Barcelona's Exponential Day: John Elkington on the next stage in the Sustainability Revolution

26 Jul 2023

Catalan Economy · Tech & Digital Transformation

John Elkington, Founder and Chief Pollinator of Volans and one of the world's leading advocates of the sustainability movement, took part in Barcelona's Exponential Day #5, an event hosted by Catalonia Trade & Investment on innovative and disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

During his speech, Elkington highlighted the importance of both governments and businesses playing their part in addressing the challenges posed by climate change and technology.

“Barcelona is an extraordinary concentration of innovative enterprises”

John Elkington, Founder of Volans

According to John Elkington, AI is the most exciting technology trend at the moment. "I think we cannot deliver a sustainable future without learning how to use AI in the relevant way", he stated. "Most companies that are developing AI at the moment don't think that way, and so we've got to help them change their mindsets", he said.

Elkington sees progress in companies embracing sustainability, but he believes the real challenge is to embrace it at the level of their business models.

Barcelona-Catalonia, a creative and innovative region of the world

In this interview, John Elkington emphasizes that Catalonia is an extremely exciting place to do business in the world. "It's a creative, innovative region of the world", he said, adding that "Barcelona is an extraordinary concentration of innovative enterprises".

Elkington has visited Barcelona several times and one of the thoughts he shared was that "the hub that is developing here for exponential businesses is very unusual in the world". Regarding Barcelona’s Exponential Day #5, for the founder of Volans, these kinds of events are "critical" because they give people "a sense of a movement, a critical mass, and just the possibility" that things can move towards a sustainable future.

Watch John Elkington's full conference on 'Changing Systems: The next stage in the sustainability revolution'.

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