Dr Alan Raw FRSA FSI

Alan Raw is a sustainability storyteller, facilitator, and creative practitioner who helps people and organisations imagine and build futures they can actually take part in.

His work brings together over three decades of experience across the arts, media, business innovation, and community practice. He helps people make sense of environmental change in creative ways that are practical, participatory, and grounded in real-world decision-making.

Alan works with organisations, networks, and communities who care about the future but are navigating competing pressures, whether that’s business realities, policy requirements, or day-to-day operations. He creates spaces where people can think clearly together, align around what matters, and move forward with confidence.

“People often say to me, ‘I care about this… but I don’t quite know how to do it well from where I sit.’

I’m a neurodiverse thinker, so I tend to work in those in-between spaces, helping people turn complexity and uncertainty into practical decisions they can act on together.”

He delivers keynote talks, workshops, and strategic sessions that help bridge the gap between sustainability strategy and lived reality, moving beyond reporting into meaningful action.

Over 30+ years, Alan has built and led cultural and sustainability initiatives at local, national, and international levels. His work includes large-scale community programmes, festivals, and over 120 exhibitions, alongside contributions to three European Capitals of Culture and Hull City of Culture. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Hull in recognition of his contribution to sustainability and creative practice.

As a speaker and panelist, Alan has delivered over 300 engagements, from community settings to stadiums, including keynote speaker for Humber Business Week 2026 (on Earth Day), and appearances at UK Tech Week, Space Tech Assembly, RSA Space Unites, UK-EONS, and numerous creative festivals.

A former multi-award-winning BBC broadcast journalist for 21 years, he worked across presenting, production, engineering, and photojournalism, co-founding BBC Introducing, creating BBC Eco-Time, and presenting for major programmes including Children in Need and Radio 1’s Big Weekend.

Alan has been a successful social entrepreneur, a celebrated musician/artist, and is now a published author. His work explores climate adaptation, creative resilience, and our relationship with nature, including his novel Salt & Seeds and the space sector sustainability guide To Sustainability & Beyond. He now facilitates writing sessions supporting communities to write their own futures.

He is Co-founder and CTO of Humber Natural Capital, developing trusted technology using Earth observation for nature-based-solutions, working with local authorities, developers, and ecologists.

Alongside his commercial work, Alan contributes to a range of voluntary roles including: Director of the Association of Sustainability Practitioners, RSA Fellowship Councilor for the North of England, Fellow of the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, RSA Playful Green Planet Champion, RSA Space Network Co-Founder, and mentor with the CAA funded Ascend-2-Space mission.

Alan remains a director of the Creative and Cultural Organisation, which he founded in 1993, transforming unused shops and resources into arts and sustainability centres, and leading initiatives across Europe, such as Humber Eco Fest, which engaged over 60,000 people.

European Commission Registered Expert in Sustainability.

Member of the Grokkist Network. Facilitator of the monthly Grokkist Press Writing Salon.

Former Chair of FEAST Food Education & Social Transformation UK.

Former Session musician and current Chair of the World Drumming Network.

Here’s a couple of video’s of me being interviewed about different areas of my work: