Green Gown Awards 2016 – Sustainability Staff Champion – David Emley – Winner

David Emley - Keele University

Throughout his career at Keele University, David’s passion for Keele’s natural history and commitment to sustaining its future, has led to a career-long labour of love for Keele’s campus. He has established Keele’s Arboretum and National Collection of Flowering Cherries and provided resources and guided tours to help Keele use its campus as a living lab for students and a fantastic place to visit for the community and beyond. 

Delivering talks, walks and teaching from outreach through to staff and the wider community, David has engaged others in discussing the natural surroundings at Keele since he joined in 1973. He has tagged over 3,000 trees and recorded sightings of flora and fauna that were published in 2014 in a book called the Natural History of Keele University.

David took a lead role in establishing a collection of Flowering Cherry Trees on campus, which in 2013 was awarded National Collection Status. Awarded Keele’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2015, David’s commitment to Keele’s natural history has provided a vital resource for generations to come.

Top 3 learnings

1 Getting Involved Leads to Great Things: Throughout his career David has got involved in a whole breadth of projects linked to sustainability and Keele’s campus that has helped his passion, knowledge and expertise really make a difference to our campus.

2 Future Proofing: Thanks to David’s work, generations to come will benefit from the natural history knowledge shared through cataloguing, documenting and most of all sharing amongst others.

3 Live your passion: Through passionate people comes extraordinary things. Completely over and above his role, David has contributed so much to Keele throughout his career here. Our community on campus has been enriched by his passion for natural history and sustainability. 

Videos

• David Emley - Keele University (click to hide)