may day may day may day

Hi all. I’m signing off this blog for a while – too much to do, but I am continuing to use the lazier option of Twitter – please follow me on @bmay if you like!

Feeling virtuous having finally done first draft of my public lecture at Gresham College for November 4th, details here if you’re in London that evening

Yesterday I chaired the launch of Weber Shandwick’s new cleantech report, ‘Come Clean’ – exploring the opportunities for and barriers to the growth of clean technology in the European market. You can download the report here and also listen to the supporting podcast from European Technology Practice Chair, Michelle McGlocklin.
Our client lunch speakers included Charles Secrett, former head of Friends of the Earth UK, and Eric Auchard, technology correspondent for Reuters. Good discussion, great guests.

Earlier this year I was interviewed by a very nice Swedish production team for a new film and web project they’ve created called ‘Beyond the Line’. It’s targeted at businesses grappling with embedding true sustainability and the production house, Serious Nature, has done a great job on it. You can learn all about the project here including a trailer for the film. I hope it helps thousands of companies who are still in transition as part of their sustainability journey and I’m sure it will be of use to any CR exec wanting to learn from some of the most innovative businesses in the world.

The momentous news of a deal between Kimberly Clark and Greenpeace on sustainable forestry is one of the biggest responsible business moments of 2009. It demonstrates that there is never a deadlock so big that it can’t, with serious effort on both sides, be broken for the good of the planet. Both the company and the campaigners who had long attacked it had to shift positions quite significantly to end up fronting a joint press conference together in Washington D.C yesterday. And this great little You Tube clip shows how Greenpeace will mobilise all the people who joined its ‘Kleercut’ campaign over the years, to move with them in thanking Kimberly for making the commitments on the Boreal Forest, FSC certification and recycled fibre it has now announced. Wonderful news for forests, of course. And very bad news for the many paper and pulp companies that are years behind Kimberly Clark. To all the businesses who say reaching an accommodation with campaigners who invade your offices and plants is impossible, I say: rubbish. The significance of this extends well beyond forestry – it should remind all companies who think that doing deals with the likes of Greenpeace is a step too far that this deal proves quite the opposite. As someone who spends most of his time mediating on issues like this, these moments of true progress are the best reason to get out of bed in the morning – and make all the pain and setbacks along the way well worth it!

Please see here for the latest thinking from senior Weber Shandwick colleagues. Issues covered include doing business in Asia by my great friend Ian Rumsby, and the role of broadcast by the equally nice Nick Rabin.

To the premiere of Charles Clover’s brilliant film The End of the Line last night at the IMAX cinema at the Science Museum. Sponsored by Waitrose, a leader on seafood sustainability by any standard, boosted by my friends at Greenpeace UK, and graced by the superb @stephenfry, it was a perfect green evening. The film opens across the UK next week and is a MUST see for anyone who cares about the planet’s future. Wonderful imagery, scary science, disgraceful practices exposed (notably in NOBU restaurant) and best of all, solutions offered at the end – something many doom mongers forget to do. Have seldom seen @stephenfry twitter so enthusiastically about something like this, and judging by the reaction of the audience, this could be the biggest green film since An Inconvenient Truth. Delighted for Charles all those years after we collaborated on the book project that has now become this wonderful movie. Please see it if you can.

Here is my latest piece for ClimateChange Corp.com, jointly written with my colleague James Warren, in which we explore the non negotiable role of digital communications in any green marketing strategy.

Penned some thoughts on this for climatechangecorp.com, which you can read here

After the article I wrote with Tony Juniper on NGO tactics in undermining multi-stakeholder initiatives, Tony and I were invited in for a podcast to discuss this in a bit more detail. You can hear our musings here.