THE BACK PAGE
Notes from Selsdon
T
he thumbs were still
burning on the hands of
last month’s Sustainable
Business producers after an
exhausting deadline week as I
boarded an easyJet flight to
Dublin to attend resource and
recover (the lower-case ‘r’s are
all part of the brand, you
see), Ireland’s answer to
Sustainabilitylive!. (No matter
how many times the pilot says it’s
okay to “use your mobile phone
on board this easyJet flight”, I’m
still very uneasy about it. What if
receiving a text message from wife
telling me to “have a safe flight”
sends the plane into an ironic
nosedive?)
Anyway, this magazine took
on the job of media-partnering
the exhibition’s climate change
seminar theatre and its editor
(that’s me) chaired proceedings.
(‘Theatre’ is probably too gener-
ous a description; it was more like
an enclosure with a screen, pro-
jector and microphoned lecturn.)
Sick of all this budget stuff
now...so boring.
It was the first time the event has
Bring on Copenhagen!!!
hosted such an enclosure. And, if
the excitement and busyness was
6 hours ago from web
anything to go by, it will no
doubt be repeated in 2010. Some it was fun. The post-debates
great presentations were soaked awards bash was good too (espe-
Twitter-me-not
up by the real thirst for knowl- C
orporateRegister.com
ought to be applauded
this month for shaking cially the hula hoop girl).
edge among the throng of inter- things up and injecting some Following the unlikely
ested delegates. innovation into the conference
It was the first time I’d done space. There I was, expecting
anything like this outside the UK, another run-of-the-mill event on S
imon Cowell gets away with musings of those engaged
murder on Britain’s Got in spreading the sustainability
Talent. He just sits there, message via the social
and what struck me was the sustainability reporting, only to and if he doesn’t like what he sees, networking phenomenon.
enthusiasm buzzing through the be met by a full day of wonderful drones: “That was distinctly aver- This month: Ed Miliband
room. Compared with some of debates at the Royal Institution. age.” Seventy-one entries later,
the seminar sessions taking place Will CR reporting decline in I’ve just finished reading through
in London right now, the pro- importance during the recession? the entries for this year’s environ-
gramme was simplistic. It offered Are CR reports effectively engag- mental manager of the year, envi-
an easy-to-digest overview of ing the investment community ? ronmental leadership for cultural
things like energy management Must CR reporting be mandated change, innovation for environ-
and carbon trading. But offerings to effect real change? Of course, mental technology, and environ-
from the likes of Andy Wood at we got no affirmative answers mental product or service awards.
Adnams fed some interesting one way or the other and I wasn’t And it has been tough, not
Q&A sessions, and I left feeling expecting any. least because the entrants are so
satisfied that those attending got With so many events for those good. I can’t give too much away
something out of it. engaged in the sustainability (the trophies are to be presented
It also whetted my appetite at agenda, there is a real danger that at Sustainabilitylive!) but I
the prospect of doing it all this constant discussion overshadows finished the judging process NEXT MONTH
month – on a much grander stage any real action. The CR Debates buoyed by the fact that this space The next issue of Sustainable
– at Sustainable Business – The event was another drop in the is brimming with innovation and Business will hit your desks
Event. pool of talking shops, but at least good people. on Thursday 28 May
Sustainable Business ❘ May 2009 35
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