About Us
We are a team of built environment specialists, surveyors, coaches, psychologists, facilitators and thought leaders united by a commitment to support positive change.
Orientate was founded through a shared belief in the importance of nurturing a greater connection between humanity, our built environment and the natural world.
This connection doesn't happen overnight, and the way most of us work in the built environment is busy, ‘always on’, and highly transactional. We believe that the complexity of the modern world requires a more holistic view. Learning and innovation come through experience and immersion in the concepts of People, Place and Planet.
We are committed to helping organisations navigate this complex and necessary landscape to not only achieve business goals but also deepen a cultural understanding of what it takes to shape a future-fit industry.
We can bring diverse skills that positively disrupt thinking by combining our in-house expertise with a network of collaborations, including designers, sustainable place consultants, researchers, organisational psychology, biomimicry, living systems and nature connection practitioners.
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how Nature works and the way people think.”
— Gregory Bateson
Meet the Team
We bring together expertise in property, development, sustainability, business, strategy co-creation, psychology, organisational development, coaching, facilitation and outdoor learning. Through our partnerships we bring diversity of thinking to help our clients address large, systemic challenges.
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Nick James
Co-founder, re:ground
Orientate has teamed up with sustainable places experts, Futureground, to help the real estate industry deliver on ESG, sustainability and Social Value.
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Nick is a sustainability-focused design thinker with more than 20 years of experience in the real estate sector. He is founding director of Futureground, a South West based strategic sustainability consultancy.
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His background includes both in-house senior sustainability roles within investor, developer, contractor and consultant organisations. Through Futureground, Nick advises private, public and community sector clients at organisational, programme and project levels. Recent clients include: Peabody Housing, Hammerson, Enfield Council and Southern Housing Group.
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Nick is a Design Council Associate Expert, Community-Led Homes Accredited Advisor, and an active environmental and social sustainability expert sitting on multiple local authority and regional design and quality panels.
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Orientate is a founding partner of EARTHED.
EARTHED is a community of nature-inspired leadership coaches, facilitators and designers exploring and nurturing evolutionary ways to redefine personal and organisational 'growth'.
We create and hold space for support leaders, organisations and local communities to slow down, adapt and innovate through their response to the current socioeconomic, environmental and ecological crises.
The Climate Coaches is a global group of psychologists, coaches and facilitators committed to catalysing climate change action. We use our expertise in building engagement, motivation and an ability to positively shift behaviours in building Net Zero cultures.
In a world of greenwashing and narrow focus, our uniqueness comes from our diversity of backgrounds and our commitment to robust research-based approaches. We see our clients' impact as a transformational shift in perspectives, action and the ability to genuine constructive progress!
The Climate Coaches
Our
Story
Get to Know Us
With kids in the same school we (Jaime and Nick), bonded over appreciation for walking in the mountains. Conversations that started in the playground about mountaineering training turned into post-hike discussions about shared values and philosophy at the pub.
Having spent years in high-level, demanding jobs, enjoying nature was always something we did in our own time. We talked about how disconnected the business world was from the natural world. We saw people who we knew cared privately about the environment leave concerns about climate change at the threshold of the office door and carry out business as if was nothing going on.
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Instinctively we felt that the disconnection of business from nature was a major reason for the environmental crises we face. We knew that if we could facilitate a greater connection between people, business and nature it could only be a positive thing.
It was out of that desire that Orientate was born. We wanted take people out of their normal work environment and create new perspectives and different relationships. We wanted to shift the individual and collective learning experience by learning in the real world rather than from behind a computer or in a meeting room. We wanted to create the conditions for this learning to be part of working life, to bring purpose and create ownership of the environmental and societal issues we all face.
Fast forward and we are now part some wonderful collaborations with change makers. Through the Earthed community at Wild Things Farm we are lucky enough to be part of an amazing project to re-wild the land. We work there, collaborate with peers there and see clients there.
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