David Key, Director

BA (Hons.), MSc Human Ecology, FCHE

An accomplished strategist and group facilitator with over ten years of diverse and international experience, Dave’s work has a reputation for challenging the deeply-seated cultural and personal ‘assumptions’ that hold many of us in unsustainable, inequitable and unhealthy lifestyles. Starting from the client’s perspective and not a predefined agenda, he brings creative, realistic and practical solutions to the considerable challenges of sustainability through a gentle, accessible and effective style.

Raised in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District, Dave started his career as a marketing consultant in London. Luckily, in 1994, he ‘escaped’ to a career in outdoor education and management training in New Zealand. Close call.

After winning a bursary, he came back to the UK in 1998 to attend a course at Schumacher College with the late Arne Naess before returning to New Zealand to train outdoor leaders in eco-education at the National Outdoor Training Centre ("OPC") and Outward Bound NZ.

In 2000 he moved to Scotland and graduated from the Centre for Human Ecology (CHE) (www.che.ac.uk) in Edinburgh in 2003 with an MSc. (with distinction) in Human Ecology. He founded Footprint Consulting a month after graduating to apply what he had learned.

Dave is now a Teaching Fellow of the CHE, where he co-leads the post-graduate course in Ecopsychology at the University of Strathclyde. He also co-leads an outdoor-based continuing professional development (CPD) programme in Ecotherapy, which explores ways of working with personal and cultural psychology to encourage sustainable living. In both cases he works alongside Jungian Psychoanalyst, Mary-Jayne Rust.

His special interest is in the transformative power of wild places to shift people towards sustainable lifestyles, and he has worked internationally and published numerous articles on this subject. His most recent work is The Natural Change Project (www.naturalchange.org.uk) with WWF-Scotland.

Dave's been a rock climber since he was 11 years old, although has now semi-retired to easy climbs with good views! He's a passionate telemark skier and love's running wild rapids in his Canadian Canoe. He's also a keen sailor, cook, sometime poet, and guitarist. Next project: Surfing (waves, not websites).