John Elkington

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements. 

While he resists being labelled, John is a writer, thought-leader and business strategist, a serial entrepreneur and, at heart, an environmentalist. He has worked with scores of large corporations, particularly at board and C-suite level, as well as with the financial community, industry bodies, government, the media, NGOs, academia, innovators and entrepreneurs. His favourite description of his role: “grit in the corporate oyster.” As a provocative friend both of the future and of business, his aim is to help identify and create new forms of value.

John is the author or co-author of 19 books, and has written chapters or forewords for many others. He has contributed to an A-to-Z of newspapers and magazines, and is currently a columnist for such publications as Eco-Business (Singapore), Monday Morning (Denmark), Semana (Colombia), and also has his own GreenBiz (USA) feature – The Elkington Report. He co-chairs the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Breakthrough Innovation Advisory Council, chairs the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Technology Consortium, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Commission on Business & Sustainable Development (GCBSD). He is a member of the Board of the Social Stock Exchange (SSX), and chairs its Admissions Panel. He is also a member of the Boards of organizations like the Biomimicry Institute and The Ecological Sequestration Trust (TEST), and a member of Advisory Boards for organizations like 2degrees Network, Aviva, The B Team, Nestlé, Tesco and Zouk Capital.