Leo Murray is an animator, climate change campaigner and social entrepeneur.
His first venture, Monkey-Do CIC, fused his early work as a tree surgeon with his experience as a youth leader with an outdoor education charity. Bringing children together with trees through access to risky play in nature, he developed an innovative method of creating temporary adventure playgrounds in woodlands, and wrote the only good practice guide to installing rope swings in trees for charity London Play. Leo also created a unique new design for the first fully suspended permanent treehouse in a UK public park, in Arundel Square in Islington.
Leo is a Royal College of Art animation graduate and alongside his viral internet short on climate change, Wake Up Freak Out, has directed a number of short films for the likes of Greenpeace, the New Economics Foundation, Global Witness, George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas.
In 2005 Leo co-founded high profile environmental direct action group Plane Stupid, where he acted as principal spokesperson for the next three years, playing an instrumental role in the successful campaign against a third runway at Heathrow Airport.
After working as a lead animator on climate blockbuster the Age of Stupid, Leo co-founded climate change public engagement charity 10:10 as director of strategy, alongside director Franny Armstrong. He has been back in that role since 2013, creating a range of positive and inspiring initiatives focused on local and community energy such as Back Balcombe, the Clean Energy Dash and Keep FiTs. Leo is currently working with Imperial College's Energy Futures Lab to develop a method of connecting solar PV directly to electrified railways to provide traction power to trains.
In his 'spare time', Leo recently founded the campaign for a frequent flyer levy to limit growth in aviation emissions to within safe levels whilst protecting access to flying for those on low incomes.