There are two distinct narratives on how and why we started SustainAbility in 1987. The first is that we knew what we were doing, the second that we didn’t. And neither is quite right.

Julia Hailes had joined me at a pioneering social enterprise, Earthlife, to work on two projects: Green Pages and The Green Consumer Guide. I had raised funding for the first, but then discovered two things: first that there was a financial black hole at the core of the Earthlife Foundation and, second, that the money I had raised had been swallowed by that black hole. Looking back at the period, I think Earthlife was one of the crucial inflection points in my life — and, like a neutron star, it projected new thinking and talent out through a wider universe. SustainAbility emerged phoenix-like from that period….

I don’t know about you, but the closest I ever got to a Rubik’s Cube, shortly after it was first launched in 1974, was to handle one in a toy store. For me, it seemed insoluble – and many assumed it was, until persistent cubers discovered not just one way to crack the puzzle, but many. And the cube came to mind as I thought recently about the astonishingly complex global security challenge we now face…

How do you sum up someone who has played the role of an affectionate, wise, provocative and sometimes disconcerting guardian angel?

Disconcerting first.

Many years ago, in 1996, I asked Geoffrey to become a founding member of the SustainAbility Council, a role he would play with typical zest and fascination for many years. But his eagle eye picked out the one flaw in perhaps a hundred terms and names that we had had painted around the tops of the office walls.

I had asked every team members to name ten things that they thought summed up SustainAbility—and someone had come up with the giant redwood, which they had rendered as Sequoia gigantea, which he insisted should be giganteum. Having checked Wikipedia, it also looks as if he might have been saying Sequoiadendron giganteum.

John Elkington and Alex Hammer on how social media technology is leveling the playing field in stakeholder engagement.

John Elkington talks to Bill McKibben, the man behind 350.org, the global campaign on climate change.

A conversation between John Elkington and Jean-Philippe Renaut, leader SustainAbility’s Engaging Stakeholders Program.

John Elkington and Alex Hammer explore the implications and likely future of social media in driving new forms of corpor

A look at Coca-Cola's new stakes in Innocent Drinks

Key parts of car industries have often displayed thinking and behaviours that speak of denial of any need to adapt.

Is the CSR director's role redundant in times of crisis?

Weather, exchange rates, commodity prices and the potential for new economic paradigms.

Today's business students set tomorrow's ground rules.

China now faces a disorienting triple crunch, and its responses will powerfully shape our world 15 years hence.

Water shortage is no longer a virtual problem.

A link between the credit crisis and Chinese toxic milk potentially affects us all.

The US must reinvent.

The unsung heroes of globalisation are those working to help suppliers act effectively and sustainably.

Democracy and sustainability are twin agendas - but U.S. politics must be turned inside out to achieve Al Gore's vision

John Elkington, SustainAbility founder and Chief Entrepreneur, blogs from the World Economic Forum.

John Elkington, SustainAbility founder and Chief Entrepreneur, blogs from the World Economic Forum