I think it is the leadership challenge of our generation and of the sustainability industry, if I can call it that, to just help people see what's going on, make the connections and then as fast as we can, get multiple solutions [going] at the same time," he said. "[It’s] immensely exciting, but off the scale challenging." Staying positive Are others encouraged and rewarded for contributing enhancements, which then become available to everyone?

If no adequate solution can be found here, the Eurosystem would have to adopt alternative measures ... for example by limiting the maturities or the amount of corporate bonds of certain sectors and issuers in the Eurosystem’s monetary policy portfolio,” he said.

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To further prove his point, Elkington said that whereas he would define the electric vehicle, smart grid and battery technology sectors as green swan trajectories, he wouldn’t label Tesla or others working in that space as green swans.

As we dug deeper, however, it became clear that almost all business effort in pursuit of sustainability to date had focused on the Responsibility agenda. Typical platforms in this area have acronyms like GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), IIRC (International Integrated Reporting Council), SASB (Sustainability Assounting Standards Board) and WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development). And key activities have focused on voluntary standards encouraging greater transparency and accountability, stakeholder engagement, supply chain management and investor engagement. Despite the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, those two words were at the center of last week’s GreenBiz webcast, which featured an interview between GreenBiz Executive Editor Joel Makower and John Elkington, who in addition to being executive chairman and co-founder of Volans Ventures is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable capitalism. Aware that this might sound like a daunting role to take on at first, a promising open-source movement that the author encourages all firms to look into is the work of the Future-Fit Foundation (who Nordic Sustainability are also proud accredited partners of). The Foundation holds a real promise when it comes to the area of system change, and Elkington sees that it even has the potential to evolve into a global operating system for business, markets, and perhaps even cities and governments. This is also reflected in the work programmes of multiple international organisations. Under the Italian Presidency, the G20 has made climate action a key priority and an integral part of the recovery from the pandemic. More specifically, it has re-established the Sustainable Finance Study Group and upgraded it to a working group expected to report before the end of the year on any major gaps or barriers to mobilising sustainable finance. In parallel, the Financial Stability Board is working on ways to promote consistent, high-quality climate disclosures in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. It is also continuing to work on data requirements and gaps that are crucial for assessing the financial stability risks posed by climate change. The FSB will report to the G20 on both issues in July. In the meantime, the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation is moving ahead with a proposal to set up an international sustainability standards board to deliver the first consistent, single set of global norms for climate-related company disclosures. The Foundation’s proposals have received widespread support from, among others, the International Organization of Securities Commissions. At the same time, it is essential that the IFRS work does not fall short of current investors’ need and international best practices. In that context, the Foundation’s work can take inspiration from and should leave sufficient room for the European Commission’s proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The Commission’s proposal includes transposition of the Directive into national law by EU Member States by December 2022 to ensure it is applicable for the fiscal year beginning 1 January 2023.James Cameron, Chairman of the Overseas Development Institute, Founder of Climate Change Capital, and a former member of the UK Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Board.

Although he admitted that it’s impossible to withdraw a management concept, Elkington said that his provocation simply was meant to challenge how people had embraced the triple bottom line and to question whether the concept was achieving what it originally was designed and intended to do. The best leaders are willing to give up what is no longer working and commit to what is needed to succeed in a new, completely changed operating environment. When John Elkington issued a 'product recall' for his groundbreaking concept of the 'triple bottom line,' it was because he is that type of leader. If you want to be a leader that meets the demands of the 21st century, read Green Swans, and then become one." To speed up the journey towards this upgraded, regenerative form of capitalism, we need to embrace uncertainty, and dare to experiment with new economic and political models. In Elkington’s words, “we must move well beyond the development of new frameworks and tools, and towards new thinking, and critically, toward new operating systems for our economies.” Furthermore, he advises to use the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as a North Star to guide the way forward.In a Harvard Business Review article in June 2018, John Elkington announced the world’s first product recall of a management concept — the Triple Bottom Line — which he had introduced 25 years earlier. Reactions were decidedly mixed, ranging from “good riddance!” to “how could you?!”I’m paraphrasing, but not a lot. I found the reactions intriguing, perhaps in part because the recall didn’t come as much of a surprise to me. FSIs need a better path forward, one that makes it easier to gather the data needed to build new frameworks while still meeting current regulatory expectations and requirements. Unfortunately, many financial institutions remain beholden to legacy platforms that weigh them down with unproductive tasks, such as manually compiling information from disparate sources and systems. In essence, it is the ‘system value’ model that will best enable green swan dynamics. Hence, moving towards such a model must be a priority for businesses, if they are to be part of leading the change.

That work reached an important stage last week, with the publication of John’s twentieth book, Green Swans: The Coming Boom In Regenerative Capitalism. In it John sets out a compelling vision for our economy to become truly responsible, resilient and regenerative. Our team is thrilled that the Future-Fit Business Benchmark features prominently, with John stating that it “has the potential to evolve into a global operating system for business, markets, and, eventually, cities and governments.” But before we get carried away, the operative word here is “potential”. Yes, Future-Fit offers a clear destination to aim for, and a way to guide progress toward it, but it will only have any real impact on the world if it is adopted at speed and scale. Early adopters know the Benchmark works, but now we need to make that adoption exponential — among companies, investors, advisors and policy makers — and that’s why for me the idea of the Green Swan is so compelling. Enter the Green SwanWe’ve removed a lot of the redundancies that would have given us the ability to ride out fundamental weaknesses in the way that we put together our economies and operate them," he said. "And if that's true of a pandemic, my God, it's even more true of the climate emergency that is pressing down on us increasingly and in so many different ways." All his life, John has been a pioneer in the environment movement and in his acute understanding of how capitalism has a central part to play in it. His insights have always been ahead of the curve and phrases of his coinage are the currency of our age—the Triple Bottom Line being just one of them. This book captures the passion of a man at the peak of his powers, drawing together a lifetime of observations into a manifesto for muscular humanism and capitalism with conscience. What shines through it all is a belief that now the time is at hand for proving that the future remains ours to make. No hollow intellectualism, just unfettered urging that we should bring out the best in ourselves. . . now. A hugely important book.” John Elkington's 'Green Swans' engaged me with its careful and informed studies and reports about the sustainable future that is possible. I have known of John and his work - e.g. the Triple Bottom Line - for 15 years or so, though I hadn't been fully aware of the breadth and depth of his sphere of influence. A Green Swan delivers exponential progress in the form of economic, social, and environmental wealth creation. At worst, it achieves this outcome in two dimensions while holding the third steady. There may be a period of adjustment where one or more dimensions underperform, but the aim is an integrated breakthrough in all three dimensions.