Design Council / Essex County Council — Place-Based Climate Action

Essex County Council was developing a Youth Climate Ambassador Network, but early research suggested climate action was not a strong priority for many students.

Rather than starting with climate messaging, I designed and demonstrated a participatory research method that council officers could use with young people aged 15–18 and their teachers to explore what a positive future for Essex meant to them.

Through futures exercises, storytelling and systems thinking, participants developed ten youth-led themes for climate action and voted on their five priorities.

Outcome: A youth-led foundation for future outreach and communications, shifting the starting point from promoting climate action to understanding what mattered to young people and where climate action fitted within their priorities.

Design Council / London Borough of Hounslow — Place-Based Climate Action

Hounslow's Net Zero team wanted to foster a climate-positive community. An early idea was a parklet focused on air quality, transport and access to green space, but initial conversations brought to light the social and economic conditions shaping everyday life in the neighbourhood.

I supported the team to explore the idea through design research and systems thinking, combining a ward walk with desk research and stakeholder perspectives to understand local assets, barriers and everyday routines.

This brought a more nuanced picture of the neighbourhood into view, including underused green space, low incomes, extensive working hours and high levels of crime. These findings highlighted how local conditions shaped people's opportunities to participate in community life.

Outcome: The focus shifted from developing a predetermined intervention to exploring how the foundations for community participation could be co-developed in ways that also supported climate action.

World Health Organization — Health Communication

WHO programme leaders asked me to explore whether existing graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging might be missing something, following concerns that audiences were becoming desensitised to established health-impact messaging.

I approached the question through behavioural science, using Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values to examine 574 graphic health warnings from more than 37 countries and identify opportunities for more culturally relevant tobacco-control communication.

Outcome: The research generated new narratives for programme leaders to explore with country-level practitioners, both within and beyond public health. Initial findings were published in the 10th WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic (page 19).

University of Bath / Bath & North East Somerset Council — Local Economic Development

The Living Well Now and in 2050 project explored the potential adoption of Doughnut Economics as a regional economic development strategy. Participants shared an interest in the framework, but brought different levels of knowledge, professional interests and perspectives.

I designed a programme of learning and engagement to help participants build their understanding of Doughnut Economics and explore its relevance across different contexts. This included a nine-week readalong, 24 interdisciplinary workshops, a public lecture, an online knowledge-sharing group and an urban photo walk.

Outcome: The work identified practical conditions that supported cross-sector dialogue locally: informal and preparatory spaces, creative framing, sustained relationship-building, and ways of connecting evidence, lived experience and policy goals.

Lumsden Design — Place-Based Design

Lumsden Design is an international museum, heritage and destination retail design practice, working in contexts shaped by local identity, cultural meaning and social value.

As expectations around social and environmental impact grew, the practice had an opportunity to explore how its existing connections to place could inform a broader approach to sustainability. However, the team had mostly encountered sustainability through a reductive 'eco' lens, obscuring the potential social and environmental impact of its work.

I designed and facilitated an interactive exercise to map the team's existing knowledge and experience, building a shared understanding of sustainability grounded in the internationally recognised definition of sustainable development. We then explored what was already present in the practice, what was missing and where new opportunities might lie.

Outcome: The team recognised that sustainability was much closer to its existing strengths and interests than it had expected. What had initially felt like a constraint became a creative opportunity, with specific areas to research and develop to strengthen the practice's work and its communication with clients.