When John Elkington founded SustainAbility 20 years ago, the world was different. People hadn’t started worrying about their carbon footprint or whether they were eating fairtrade food, and shareholders wanted only one thing from businesses — profit. Even the word “sustainability” did not feature in most vocabularies: “We spent the first few years spelling it,” says John.

SustainAbility is part think-tank and part management consultancy, advising companies including BT, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Ford, Microsoft, Nike, Shell, Starbucks and Wal-Mart on how to do things differently. In 1998 it coined the phrase “triple bottom line”, which means that companies have to factor social and environmental responsibility into their business plans as well as financial turnover.

Always ahead of the curve, John, who first wrote about climate change in 1978 (“people didn’t like what I said”), co-launched Sustain- Ability as an environmental initiative: “But we soon opened our agenda to include human rights, and there has been mutation since. We are now talking about a seismic shift in the way that our economies work.”

Convincing companies of the need to change was an uphill task at first. Now, John says, most of them grasp the need to show a type of global citizenship that was once unheard of: “We offer a form of consultancy that is not always easy for businesses. It’s about constructive discomfort and it’s extremely challenging. We’re troublemakers.

“We are mission-driven, with a very clear agenda, and we won’t work with some companies. For example, we didn’t work with one major oil company for two years because we felt that it didn’t understanding what people were trying to say to it. Things changed when it appointed a vice-president for sustainable environment.”

SustainAbility is a for-profit company whose proceeds are shared among its 30 staff in London, Zurich and Washington. “We don’t want to grow our organisation but we do want to grow our influence,” says John, whose job title is chief entrepreneur.

He travels widely and does a lot of writing. In the office he spends most of his time “having conversations” — as his executive assistant, Sam Lakha, soon found out.

“When I applied for the job I didn’t know anything about SustainAbility or what it did, but I was interested in finding out more about environmental and social entrepreneurship,” she says. “At the interview, John and I sat down on a sofa and we didn’t stop talking for two hours. It was a strange conversation in which we managed both to depress and elevate each other. It was clear that we saw all the wrongs in the world in the same light, but it was — and still is — a steep learning curve.”

John recalls: “Sam got the job because of her emotional intelligence. There is a close bond between us. It is not all joy; there are crunch points and friction. What we do is very uncomfortable and I am at my best when working on things that I don’t completely understand.”

Sam was born in Kenya to Indian parents, and came to the UK with her family when her parents decided to emigrate. After doing a degree in psychology, she worked at the Equal Opportunities Commission before going to SustainAbility, where she represents one of 14 nationalities in the office. She is pleased that she made the move: “It is fun, interesting and challenging. A lot of my time is spent chasing around after John. He starts his conversations but it’s up to me to keep things moving. He’s a starter, not a finisher.

“We’re a small team, always stretched but highly motivated — the whole SustainAbility agenda is on everyone’s lips.” There is a sense of urgency, John says: “I believe that in two or three years’ time there will be a major financial meltdown, possibly on a global scale.

“That could mean a squeeze on corporate responsibility as companies rein in their budgets. But I hope not. Corporate responsibility cannot be seen as a peripheral activity. We have to ask ourselves how we can live in a world where there are pandemics, increasing terrorism and so many people in abject poverty.”

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