{"id":4079,"date":"2013-06-28T07:59:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T06:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=4079"},"modified":"2013-06-28T07:59:51","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T06:59:51","slug":"but-wheres-the-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/06\/28\/but-wheres-the-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"But where's the theory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a day in the Holy of Holies last week \u2013 the Royal Institution<\/a>. \u00a0 An exhausting whole day, sitting, at least in a ghostly sense, alongside the likes of Davy, Faraday, Dewar, Bragg, Kelvin, \u00a0Jeans, Hoyle, \u00a0Rutherford, ... .<\/p>\n

This was an EllenMacArthur Foundation<\/a> event and its first CE100 Summit<\/a>. \u00a0This<\/em> brought \"together leading global thought leaders, academics, companies and practitioners to provide a global wrap-up of the most current thinking on key circular economy topics<\/em>.\"<\/p>\n

As befitted the venue, there were gurus aplenty: maybe future RI ghosts \u2013 well, perhaps. \u00a0They included:<\/p>\n

Walter Stahel<\/strong>, Founder and Director of Product Life Institute<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em>Michael Braungart<\/strong>, Founder and Scientific Director of EPEA<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em>Janine Benyus<\/strong>, Founder of the Biomimicry Institute; <\/em>and <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em>William McDonough<\/strong> of\u00a0William McDonough Associates<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, Stahel, Braungart <\/em>and McDonough<\/em> were in on the ground floor of the Circular Economy \u2013 at least in a cradle to cradle<\/a><\/em> sense. \u00a0Whilst they were open in their praise of the way the EllenMacArthur Foundation has developed the Circular Economy\u00a0concept, opening the ideas up to the mainstream, working with global brands, engaging McKinsey to quantify economic benefits, successfully nudging the EU's thinking and policy, and gaining global publicity, they could each be forgiven for being just a little bit peeved that so much has been done, by so few, in such little time \u2013 and not<\/em> by them.<\/p>\n

There were lots of speakers during the day, and I came aware better informed about a lot of stuff from psychology to design. \u00a0It was all too much, though, and I confess that I abandoned past and future ghosts and went to sit quietly in Berkeley Square for a while amid the great plane trees and listening for its famed, but phantom, nightingales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The day ended with\u00a0Mrs & Mrs Google<\/em>: Eric and Wendy Schmidt, who were present in the evening when Eric gave the first\u00a0Schmidt-MacArthur Foundation<\/a> public lecture:\u00a0An economy that works \u2013 changing the rules of the game? <\/em>At least that was the published title of the talk, but it didn't seem to be what Eric actually talked about. \u00a0Still; it had<\/em> been a long day, and we did get to hear about where he'd been visiting recently. \u00a0The roundtable discussion after this seemed to repeat much of the day's deliberations.<\/p>\n

In one of my many conversations during the day, someone noted the strong emphasis on practice and practical things in the talks, and said to me: \"But where's the theory?\" \u00a0Well, theory there is, but not on the day (Where was<\/em> Ken Webster when you needed him?). \u00a0But that was rather apt for the Royal Institution<\/em> where James Clerk Maxwell doesn't get much of a mention \u2013 as far as I can see. \u00a0Rather, it's all Faraday the experimenter.<\/p>\n

But where would Faraday be if he'd not had a Maxwell to explain his observations? \u00a0Indeed, where would we all be?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a day in the Holy of Holies last week \u2013 the Royal Institution. \u00a0 An exhausting whole day, sitting, at least in a ghostly sense, alongside the likes of Davy, Faraday, Dewar, Bragg, Kelvin, \u00a0Jeans, Hoyle, \u00a0Rutherford, ......<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}