may day may day may day

I’ve never found Russell Brand remotely funny. But not because he pushes the boundaries of taste. Were that the reason, I wouldn’t love Peter Cook, Little Britain, or Steve Coogan. I can’t even print the lyrics of a song I saw him perform live in Oxford a couple of weeks ago, but it was very, very funny. I quite like Jonathan Ross, and it’s for a simple reason.

A few years ago my friend John Lloyd, a comedy producer, took me along as part of a team he had organised for a quiz night for ad men, hacks and comedians that the late Jeremy Beadle used to host at the Atlantic Bar and Grill. Most of the comedians there were either manic depressively distant, rude, breathtakingly grand and showy, or so out of it they couldn’t speak, let alone answer questions.  When I was introduced to Ross, he was none of those things. He was sincere, charming, witty, and as down to earth as you can be when you have all that fame and fortune. He was very easy to talk to, and lacking any self-importance. I think he was even tee total. His wife was there. A decent family guy on an evening out. Ross’s brand of entertainment isn’t quite to my taste - if anything it’s a bit mild. Watch some old Monty Python or listen to Derek and Clive and it’s hard to be too offended by a dig at a member of a troupe called ‘Satanic Sluts’.

Should Brand and Ross have phoned Andrew Sachs in the way they did? Probably not. Was it appropriate for Radio 2? No. Was it a nice thing to target a sweet and civilised 78 year old acting legend in the way they did? No. Is Ross a bit overpaid? Maybe, but a lot less so than Katie Jordan or whatever she’s called. Would it have been funny if the target had been Paul Burrell, Nick Griffin, or Jonathan King? Yes.

There’s an easy way for the BBC to avoid this kind of embarrassing slip up again. It’s called ‘editing’. Two blokes having a laugh and getting carried away happens all the time, every day, in every town. It takes a particularly dim person to record it, listen to it, and then play it to millions of people on radio 2 without cutting out the offensive material. Ross may well not survive, but surely a production head needs to roll first.

I’m off on holiday, and will return to a new US President-elect. Let’s hope it’s the right one. It’s a bit more serious than a couple of prank calls, frankly.

To a very special charity performance of ‘Rain Man’ at the Apollo Theatre on Thursday evening, celebrating the launch of a new charity, Care Trade. This is the brainchild of my friend Katharine Doré, the theatre producer. Many years ago Katharine realised there was no appropriate educational provision for her autistic son, Toby. So she and a group of friends set up their own school, the Tree House. I visited it some years ago – it’s a beacon of what can be done in special needs education. Eleven years on, now Katharine has realised that despite the security and opportunity children with autism can achieve in school, the job market, like the education system, provides little or no hope. So now Katharine intends to wow, bully and then mobilise her impressive address book all over again, creating this new venture, effectively a certification mark of excellence for companies that help disenfranchised people such as those with autism, by helping them enter the job market and lead fulfilling professional lives. To prove it can be done, she’s even set up her own olive oil company. Eleven years ago, most people thought the Tree House would be an impossible venture. Katharine and her friends proved them wrong. Some people may find the idea of companies integrating people with autism into their recruitment a challenge too far. My money’s on Katharine. Oh and the play was brilliant, although it’s a bad idea to take your girlfriend to anything with Josh Hartnett in it, obviously.

Jonathon Porritt has a good crack at CSR on his blog today.. I’ve just posted this response on his site:

“A typically robust and highly readable post. I agree with much of it, particularly your accurate account of the hollowness of ethical positioning in the banking sector. It’s very likely, at least in Western economies, that the term ‘CSR’ may not be long for this world. But your hyperbole on its imminent demise is unhelpful. Although we would probably agree on the immense gulf between shallow ‘CSR programmes’ and the proper corporate embedding of sustainability in its broadest sense, it is surprising to see you coming out so strongly against what to many is still a desirable business objective. Not least because you yourself did so very much to create a business appetite for it in the first place, for which the world owes you a lot. We certainly don’t look to banks for real leadership on these issues - but we didn’t when they were rich either. Whatever people call it, the quest for responsibility must go on. I would have thought the present crisis makes a stronger case for corporate responsibility than ever before. Implying that the concept is dead plays into the hands of the many companies who still think ‘business as usual’ is an acceptable option. When you came out in favour of BP’s Target Neutral programme, did you think everything about that company was responsible? I hope not! But you were right to praise them. Please don’t lose all faith in CSR. What it’s called doesn’t really matter in my view. The best companies in the world, like Innocent Drinks, don’t even need a name for it. They just do it.”

If, as I am, you’re depressed about the Italian and Polish governments’ attempt to dilute the ambitious but entirely necessary climate change proposals at the EU Leaders Summit in Brussels. I highly recommend this clip of John Cleese talking about Sarah Palin. It certainly cheered me up. I may not find it quite so funny on the morning of November 5th, should the ultimate nightmare scenario unfold. At least I’ll be on holiday in the middle of nowhere that week. I’ll advise at the time if I plan to return.

Good clip here of my cocktail partner and fellow Rainforest Alliance champion Richard Reed on BBC 2’s Working Lunch talking about the Innocent Drinks business model, ethics, and what the downturn (or should I say meltdown) means for his company and the responsibility agenda in general. Who would you rather listen to – a bland corporate executive in a tie, or Rich? The reason Innocent works is that its products, communications strategy and founders have an even better ingredient than fruit – authenticity. Sadly, authenticity isn’t something you can learn or buy, which really shows when people who aren’t real try to look as if they are. This is well worth watching next time you’re planning a new product plug (for that’s at the end of the day what this is, Innocent having just launched their new veg pots). Most broadcasters rightly turn down these blatant plugs, because they’re so boring. This one isn’t. Take a look.

I have no excuse other than time pressures for the severe lack of blogging in the past few months! Countless times I was on the verge of writing an entry, only to be distracted by a more urgent task, or the realisation that I would do either myself or a client no favours in broadcasting the details of some pretty interesting stuff I’ve been involved with of late. As John Ashton, the UK’s Special Representative for Climate Change told me when I started this blog, the challenge would be to find ‘meaning’. I’m not convinced that blogging is the best avenue in that quest (and I suspect John isn’t either) – to be frank I’m worried what I put up here will either be bland and uninteresting, or get me into a lot of trouble for broadcasting pretty fascinating client and NGO engagements which should remain private. Partly because sensitive issues are best dealt with behind the scenes, and partly because of the need to secure my future employment in this unstable world.

So, what can I say? Well, let me start by welcoming the arrival of a superb new colleague to the Planet 2050 team, Helen Ireland. Helen has years of experience in the CSR and sustainability world, including 5 years at the Soil Association and 3 as head of corporate affairs for Café Direct the UK’s leading fair trade drinks brand. Helen joined a few weeks ago and is already impressing clients, making us laugh and giving our busy team a much needed capacity boost. In fact, without Helen I’m not sure I’d have the time to write this. We’re delighted to have her on board.

I’ve also had a slight professional readjustment – after 4 years of advising the Rainforest Alliance and helping them build their profile in the UK, they’ve asked me to join their Board of Directors. It’s an incredible honour and I hope I can live up to it! I’m very much looking forward to it. Especially now that my friend Charlie Watson is off to Guatemala, to work for the Rainforest Alliance as a communications associate – his first full time job since graduating last year. I am so excited for him. Apart from being an all round ecofriendly good guy, Charlie is also a very talented environmental photographer. He’s got a very nice new website, which can be found here Enjoy browsing photos from his travels around Latin America. He says the site is still under development, but it looks pretty good to me.

Our client Fujitsu Siemens Computers has a great new project – transporting computers from China to Europe. Yes, that’s not new. Difference is, they’re doing it by train. Track the journey and read more about it here.

Lastly, we’re pleased to be sponsoring the Green Awards again this year. Check out the nominees here

I mustn’t over exert myself on my first blog post in 4 months. But I’ll be back soon. Honest

To the annual Ethical Corporation Summit in London yesterday, to take part in a panel discussion which involved having ‘ethical business dilemmas’ thrown at us by David Grayson, one of the guru academics on corporate responsibility. My fellow panellists were Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor of The Economist, Matthew Gwyther, Editor of Management Today and Ben Clarke, formerly CEO of Kraft UK.  I think we did OK, but some of the questions were tricky to say the least! Apart from the topical subject of how to handle Olympic sponsorship dilemmas, we debated a number of scenarios. The most bizarre of which involved how to handle a situation where a company discovered its supplier abroad had subcontracted work to another factory down the road. Upon auditing the factory, its owner proudly revealed a massive arms stash, designed, he said, to protect his workers from kidnap by the local mafia. Should you delist the supplier, work with them to create better security, or ignore it until the weapons were actually used? Bizarrely, this ‘hypothetical’ case turned out to be a real one (although we weren’t told which British company’s supply chain it was). It was good fun and I think I (just) managed to be provocative without making my own employment unsustainable. I hope so, anyway.

How nice to see Gordon Ramsay turning into an environmentalist overnight. His call for local and seasonal produce (including the bizarre suggestion that chefs who do not serve seasonal produce should be fined – work out how even the most energetic red-tape bureaucrat would administer that) was hailed by sleepy journalists as a great call to action from the rent-a-quote culinary genius. Laced with an attack on Delia Smith, surely the timing of his publicity stunt (sorry, ‘call to action’) was purely coincidental given that his latest series is about to start on TV.

From what I read over the weekend, it was left to The Independent (pretty much the only trustworthy newspaper these days in my opinion) to do any actual journalistic research into Ramsay’s latest rant. They ran a brilliant piece on the fact that Gordon’s luxury restaurant in Dubai boasts of little else other than the fact that all the food (and even the milk) is flown in from the UK, some 3,000 miles away. In fact, if you visit his glitzy emporium (not that I would) in the UAE, even the fish is flown in from the North Sea, that icon of rampant pillaging. Whilst the Gulf yields plenty of fresh, local, and more exotic species of seafood, Gordon brings it in from the most laughed at attempt at marine conservation anywhere in the world. Here in Britain, the way to puff your product is to show how local and seasonal it is. But for those who, for reasons best known to themselves, opt to holiday in Dubai, the way to haul the punters in is to emphasise just how far the food has travelled. Odd world, silly man.

The F-word seems strangely apt as a response to this self-serving green grandstanding. 

Whilst campaigning in the 1980s against the nuclear deterrent, my father befriended a fellow pacifist, the late English composer Robert Simpson. Although politically interested, I was far too young to appreciate their political bond, which was in fact rooted in a love of great music. But I well recall my father recounting to me, when I was no more than ten years old, something Simpson said to him about nuclear war. Simpson’s greatest fear about nuclear annihilation, at a time when the superpowers of the day held in their hands the power to eliminate planet earth seven times over, was not the extinction of species, or even mankind, but a terror that the scores of Beethoven’s precious and timeless symphonies could be destroyed forever.

I must admit, to a young teenager more interested in beer and girls than the intricacies of classical orchestration or even war with the Soviets, this profound thought was somewhat wasted on me. But as I sat in the Royal Festival Hall on Friday evening listening to a staggeringly talented 28 year old Greek conductor (unusually, in her profession, a woman), Stamatia Karampini conducting the London Philharmonic playing the Overture to Wagner’s epic ode to love, Tristan & Isolde, I think I knew what Simpson meant. No less so when the truly brilliant Norwegian pianist, Sigurd Slattebrekk, played the Grieg Piano Concerto as though he had just discovered the meaning of sound itself.

I have long felt that those who yearn to save our wondrous planet have so much in common with those who truly appreciate and honour great music. Yet their worlds have too seldom collided. Environmental gurus revere Dylan and other popular cultural relics (albeit great ones) of the sixties. Classical music buffs are too concerned with the greatness of Mahler or Mozart to worry themselves about natural beauties like the turquoise mot-mot or the orangutans of the Asian rainforests. How I wish the two groups could combine (Classic FM is after all the most successful commercial radio station in the UK) and pool their common interest in the survival of all beauty on this earth for our common good. My father died, last year, at 92, having divided his life between journalism, political activism, poetry and the theatre. Perhaps a sub-conscious attempt to reconcile his concern for the people of this earth with the wonders they inherit in the arts. He lived long enough to see my passion for the survival of both our natural world and the musical culture that sustains its human habitants. In our day to day corporate lives, I wonder whether we would not all benefit from a little less time on email and a bit more energy devoted to the things, man-made and natural, that surely hold the key to our long term survival. On Friday night, listening to this heavenly sound flow from the orchestra, I would have deleted even the most important work email. Because in the grand scheme of things, it could not possibly have mattered.

 It reminded me always to remember the things that really count, be they sights or sounds.  If you don’t believe me, listen to that Wagner overture before you browse one more web-page today. It’s truly worth saving. It’s hard to believe anyone who heard it would engage in the carefree destruction of the planet that gave it life. Humanity has become the planet’s resident expert in waste. Some things are simply too good to waste, and the music that has survived generations is one of them. It represents natural beauty of a kind that only a nuclear holocaust could extinguish. In that sense, it is stronger than the vulnerable species that stand on the brink in the face of our wanton destruction.

Spent the week in Boston, where we launched Planet 2050 to the US market with Weber Shandwick’s Boston office. We had an excellent backdrop in the form of the annual Ceres Conference, which attracted an impressive 700 delegates from large and small companies, major NGOs and, critically, the investment community. As sponsors of the summit’s awards, we released some new research on Fortune 100 companies. For more on the launch of Planet 2050 in the US, click here. I admit to being surprised at how vast a gathering the Ceres event was, and there is no doubt in my mind that if there ever was a gulf between Europe and the United States in terms of the corporate sustainability agenda, it is fast narrowing. The highlight for me was a truly inspiring panel discussion between Jeffrey Swartz, CEO of Timberland, and Gary Hirshberg, the president of Stoneyfield Farm yoghurt, a sort of Innocent Drinks of North America (albeit older), now six times the size of Kraft’s dairy business. These two New Englanders, in their casual dress, spoke with such authenticity and vision, I wondered whether we would ever hear the CEO of a traditional multinational sound like this. And how funny to see Swartz in his jeans and Red Sox cap, as environmentalists wandered around the conference hall in their suits and ties. I can honestly say I have never enjoyed listening to a business leader as much as Jeff. Ceres has been monumentally successful in building a coalition of advocates from the investment and environmental campaigning worlds - proving once again that commercial profit and environmental stewardship really can be achieved in tandem. The most encouraging thing of all? That the major economic downturn in the US does not seem to be affecting the drive for more sustainable business one iota. I will return to that next week in an article I’m finishing off over the weekend.  Here’s to a sunny bank holiday.