Ed Gillespie

Ed Gillespie is Creative Director and Co-Founder of Futerra one of the few UK communications consultancies - if not the only one to specialise solely in sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. Established in 2001 to fill a gap in the market the Founders believed that the world must move towards more a more sustainable way of functioning, and could see this would require effective communications between many different groups of people. Yet they found the general quality of communications in sustainability to be poor. People and organisations were struggling to understand the audiences and how to engage them in the right way. So they set out to address the problem. Together our team offers clients a rare combination of professional communications skills and in-depth knowledge of sustainability issues, players and networks. Everyone is personally motivated by a desire to make a difference. That's why Futerra works only with organisations that are making a positive contribution to sustainable development, or have a genuine intention to do so.

In a varied, complementary career Ed has taught in Jamaica for a year, worked for the Survival Natural History Film Unit, as a marine biologist in Australia, New Caledonia and Orkney, and prior to co-founding Futerra in 2001 was environmental manager for London Transport. Ed has Masters degrees in both Marine Conservation and Sustainable Development and has recently returned from a global circumnavigation of the world without flying during which he kept a popular blog www.lowcarbontravel.com and wrote a regular column, 'The Slow Traveller' for the Observer newspaper. A provocative communicator and public speaker on all things sustainable Ed is a Member of the International Visual Communication Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Director of AntiApathy the campaigning and social experiment organization, and sits on the Steering Group of the RSA's 'Personal Carbon' programme. He is a passionate and persuasive advocate for positive change in all aspects of our lives and sectors of society.