“Instructions for
living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver
About Us
Living Alive is a micro consultancy and partnership between Elle Adams and Rupert Hutchinson based on the wild and beautiful NE coast of Scotland which supports purpose-driven leaders to work with nature to embed regenerative values, culture, and action into the heart of their work.
Founded in the shared belief in the power of fostering meaningful relationships with the natural world as a catalyst for transformative change; Living Alive harnesses the unique combination of their individual backgrounds, skill sets, and experience in outdoor education and leadership, eco-therapeutic facilitation, and business impact expertise to offer immersive nature-based workshops, consultancy, and leadership retreats for business teams designed to catalyse the shifts in awareness, values, and behaviours required to build a more regenerative future for people and planet.
Elle Adams
Co-Founder | 🔗 LinkedIn
Elle is a designer, researcher and regenerative strategist, with a background in purpose-led business, and environmental advocacy. An impact-driven professional, Elle is motivated by finding the most effective and transformative ways in which she can contribute towards the systemic changes required to address the urgent and interconnected crises facing our world today and create a more regenerative future for all life on Earth.
Elle is currently co-leading programme development for Scotland CAN B; the initiative launched in partnership between the Scottish Government and B Lab UK to leverage the role of business in Scotland towards building a wellbeing economy. Alongside this, she recently instigated the Findhorn Watershed Initiative – a project in collaboration with our local Rivers Trust which seeks to drive cross-sector collaboration for ecosystem restoration at a landscape-scale in our home watershed. Elle is a member of the UK Bioregioning community of practice, hosted by the Bioregional Learning Centre in Devon.
An optimist and lover of life, when not busy pursuing systems change you’ll find Elle cold water swimming in the Findhorn river or bay, tending her vegetable garden, foraging for seasonal fruit or fungi, eating well around campfires, and rustling up the next fermentation experiment.
Rupert Hutchinson
Co-Founder | 🔗 LinkedIn
Rupert is an innovative outdoor guide, educator, and facilitator with an acute understanding and respect for the extraordinary and perspective-shifting power of spending time out in wild places. He is a highly experienced UIMLA International Mountain Leader and has spent the last 15 years guiding people into some of the most remote and beautiful landscapes on Earth.
Throughout his career, Rupert has strived to push the boundaries of mainstream approaches to outdoor education and adventure travel – with a specific focus on crafting the conditions most conducive to transformative experiences of nature, in an inspiring and accessible way. He is a trained Natural Change practitioner, and his life-long passion for astronomy and cosmology also plays an integral part to his skill-set; providing a ‘planetary’ perspective which guides, supports, and deepens the wider context of Living Alive’s work.
He is a big-hearted, existentially pondering mountain man, who loves alpine trail running, backcountry skiing, woodsmoke, spoon whittling, and sleeping out beneath dark starry skies.
Rupert is currently engaged in an associate capacity with a number of organisations working in the field of wilderness-based retreats for personal transformation, as well as offering immersive 1:1 nature-based coaching journeys for leaders in Scotland, having recently completed his transformative coaching diploma with Animas Centre for Coaching.
Our Logo
Living Alive’s logo takes its inspiration from Earthrise, the first photograph of the Earth taken from lunar orbit, by astronaut Bill Anders during NASA’s Apollo 8 mission in 1968. On seeing the Earth from this cosmic perspective, astronauts often describe what’s called the Overview Effect; an experience of awe and wonder for the planet, and a profound sense of the interdependency of all life.
Earthrise, 1968 – Image credit: NASA
Certified B Corporation
In April 2019, Living Alive became a certified B Corporation – joining a global community of businesses accelerating the global culture shift to redefine success in business and build an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economic system for all people and the planet.
Signed during the certification process, the B Corp Declaration of Interdependence states that B Corps commit to “be the change we seek in the world, conduct business as if people and place mattered, and to act with the understanding that we are dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations“. For us, it was this underlying foundation of the acknowledgment the interdependence of all life on Earth that sealed the deal in our decision to pursue certification. We are delighted to be part of the B Corp community of like-minded changemakers, legally committed and accountable to building a more regenerative future.
“It is precisely by acting on our intentions and staying true to our values that we change the world.”
– Ed Catmull, Creativity Inc.