Simon Zadek

Key takeaways

Simon Zadek belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Simon Zadek to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Simon Zadek from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Simon Zadek (born 16 July 1957) is a writer and advisor, focused on business and sustainability. He is the co-Founder and Managing Partner of Morphosis, an adaptation investment business. He was Founding CEO of NatureFinance, a non-profit organization aiming to align global finance with nature positive outcomes.

Background Zadek grew up in London, later attending Bristol University (BSc Economics, 1979), he also has a PhD in Economics from Brunel University (An economics of Utopia: the democratisation of scarcity, 1992). He reports that the dissertation topic was rejected by potential supervisors at the University of Oxford and LSE, before he enrolled at Brunel. Most recently he has lived in China and Geneva.

Career Zadek has held a number of positions broadly concerned with supporting alternative economic development and sustainable business activity. Together with Julie McCarthy he currently serves as Co-CEO of NatureFinance. Before, he was Co-Director of the UNEP Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, which started in 2014 in Geneva. From 1979 to 1981 he was an economic planner for the Government of St Lucia, followed by a period of consulting with Coopers and Lybrand. In 1992 he joined the New Economics Foundation, becoming its Development Director and leading its work on corporate social responsibility. He helped to found AccountAbility in 1995, acting as its CEO from 2002 to 2009, and was Founding Chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative. Positions in academic institutions have included:

Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School Honorary Professor at the University of South Africa Senior Fellow at the Centre for Government and Business of Harvard University's Kennedy School (until 2011) Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in Beijing Visiting Professor, DSM Senior Fellow in Partnership and Sustainability, Singapore Management University (2018) He is also been an advisor to several green and business initiatives, including the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), the World Economic Forum, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

Contributions Zadek's early interests were in alternative, utopian, and Buddhist economics. But he became interested in the corporate social responsibility movement and particularity the development of social auditing techniques, when working at the New Economics Foundation (1992–1999) and then as founder and CEO of AccountAbility (1995–2009). Latterly he has worked on promoting green and responsible financial policies across the banking, insurance and investment sectors. He has developed environmental and social risk policies for banks and corporate clients, and argues insurers need to report their exposure to climate risks and their strategies for resilience.

Recognition In 2003 he was named as one of the World Economic Forum's 'Global Leaders of Tomorrow'. Zadek's book, The Civil Corporation: the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship (2001/2007) received the Academy of Management's Best Book Social Issues Award in 2006 and has been called one of the most influential books on sustainability, by the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership.

Writings

Books Simon Zadek. 2015. Eco-China Inc. Routledge, London. ISBN 1783531347 Simon Zadek. 2001/2007. The Civil Corporation: the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship, Earthscan, London (2001, Second edition 2007) Simon Zadek, Peter Raynard. 2006. Tomorrow’s History: Selected Writings of Simon Zadek: 1994-2003. Earthscan, London (2006). ISBN 978-1874719854. ch 1 (With Niels Højensgård and Peter Raynard (editors), Perspectives on the New Economy of Corporate Citizenship, The Copenhagen Centre, Copenhagen (2000) (With Jutta Blauert (editors)) Mediating Sustainability from the Grassroots, Kumarian, Hartford CT (1998) (With Peter Pruzan and Richard Evans (editors)) Building Corporate Accountability: Emerging Practices in Social and Ethical Accounting and Auditing. Earthscan, London (1997) Thake, Stephen and Simon Zadek (1997) Practical People, Noble Causes: How to Support Community Social Entrepreneurs, New Economics Foundation, London An Economics of Utopia: the Democratisation of Scarcity. Avebury, Aldershot (1992)

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Simon Zadek

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Simon Zadek claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Simon Zadek before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Simon Zadek ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Simon Zadek

In research: Simon Zadek appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Simon Zadek in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Simon Zadek is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1957 births, British male writers, Economics writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Simon Zadek outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Simon Zadek in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Simon Zadek means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Simon Zadek out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Simon Zadek in simple terms?

Simon Zadek (born 16 July 1957) is a writer and advisor, focused on business and sustainability. He is the co-Founder and Managing Partner of Morphosis, an adaptation investment business.

Why does Simon Zadek matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Simon Zadek?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Simon Zadek.