From Ocean Defender to community change: Ali Macleod’s journey in sustainability 

Amanda Skinner

Wednesday 15 April 2026

Studying marine biology at a university in London might not seem the best option, but for Ali Macleod, project manager at Transition University of St Andrews, the connection to the sea has never been far, regardless of location. 

“It wasn’t perhaps the best place to do a marine biology degree,” Ali agreed, “but I was keen to work in the marine environment. After graduating I got an opportunity to be part of refitting a 200-tonne decommissioned Norwegian whaler.”  

The project saw Ali learn the practical realities of what it takes to turn a huge commercial vessel into an active environmental outreach ship. After about 6 months of welding, engineering, and taking on whatever tasks were required of him, the boat, renamed Ocean Defender, was ready to set sail. Its mission: an early foray into seabird rescue and conservation education around the waters of the UK. 

“The experience helped me develop a pragmatic approach to conservation and to appreciate the value of conservation education,” Ali said. “We spent summers traveling in the waters around the north of Scotland and the Western Isles and, as education officer, my role involved developing connections with local schools, as well as working on small research programs with universities around the country.  

“We worked with Aberdeen University on bottle nose dolphin population tracking which helped them develop the Special Area of Conservation in the Moray Firth, designated in 2005 to protect the only resident population of bottlenose dolphins in the North Sea.” 

After three years at sea, Ali rediscovered his land legs and spent time with charities including Greenpeace, GroundWork and the Kentish Town City Farm in London – the UK’s first City Farm.  

Serving as education officer at City Farm was eye-opening, Ali told us. “I really came to appreciate the value green spaces offer, especially in areas of high depravation, where we could bring children into a living farm – doing everything from educating them about where their food comes from, to the ethics of caring for animals. 

“We had sheep, cows, goats, chickens, and working weekends with around 70 schoolchildren and 50 animals was a really rewarding experience– if sometimes a little chaotic! Giving children this type of opportunity is really impactful,” he said. 

However, the commute from London to Scotland was taking its toll. His wife was working at the Scottish Oceans Institute, (the neighboring building to where Ali’s current office is) so he moved up to Scotland, taking a position in Dundee working for the Ardler Village Trust – the largest housing development in Scotland, a regeneration project which involved replacing old 1960s flats with modern housing built around a central village hub.  

The regeneration at Ardler focused not just on housing but also on creating open spaces, sustainable landscapes, and promoting community development, supported by the Ardler Village Trust. Everyone over the age of 16 is eligible to contribute to the decisions that affect their community, and that, Ali said, has proved transformational.  

“Although they’d been built for their time, the nineties saw massive job lay-offs and the high-rise flats were in such a state of disrepair people refused to move into them. The Ardler Village Trust brought the community into the decision-making process. Being part of these decisions, and being seen to be part of them, really helped a lot of people turn their lives around.”  

From the Ardler Trust, Ali then moved on to Solar Cities Scotland, bringing his knowledge of the importance of behavior change to encourage people not only to make changes to their lifestyles in line with a more sustainable approach, but to provide them with opportunities to do so. 

“It felt very much like being in sales,” Ali recalled. “Asking people to make more sustainable choices can often be seen as taking things away – don’t use the car, reduce your heating, and so on – so what was important was to sell these choices as opportunities. Reminding people to think of the bigger picture; to consider how these changes will result in healthier, happier future selves. You can’t sell climate change on negatives.” 

And this is the approach he’s brought to his current role as project manager at Transition.  

“We’re very much focused on what messages we’re sending and understanding social interactions is a huge part of that.  

“Our Transition newsletter has a high readership, and it’s really full of long-reads rather than simply bite-size chunks of information. People want to learn about others’ successes and consider how they might make those positive changes in their own communities. 

“At Transition we offer a framework for people to engage efficiently with the issues of climate change and biodiversity collapse, and we provide them with the tools and structure to make that happen.” 

No day is the same for Ali. When we spoke, he was taking a break from helping the team build bike ramps, and on the schedule was working with funding partners, analysing spreadsheets, a few hours of cycle training at the North Haugh, and preparing for the upcoming film showing for Earth Day: The Peoples Emergency Briefing. 

When not juggling work demands, Ali gets a lot of satisfaction from being part of the sharing economy – he is chair of his local allotment group where he’s been involved for over twenty years and shares a sailboat with other University staff out of Anstruther.  

A keen advocate of car-sharing, he set up a car-club while in Dundee and recalled a time when they found themselves sharing a ride with a member of the French Olympic synchronized swimming team.  

“One of the group had done some sleuthing and discovered the new passenger was on the team, but it took a few rides before we got to the point we could ask: Are you an Olympic synchronized swimmer?”  

It’s the power of these in person social interactions that Ali says are key to addressing climate change. “We all have social capital, but it’s up to the individual to take agency and act. It’s what we do at Transition and it seems to be working!”