Honorary graduates 2013-14

Leo Hickman (DLitt)

Monday 22 July 1:15pm

Leo Hickman graduated in Art History at the University of Sussex in 1994 and is now an author and environmental journalist The Guardian newspaper where he has worked since 1996.

In 2003, Leo and his family undertook a year-long experiment in ‘ethical living’, which ran as a regular feature column in The Guardian. As a family, they interrogated every aspect of their lifestyle – food, transport, heating, waste, etc – and sought to see what positive changes they could make. The book chronicling the experiment, A Life Stripped Bare, was popular in the UK, Germany and Italy and Leo is still regularly invited to speak about the experience.

In 2006, Leo travelled to 12 popular destinations around the world to investigate the environmental, social and economic impacts of tourism for his 2007 book, The Final Call. He was invited to speak about his findings on a range of news outlets, including BBC2’s Newsnight, CNN, Sky News and Radio 4’s Today programme.

In 2009, Puffin published Leo’s next book, Will Jellyfish Rule the World?, which aimed to explain the science, implications and possible solutions of climate change to children aged 9-12. Leo described it as the hardest writing assignment he had ever undertaken.

Leo continues to write for The Guardian and hosts their Eco Audit blog and has interviewed many of the world’s leading environmental figures, from Al Gore to James Lovelock. He is the writer in residence on the journalism degree course at Falmouth University and is also a visiting lecturer with the University of Exeter’s geography department.