where else and how else can they have impact from this idea of looking at place based solutions. 

Jenn: That makes a lot of sense. And in terms of a regular business, you know, manager thinking about sustainability, they might think what's most material to my business and might not start with a lens of what's most material to the communities in which I operate, which is part of what sounds like the sort of mindset shift. Yeah. And I'm just wondering. When you're talking to clients and when you're helping them to think through, you know, where to invest, how does that, again, we're not just talking about the, why we're talking about the, how, but how do you help clients think through the limits of where sort of they end and, you know, civil society sort of begins.

I mean, of course there's sort of inter sections, right. But I mean, how do we, how do you help clients get the balance so that they are building. Strong profitable businesses while also being innovative, supporting communities, but in a way that's financially sustainable as well as environmentally and socially sustainable.

John: I think what we're beginning to see is particularly big companies, but increasingly companies of, of, of different sizes being encouraged to play a political role. And I think that I Fiona example is a case in point and for very For a very long time, for decades now, uh, NGOs, and I would count myself as a sort of activist in that sort of space, have tried to keep business out of politics because we simply didn't trust, um, companies like Shell in Nigeria or whatever it was, um, uh, to do the right thing. Um, and part of the reason was that there was very little transparency and therefore very little accountability. But what we're now seeing is that with governments being weaker than they should be and the pace of progress being slower than it ought to be, there is a growing interest in having the right sort of business leaders step into that breach. Now, I am would be the first bit. person to say that although I want businesses to come together into new sort of coalitions to drive the system change conditions that we all need, I do not want them to do politics instead of politicians because they're not democratically elected. Not that that helps with any politicians, but I think this is a transitional phase where we want business to play a much more active role in shaping markets, not simply taking markets as a given and saying, you know, Wall Street or consumers want this from us and therefore we will deliver it.

But for example, on, on, on carbon and climate starting to shape. The sort of carbon tax, uh, requirements in a positive way, rather than just simply sticking in their heels and refusing to move. One final point is, I think that I just come back from a meeting which was on sort of the future of democracy. And I think this 2024 is obviously a critical year with about half the democratic population of the globe, uh, voting. God knows which way it will go. But I think one of the things that we're going to have think about as a change movement to change industry is it what a democracy is not always the answer what if we end up with uh you know semi communist or semi fascist um or let's say extreme right wing governments how do we continue to work in that sort of Reality. And I think that's something that businesses and I was really struggling with the, with the anti woke anti SG pressures, particularly in the United States, but we're seeing companies in other parts of the world, having to wake up to those sorts of pressures as well. 

Jenn: It's interesting as we take a step back and think about the future and what's coming around the corner. And then I'd really love to get into sort of lenses and, you know, tools that those listening to this call can use to start to identify opportunities for innovation and, you know, getting more involved in the social fabric where they operate when we think into the future and look around the corner, say over the next, you know, five years, if we have a listener that's saying, look, John, Louise, Jen, you know, ESG, we tried it. There's a bit, a lot of backlash. In some cases it didn't have enough impact. You know, maybe we got too excited about something, but that's dying down, you know, what would you say to that? And also, you know, what does when you look to the next 5 years, obviously, we mentioned being an inflection point, but for say, a private investor or a private company, uh, that's looking at sustainability and what it means for their business.

What does the next five years look like? 

Louise: I think I'll start on this one. And I would like to get back to the sort of practical tools as well. Um, so the next five years really are going to be incredibly uncertain. And we know that. I think everybody knows that if you, if you think you've got it, then you're mistaken. Um, however, I think that there also this incredible opportunity because transformation is coming. Change is coming. We've now got to the point, um, that the environment is going to force this. The environment is forcing certain things, um, in terms of supply chains. In terms of risks, but as an opportunity thinking through and it comes back to tools, what systems need to look like in the future and helping to shape those I think is the, is the biggest opportunities for any size of organization and investors. I'm going to say real economy businesses and it will require most industries and in fact, all industries and most businesses to transform themselves, but unless it's the choice. And again, we talk about this with our clients. It's the choice between being the subject of change or an agent of change. So we know change is coming. If you take the right, the right lens or several lenses actually and start asking questions rather than think that you've got the exact answer, then you can look at how do you want to shape the future so that it is sustainable so that we're not hit by, by both on the, on the environmental side, wildfires and floods and so on and on the political social side by rebels in the Suez canal and, and social movements uprising and, and problems with democracy. What is it that needs to look like, and how do you start shaping that by changing your own business? 

Jenn: So being on the front foot rather than the back foot and understanding what the future is gonna look like, um, or having a view on it and helping to shape it. 

Louise: Exactly. It's, the biggest risk for any business right now is to, to not have that conversation with the, with yourself, so to speak.

John: But Jenn, one of the ways in which businesses have increasingly tried to get a grip on all of this, I mean, historically, it was through impact assessments and audits and scenarios and all this good stuff, which, which remains, uh, important, but they've increasingly been Recruiting and appointing chief sustainability officers or people with that sort of title in the C suite with a remit to explore this wider landscape as it happens.

I'm speaking in Davos this evening, not physically. I've recorded a video for it, and it's looking at this trend. And one of the questions I pose is have we reached peak CSO? I mean, the trend has grown so fast. At some stage, it's got to peak. And my answer is absolutely not. I think it's almost hardly started.

I think we're going to see huge numbers of people, whatever they're called, moving into these sorts of bridging roles, transformational roles within Business. And I think what we'll also see is people like chief financial officers waking up to the opportunity space or the, you know, the, um, the fact that, that there are things that they should be doing that they aren't.

And so you're going to see these squabbles breaking out in the C suite. But two things, I think, which are not exactly tools, but which I think companies are also experimenting with some of them quite successfully. Alongside recruiting CSOs, one is learning journeys, and no, it's often said the future's already here, it's just not yet evenly distributed. I love that notion. We're seeing growing numbers of companies deciding to go out and talk to people who are right at the leading edge of change. Now, that might not be innovators in Silicon Valley, although they that can be really helpful. It might be people running cities and innovative new ways and talking to city mayors and so on.

So I think those learning journeys are potentially enormously powerful. The second approach involves advisory boards. Bringing the outside in. So the first one is going out to see the outside world, and maybe that's a stepping stone towards saying who of all of those voices, all of those people with particular skills and experience and the rest of it, could we bring in periodically to really challenge your close quarters, what we're doing, what we're, what we're planning, and so on.

And that's something that we've done more and more of in recent years. And when it works, it works incredibly well. When it doesn't work, it's like a sort of glorified cocktail party. But we, we sort of try and avoid that outcome. 

Jenn: Hey, it's Jenn. I just wanted to take a quick moment to let you know a bit about Re:Co and what we do. We're a tech enabled advisory firm that helps private market investors and companies measure sustainability metrics using our software platform. We also help you to set targets and focus your efforts on sustainability areas that really matter for your business. And finally, we help clients to translate all of this work into your core value creation strategy or your business model. Check us out at re.co.com to get in touch. All right, now back to our conversation. 

Jenn: Just building on the additional, I'm loving these sort of practical tools. So if you're looking to bring in a different perspective, having advisory boards, learning from those who have sort of different backgrounds, how are we choosing who to include? John or Louise, like, who, who do we want to listen to? I think it sort of comes back to, okay, well, we don't want businesses necessarily running, you know, running, uh, governments that said, we do want to see a broader responsibility for, uh, involvement in the environmental and social fabric, uh, of areas where we're operating, uh, and beyond.

And so I guess the question is, how do we identify who we should be speaking with, how do we identify, I guess, the, the core areas for innovation? Maybe Louise, that's a question for you. 

Louise: I think there's two things in the advisory councils. You need a diverse group for sure. You, you need be vaguely aligned with the ambitions of the company. So I think, I don't think advisory councils create ambitions. They are really good at challenging and refining ambitions and strategies, whether that's whole company strategies or sort of sub, sub strategies of entry into new geographical areas or new markets. So you, you would want people both within those markets, whether it be a geographical or not, and, and people on the edges.

So a combination of NGO, policy people, and hugely commercial people is how we normally, when we pull together, um, an advisory board or an advisory council, that's what we start looking at. Trying not to say, well, I need somebody with social and somebody with governance and somebody on environment, but making sure that there's some overlap and some and that you get people who have a little bit of both. So somebody might be an energy expert in China. Or, or have some social experience or commercial experience in another region. So you bring in people who have different angles, but are all looking at the same type of problems or area. So that would be one way of doing it. And sometimes those can, can be used to throw up where you should be innovating.

But actually in my experience, in our experience, what is mostly effective is when you're looking at where should we be innovating? What should we be doing is unlocking what's in the company already. It's like a treasure trove that most companies don't unlock because everybody's doing their day job and getting on with it.

So that's the other piece is allowing leaders or sort of upcoming leaders or not leaders at all in the company to unleash their imagination of what could be. And I don't think we're investing enough in that because we're sort of running fast, but there's something about slowing down and taking the time to reimagine, and it could be a whole company or thing or, and sometimes we do that with, with companies, like what, what is, you know, the role of your company in, in 10 years, should you even exist?

Do you have something that should exist in the future? That's always a fun question. Um, because of course, even if you're not doing, if a company isn't focused on, on a thing that actually is useful in the future economy, then there's always values and, and skill sets and abilities and capacity in a company that that can be used.

So there's something that's when you start seeing pivot. But often you could get, you get the best ideas from people in the company. If you can remove their fear of, or their, the weight of, well, that's not going to be possible anyway, because X manager is going to shut it down or whatever. So taking the time, um, we talked about learning journeys, but also taking the time to explore what you have in the business by just working slightly differently. 

John: I'm just going to say a couple of additional things. One is you clearly, in terms of selection and how you select people, you don't simply want people you like and know already. You're trying to extend everyone's networks. You do want people who are well networked themselves. You want people who will not bring Semtex into the boardroom in the sense that they, they, they, they are prepared to engage, but ideally they will be challenging and not just to the company itself. And one of the things that has often struck us is that where you have people on the external side, disagreeing, challenging each other in, in these discussions, that helps leadership inside an organization and a company or whatever to just see the internal dynamics of the change agenda. And for that to happen, one of the things companies often want to do is they want to chair these, these bodies themselves. They want their CEO to do it. The CEO should absolutely be present every time if at all possible.

But, uh, very often if you have an external chair, I think it gives an independence, uh, to the process that it wouldn't necessarily otherwise have. There's one other thought just to sort of drop into the mix. And that is one of the things we've often said to companies that experiment in this way is bring in some of your younger people as observers in the process.

They don't have to be right the way through. I mean, clearly there will be confidential issues and all of your external people on an advisory council have to sign a non disclosure agreement. But bringing those younger people in, both opens them up to some of these areas of discussion but also carries out the non confidential areas to other parts of the business.

Jenn: This is really interesting. And just taking it one step further, I wonder, obviously we can't breach client confidentiality, but if there's an example of a company that's gone through this process, I'd love to hear more about the kinds of questions that you asked, uh combination of employees, perhaps and, stakeholders and the kind of innovative outcome, uh, that came to the fore.

And again, anonymize however you need, but just for somebody who's sitting, listening to the podcast thinking, okay, I should talk to employees. Got it. Get a sense of, you know, a couple of people who are going to really challenge us. Okay. External chair. What are the kinds of questions and what's an example of an innovation that's come from this process?

Louise: Okay. So there's, I guess there's two bits to it. So, when I talk about the employees, I don't talk about them in an advisory council necessarily. Um, though, I think an advisory council should report to the CEO, but then have a lot of interaction with different teams in order to help. I think that's really important.

I think when you're going to set up an advisory council, thinking through what is it that you, um, you really want to get out of this. So for example, for us, so Neste, who we worked with for, I guess, five, six years. So they were the, or are the biggest company in Finland. They started off being set up to, to help Finland's energy security.

Um, so they refined oil, lots of it from Russia back in the day, and then have gone through this incredible transformational journey. So now they are a leader in biofuels and they refine all things from abattoir offal to straw to all kinds of things into diesel, sustainable aviation fuels, and, uh, recycled chemical polymers.

And when you look at that, it's the CEO said, well. We want a council that deals with sustainability because we want to remain a leader, but also into our new markets. And we think the new markets are going to be around aviation and polymers. So when we set out to create that council, we talked to several people across, probably 35 people across, across Neste, um, before we even, even wrote the proposal for what this should look like.

And we then do two things. So one, we looked at the, how does it function? And for Nestea, it was two council meetings a year, but then some deep dives, which not all council members might be part of. The CEO wouldn't be part of, but would be with a team inside the company who had something to think through.

And that could be really strategic, like what's the future of the internal combustion engine. And so we'd facilitate a deep dive with, with council members, where we'd really think about that and what would be the consequences for that team. Um, or, um, something sort of, I'm going to say, uh, more simple around what are the new vegetable stocks they could use, and what were the risks and opportunities, and how do you make sure you don't get into the Food versus fuel debate, so that, so those are the kinds of topics we would do with them on deep dives in terms of figuring out the council, we knew that that Nesta was challenged by the NGOs, and so we, we got onto the council, one of the global directors of WWF, because a lot of overlap in interest from, from that NGO and the company, and yet quite a lot of clashing and suspicion, and we happened to have in our, in our network, a director who couldn't do it, but referred us to another brilliant director, but she was based in Mexico, and she was happy to, she did a lot of due diligence before she said yes. So she was one. We then had, again, a policy expert and somebody who was really involved in China, not because Neste had identified China somewhere they wanted to get into but for an energy and fuel company, pretty important.

And then somebody who is a senior partner at Bain responsible for aviation, because again, we, you know, it was the sense of you can be an aviation fuel expert, but what about the commercial? Somebody who really understands what the airlines are going to want and demand. And so he came on board. I ended up on the board because of the circularity and also, you know, potentially saving a little bit of money from paying an extra member because I was going to hold it anyway.

And John chaired it. Have I covered it?

John: There was one. No, sorry, Louise. There was just one person you haven't covered and that was XPRIZE Foundation. And just to make the point, we were trying to stretch the imagination [00:38:00] of people around the table, but in the company as well. And pulling in somebody from XPRIZE seemed to us quite an important step.

Louise: Again, somebody really deep into innovation and especially around carbon. with a view of lots of the innovations that were going on that could be useful for the company. So we all came from different sides, I guess, which helps. So that's how I would think about it. But I would think about what is it you're trying to do? Some councils that we've seen, that we've been brought into there, that I won't mention the names there, have been because they were set up as a comms campaign. So you, you pay famous climate people who want to do well, but you're not really clear on what you're trying to get out of them and you don't set it up so that you get the best out of them.

And when I say that, I mean, if the team from the company are going to come and present, they need to be willing to present. What they're not sure about. So if they have a CEO there and they feel they have to impress, so they just show the glossy bit, then it's a complete waste of everybody's time and money. You really need to create an atmosphere where those things can happen. So that would be my, for the councils, I'm aware we're running out of time. 

Um, the other piece, I think, and when you want to, if you want to tap into your employees, I think that's outside of a council. We call them imaginariums if we run them. And that really is about choosing a diverse group of people who probably don't work together. Every day and creating a space they can work together in a different way without any sort of risk in a really safe space to really reimagine what could we be and you can make that as big or as small as you'd like, you know, you frame it up. What are the innovations that are possible? And Often with that, again, you need a little bit of external input in terms of what the rest of the world is doing. And then you just need to tap into those years of experience in the company that are around the table. So that's about space and about just creating a place that people can be different, even though they're still at work.

John: This is existential for the clients. So, for example, Selfridges, the retail company, is one client that we've worked with. And you know, one of the, it's, it's a bit like the Neste question about what's the future of internal combustion engine. If you're developing fuels that are drop in fuels for, for cars with internal combustion engines and boom, electric vehicles are coming in. What does that future look like and how do you best play into it? And the same with the retail sector now with Amazon dominating, uh, what's the future of department stores? So some of this is increasingly not just structural, but it's existential. 

Jenn: And when you're looking at, say, Selfridges, uh, for example, and, you know, say you have your advisory council. You know, what kinds of questions are you asking to really get at that sort of core, you know, where are we going to be in, you know, five, 10 years and how do we make sure that we're not disrupted by some of these trends? How do you frame those conversations so they're really effective and driving toward those insights?

Louise: So the Selfridges and we did the, we've done. Work with both the Selfridges group and Selfridges the UK. And that is not an advisory council. So I just want to be really clear. That's really separate. Um, Selfridges had a, uh, had set a mission about reinventing retail. And then we took over four months, a group of 37 of their leaders from across different, um, geographies and functions and just worked with them on, well, what does that mean? So that's a mix of digging into what really is the capacity of this company, because you could look at it and say, we sell stuff. We buy stuff from brands, put it on display and sell it. Or you could say, and that's what we found when we dug deeper, that there's a real legacy of creativity. Of being on the forefront of curating and having conversations with clients that other people don't have. So what does that mean? What does that mean in innovation? And that could mean, and I don't think anybody minds me giving the example. What are we going to do with our department stores? Um, When they're not in use.

So they have not just department stores, but they have offices around that those department stores. How might you play into the community around you? How can you use the space better? Um, what about when everybody went and worked? Um, um, outside London, for example, for Selfridges, could you use those home workers to be outposts of Selfridges that people could visit?

How do you start thinking about, um, and, and really it is just, and I guess we've developed just, and, and, and borrowed and, and, and sort of mashed together a set of tools that means that we do workshops over half a day or a whole day, um, and a few of them, and then there's work in between for the people involved that, um, where they just really get to think and to play, uh, and, and to make really silly, invited to converse suggestions, um, that then can be built on by others. So a lot of it is about how you allow people to, to show up in those kinds of circumstances. And it's hard if it's, you know, done internally. 

Jenn: What's so great, and I have so many follow up questions, but I know we're running out of time and it's because of my enthusiasm, I think, and wanting to ask all these follow up questions.

But what's really great about what I'm hearing is that it's basically sustainability, um, more broadly, um, social elements of that as well, being used as almost a lens or a starting point overlay. I'm not sure what to call it. For preventing disruption and how many businesses we all talk about the Kodak example, where they just, you know, they just did not see digital coming because they weren't having those conversations and, you know, best practice, you go to Stanford business school and, you know, they're talking about how to avoid disruption for incumbents and it's exciting to think that you're fusing together. Avoiding disruption, um, and being on the front foot, uh, while also pulling in sustainability. Uh, you know, our view at Ricoh is that so many of the tools that pre exist, uh, are pre existing and, and, uh, business can be fused with sustainability to, to create, you know, better businesses. And ultimately outcomes for people on planet. And so it's been really refreshing talking about concrete examples with some pretty heavyweight clients that, that, uh, both you, Louise and you, John have worked with. So thank you so much for that. 

Um, I wanted to move to our final, uh, question, which is one of my favorite questions because I'm always interested in what shapes the thinking of the guests on the podcast. So I'm really interested if you had to choose, and maybe John will start with you, if you had to choose one book or idea that's shaped the way you think or work, what book or idea would that be?

John: Well, I think probably I would go for a genre or a sort of a class of book, and I would tend to go for science fiction, uh, in the sense that there's a huge amount of it written, obviously, uh, but in recent years, there's been more and more of it that's starting to address the climate crisis, the water crisis linked into that and a variety of other things. But when I think about the book that had the biggest impact on me, it was a book on science. It was the structure of scientific revolutions that came out in 63. I read it in 1966. I was age 14 at the time, and it's talked about paradigm shifts and the message I took away from it, which I think is increasingly clear to us all is that paradigm shifts take in science about 60 to 80 years to happen because you need the people who are infected with the old paradigm to die or retire and then the people they taught to some degree get out of the way as well. I think we're about 65 years into a paradigm shift. It's built around the thinking of the late fifties, early sixties around environment, but a bunch of other stuff now. And so I think thinking about how these fundamental shifts in our societies and economies happen is really, really important. I wouldn't recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I don't think it's a brilliantly written book, but I would push people towards science fiction. 

Jenn: Thank you, John. What about you, Louise? 

Louise: I have always read science fiction, but John's got me more reading science fiction, but I guess I push my, it's, it's conversations actually, um, and talking to people that I don't know already, I try and seek out weird newsletters that, that will have a different opinion, but, um, sort of work wise, um, but other than that, it's around really strengthening imagination and gut feel. And so similar to John or similar sort of age to John, I read a very short book called, and it's sort of a cliche almost now I think, called Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, which is about a very short story about a seagull who doesn't want to fly with all the other seagulls and do, he wants to go higher and different and uses wings for different things and really it's about following passion and experimenting and, and this idea that actually you can be held whilst doing something quite different and following your purpose. And so I think that one, if, if any one book, um, but apart from that, just reading several, but lots of, lots of fiction. And lots of imagination, 

Jenn: I can really see the story of all lands in your work and the two books that you selected. And you mentioned Louise that you let you read interesting newsletters. So I wonder if they're when you're staying current and thinking about sustainability and making sure that you're on the front foot.

What are some of the things that you read?  

Louise: Exponential view. Absolutely. Exponential view is interesting. Um, the alternative global or alternative weekly is quite fun. I, um, often also read sort of NGO newsletters and I scout around for people really on the edges and have a few friends who are artists and who are deep in sort of anti colonialism movements and how to rethink art in those circumstances, which is quite far from our work, you know, with mainstream business.

But I think those are the things that we know are going to come up as, you know, and we, we're great. We have this amazing, we're so lucky. We have this amazing young. And, and we have lots of team lunches sort of, um, in the week and, um, on a Thursday. Oh, yes. And in particular, so I, I, during COVID, during the lockdown, we launched a little book club where I interview authors online, but they're mainly systems thinking, capitalism type, how we bring all this together. Um, so not a podcast, but just a book club, which has been brilliant. Very much fun to read different people. 

Jenn: Thank you. Louise and John, you read Exponential View. Anything else you recommend to our listeners? 

John: The one thing I would say just by way of conclusion is that, um, I'm often, uh, told by younger people that they wish they'd been around for the glory days of environmentalism and now the sustainability agenda. And, the new book, which I've just finished, which is called Tickling Sharks, ends with the point that we haven't had the golden years, the glory days of the sustainability movement. Those are still to come. So I actually think, um, you know, a lot of people are looking at the future with, in a slightly appalled, uh, fashion and there are plenty of challenges out there. But this is going to be the most extraordinary few decades ahead of us. So read stuff that is linked to that. And the reason I like exponential view is because it's very, very short and punchy with links going out. Uh, and it's read by many of the people who run top Silicon Valley companies and so on.

There are many others, but, um, somebody just said the other day, just read. Because so many people read a lot less than once would have been the case. So whatever you read, it's a good thing. And, and, um, try and read a little bit around corners or over the horizon. And that's why the science fiction piece for me at least comes in.

Jenn: Louise, John, thank you so much for joining us on the Future in Sound podcast.

Louise: Thank you for having us, Jen. It was so lovely.

Jenn: The Future in Sound podcast is written and hosted by Jen Wilson and produced by Chris Attaway. This podcast is brought to you by Re:Co, a tech powered advisory company, helping private market investors pursue sustainability objectives and value creation in tandem. If you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to tell a friend about it.

And if you have a moment to rate us in your podcast app, we'd really appreciate it until next time. Thanks for listening.