Nigerian activist Seun Kuti spoke recently about the need for ‘government to serve us’, rather than ‘us to serve government’. His challenge to President Goodluck Jonathan serves as a perfect aphorism for the global landscape surrounding government, as evidenced by the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos. More...
Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chair of WEF wrote recently about this year’s Davos theme of ‘Shaping new models for structural transformation of the global economy’. We could certainly do with some new models. So what can we learn about these new models from this year’s Edelman Trust Barometer which Richard Edelman will be presenting in...
Monday 23 January sees the launch of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer – with its core message that trust in government has fallen dramatically worldwide, and that business now has the opportunity to shift from protecting its License to Operate to properly earning its License to Lead. There is a global sense of citizens rising...
Have we lost our way in only focusing on the ‘means’ and not the ‘ends’ of a true definition of Sustainable Development? As we enter 2012 and the run-up to Rio+20, what can we learn from looking back to 1987? Sustainable Development’s blueprint – needs and means. As we emerge from our collective failures of...
Blog post also available on The Guardian Sustainable Business Blog. A recent series of blogs on this site discussed the idea that the UK might finally be starting to decouple growth from environmental destruction. Whilst this looks unlikely, my concern is that the debate is in any case missing half the story. By focusing on...
I have spent the past twenty four hours in a luxurious retreat in the hillsides surrounding Lisbon, listening to the great and good of the global PR industry consider ‘the future’ and what it all really means. Peter Gummer/ Lord Chadlington (for they are one in the same) sparked, for me at least, a frisson...
Blog post also available on the HBR Blog Network. A new vision of what it means to be prosperous and to flourish as individuals and societies is taking hold in parts of the business world. It’s inspired by the coming together of disparate disciplines including positive psychology, welfare economics, hedonomics, neuroscience, and marketing, For a...
There was an interesting follow up last week to the UN’s research showing that UK children have the lowest levels of wellbeing in the EU. The update suggests that these low levels of wellbeing are due to unusually high materialism levels. As one of the recommendations from UNICEF was a ban on advertising to children,...
We’ve seen mixed reviews for the recent (ONS) announcements on options for a national wellbeing index to run alongside GDP. In support for these revolutionary new measures of progress we have an unlikely series of bedfellows, including the prime minister; progressive business leaders like Ian Cheshire and Ian Marchant CEOs of B&Q Kingfisher and SSE;...
