Across four oceans, Jo Royle kept finding the same thing: we have designed a world as though we were separate from the life we're part of. Now she explores another way with curious minds of every kind (scientists, coastal communities, storytellers) and helps people with wealth act on what they find.
She learned the sea as an apprentice to a Dartmouth fisherman, then raced, skippered and led expeditions across the Pacific, Atlantic, Southern and Indian Oceans. In 2010 she was skipper and technical lead of Plastiki, a boat built from about 12,000 plastic bottles, which sailed from San Francisco to Sydney in 128 days.
Ashore, she has helped build things that carry on without her. She founded Common Seas to stop plastic pollution at source, raising more than £10m and building an international team whose work continues today. She conceived Plastic Drawdown, a model that maps how plastic flows through a country, developed with 24 governments and now used in nine countries. She commissioned the research that produced the first evidence of plastic particles in human blood (2022), and helped open a plastic-free laboratory for microplastics research at Imperial College London. As the first Head of Philanthropy for the Bertarelli family, she helped conceive Marine Manager, built by Global Fishing Watch, which now tracks human activity across 10 million km² of ocean.
Her best work has come from unlikely crews: sailors, scientists, designers and communities working as one. Today she is exploring how we might live well as part of a thriving living world, taking a little less and giving a little more back, including on voyages of inquiry.
When not aboard Blue Saluki, the old wooden lady she is custodian of, she lives in Dartmouth, where she is crew with the RNLI.
Sessions at Explore Weekend
Saturday
3.30pm-4.30pm: Planning Maritime Expeditions
