The idea for Bending the Curve was conceived by Robert Zipplies one day while hiking down Table Mountain. He had spent too many years reading about the doom gloom and he felt it was time that we map out what different sectors of society can do to tackle climate change and our many other environmental issues. He recruited a committed team of experts and Bending the Curve was born over a two-year period, with the first print-run published in January 2009.

More about Robert Corporate Work Across the world, and increasingly in South Africa too, visionary leaders are transforming their businesses, driven by evolving employee, consumer and shareholder expectations, changing environmental needs and legislation, and a competitive landscape that demands a new way of thinking and acting. Mega-corporations such as Walmart (biggest corporation) and GE (most admired corporation) are investing heavily in sustainability and in changing the way they lead and manage their businesses and supply chains.

Robert engages with senior business leaders wishing to deepen their environmental and social commitment and has assisted clients:

• Explore the growing imperative for sustainability.
• Appreciate and develop the business case for sustainability.
• Understand and apply stakeholder engagement methods, and identify material issues, develop sustainability visions, value statements and strategies, and set targets for key indicators.
• Plan and realise implemention processes.
• Identify key hindrances and enablers in implementing sustainability practices. Without appropriate culture change and transformation processes in place, sustainability initiatives remain little more than tick-box exercises. In this regard Robert has had great success in working together with Polish Consulting.
• Review case studies and key learnings from global organisations such as Walmart. Walmart’s green journey offers a fascinating in-depth case study.

Robert has also assisted corporate clients with various sustainability submissions, including the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the JSE SRI (Socially Responsible Index) and the Carbon Disclosure Project, and he has authored a number of corporate sustainability reports.

Speaking engagements

Robert is an annual guest-lecturer at the Bidvest Management Academy and regularly gives talks on climate change and other sustainability-related topics elsewhere. Recent talks have included: UCT’s Graduate School of Business lunchtime talks, SALA (South African Luxury Goods Association), National Funeral Directors Association conference, Cape Storm’s presentation evenings, Freewheeling festival and Santam’s Eco-centric Journey conference. During November 2009 he gave public presentations in eight cities during the 2009 Climate Challenge, when he cycled across South Africa on an electric bicycle to raise awareness about climate change – Read more and watch the video.

Writing

Robert periodically publishes articles and opinion pieces in the popular media and has been published in the Business Day, Africa Geographic, Bid Voice (Bidvest’s employee magazine), Personal Finance and MindShift.

More background (if you haven’t yet tired)

Robert began his career as an engineer working in the bowls of the then Iron & Steel Corporation of South Africa before trading his hard hat for a suit as management consultant for Deloitte & Touche. Following a ‘get-me-out-of-energineering’ MBA in the Netherlands and the USA, he worked as Sales Director for DigiCash BV, a then up-and-coming Internet start-up in Amsterdam. Back home in South Africa he co-founded Catalyst Innovations, which provided venture capital and business guidance for life science start-ups. However, a deep and growing disquiet about our worsening environmental and social issues, and an ongoing question of how best to contribute, led him to take up sustainability consulting, where he worked with Incite Sustainability for three years, before leaving to write and edit Bending the Curve and consult independently. Robert has been made an Indalo Yethu (South Africa’s Environmental Campaign) Eco-ambassador for his environmental work and he is also a board member of the climate change NGO, Project 90 by 2030. He has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (University of Cape Town), an MSc in Industrial Engineering (University of the Witwatersrand) and an MBA (Rotterdam School of Management, Netherlands).

Robert is a passionate outdoorsman, and in his spare time he can often be found hiking and rock climbing in the beautiful mountains around Cape Town. He has scaled a number of high peaks around the world (this activity has now sadly been curtailed considerably because of the taboos around frivolous travelling). He practices yoga semi-regularly, is a sporadic meditator and is an enthusiastic reader. He speaks fluent German, good Afrikaans and reasonable Dutch.

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