David is an environmental scientist who has worked extensively throughout his career at European and international levels to support environment and sustainability policy-making.

David was a founding staff member of the European Environment Agency (EEA) in the early 1990s and worked there as a senior manager until his retirement in 2018. He was responsible for setting up the EEA’s regular production of pan-European and EU environmental assessments used for analysing environmental problems and raising awareness about them. This included the development of the first report on the state of the pan-European environment in 1995. He led international cooperation activities with UN bodies and national environmental agencies globally, promoting the routine sharing of environmental information and the regular development and use of integrated environmental assessments for evaluating and tracking complex environmental and sustainability issues.

With continuing interests in post-normal science, innovation and precaution, and lay, local and indigenous knowledge, David enjoys hiking and travelling, and has recently begun to discover the joys of growing his own vegetables and ecological bee-friendly gardening.

David holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Lancaster University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.