LONDON — John Elkington has been described as the “godfather of sustainability,” having made a career of advocating for businesses to take as much care of people and planet as they do profit margins.
His new book, “Green Swans,” is a more optimistic take on the disastrous “black swan” — unpredictable events, such as the 2008 financial crash, that have severe consequences — described by scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb in 2007.
Development campaigners frequently refer to the billions to trillions of dollars needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and the need to engage the private sector to do this.