Albion is for being entrepreneurial. That doesn’t mean we only work with entrepreneurs, but it does mean that we try to be entrepreneurial in the way we work, and we like working with people who are
entrepreneurial. So we wanted to do something to celebrate and further entrepreneurial ‘doing’.
The Albion Society will be a regular forum for entrepreneurial people to share their vision, and debate it enthusiastically with like-minded people. Not for its own sake, but with the aim of actually doing something.
We had the inaugural meeting of The Albion Society on Tuesday evening, Gavin Neath bravely volunteered to be the first to step up and lead the debate. Gavin used to be the chairman of Unilever UK, and is now leading their global environmental strategy.
Gavin talked about whether big corporations are part of the climate-change problem or part of the solution. A lively debate then ensued, with guests like Richard Reed, Simon Darling, Harriet Brand and Scott Gallagher adding informed and passionate views.
We thought our penetrating challenges would catch Gavin off-guard and force him to ‘fess up about Unilever’s dark side. Or at least discover some gossip about his time working with Al Gore. But it didn’t turn out quite like that.
Gavin openly admitted that no-one has all the answers for the huge challenges facing the planet, but at least Unilever is giving it a go on a number of fronts. His big news was about PG Tips is going 100% sustainable.
We ended up in broad agreement that, whatever companies do, the only real solution is to find a way to get individuals to change their unsustainable behaviour. And that consuming our way out of the problem is unlikely to work – we need to do less of things.
In the spirit of doing-not-just-talking, Richard proposed that we could all start that change by switching to the only true green energy supplier, Good Energy – which will instantly reduce our personal carbon footprints by a third.
More than that, we decided to subsidise everybody at Albion for the £50 per year this will add to their energy bill. And more than even that, we’re going to get dastardly with Facebook to try and get hundreds or even thousands of people to make the switch too.
If you fancy coming along to the next meeting of The Albion Society, drop us a line.