Coastal Futures has been the biggest environmental, sustainability and conservation conference covering the coastal and marine environment in the UK since 1994 with its success continuing to this day.

Communications and Management for Sustainability (CMS) evolved as the consultancy, including Coastal Futures, which Bob used to run both conferences and the CMS News, which also advertised jobs and projects for clients.

Coastal Futures

Bob developed the Coastal Futures idea based on the success of the Marine Conservation Society conferences he organised in the 1980s and his work with North Sea and Marine Forum stakeholders covering every sector working in the marine environment.

The first ‘Coastal Futures’ meeting was held in 1994 and called ‘Marine Environmental Management – Review of Events in 1993 and Future Trends’; this morphed into Coastal Futures in 2000. The idea for the Coastal Futures conference arose from a combination of three inter-related ideas. Firstly, annual review, taking stock and looking to the future. Secondly, in environmental terms this cyclical review process derived from thinking around environmental management systems. Thirdly, the long term perspective by considering sustainability which was becoming commonplace in the early 1990s.

One of the key reasons for the success of Coastal Futures has been it’s topicality. From the outset market research engaging a wide range of stakeholders was used to develop the programme priorities. The broad scope of its content across all the significant issues of the day and willingness to cover new issues and technologies has always been key to its success.

Coastal Futures has covered an enormous range of topics including:

• Keynote speakers UK, Ministers and speakers from Europe and the USA
• Sustainability, principles (e.g. integration, participation) and approaches (e.g. the ecosystem approach, one planet living)
• Government policies: Legislation, 25 year plan, Marine & Coastal Access Act, European regulations, Brexit impacts, Regulations, Marine Strategy, Marine Spatial Planning, OEP
• Environmental management, impacts, cumulative effects, net gain
• Marine science, state of the seas assessments, innovations
• Climate change, mitigation and adaptation, CoPs, Blue Carbon, nature based solutions, net zero
• Coast issues, ICZM, Partnerships, Governance, flood and erosion risk management
• Conservation: Marine Protected Areas, Biodiversity initiatives, Restoration and Recovery
• Pollution: oil, sewage, plastics, noise and forever toxic chemicals
• Fisheries: CFP, Inshore IFCAs, Fisheries Act and other legislation, specific fishing initiatives
• Offshore wind (since 2000), co-existence and other renewable technologies
• Development and sectoral interests including ports, aggregates and fish farming
• Social Capital, Communication & audience analysis, health &well-being, the marine social science network
• Funding, Economics, valuation and marine natural capital, finding funds

It was normal to have over 30 speakers at the Coastal Futures meetings, though during Covid this and the virtual meetings (2021 & 2022) this went up to 50+  and so up to now there have been over 1000 presentations at these meetings. Coastal Futures has always attracted a large number of sponsoring organisations: 20 sponsors in 2022.

Key developments:

• There are a series of eight publications (1993-2000) on the conference presentations and other yearly review material
• After the first two meetings held at Baden Powell House and the Natural History Museum, all those up to 2017 were held at the School of Oriental Science (SOAS) with audiences often exceeding 330 over the two day event, with workshops and other meetings held to align with CF. In 2018 the conference moved to the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in Kensington with larger audiences.
• In 2021 & 2022 because of Covid Coastal Futures went digital and spread over 3 days with 600+ delegates taking part. These meetings were supported by Roger Proudfoot (Environment Agency) and Sarah Young (WWF) and comprised 15 themed 80 minute sessions as well as six keynote presentations.
• Networking across a very wide range of stakeholders from many different sectors was widely recognised as one of the major contributions of Coastal Futures.

In 2022 Bob Earll sold Coastal Futures and CMS to Natasha Bradshaw, David Tudor and Dickon Howell who now run Ocean and Coastal Futures (OCF). Since 2022 the meetings have been both face to face and online attendance options with the cumulative attendance of over 600.

Communications and Management for Sustainability – CMS

The CMS brand developed strongly in the 2000s from the consultancy work Bob had developed. CMS became well known for initiating a wide range of one day conferences in London on marine and coastal issues. The programmes for these conferences covered the issues outlined above in very much more detail. A series of meetings leading up to the Marine and Coastal Access Act helped develop a wide consensus around the need for change as well as with the specific content. In addition to these events CMS ran conferences and workshops commissioned by a wide range of agencies including Defra, The Crown Estate, Natural England, SNH, NRW and The Wildlife Trusts.

CMS had used its data bases to advertise thousands of jobs and professional projects for clients. In the late 2000s this was linked more closely to two weekly newsletters – CMS News. One newsletter for the marine and coastal community and the other for the water sector. Their combined circulation in 2022 was 8,000+ contacts.