Scott Burnham is the founder of Tell the Bees, an ecological wellbeing practice helping people and pollinators recover together through restorative habitat, therapeutic horticulture, and gentle, story-led rituals rooted in the historic custom of telling the bees.

His work integrates native, pollinator-positive plantings with practical stewardship and programs so organizations can offer calm, agency, and measurable ecological benefit in the same living space.

Scott’s career centers on resourcefulness and nature-based solutions. He founded Reprogramming the City, a global initiative demonstrating how existing urban assets can be repurposed for public good, and NurtureStructure, created to bridge infrastructure and ecology. He has taught and lectured at universities internationally and led design strategies in more than a dozen cities, building a reputation for providing “an abundance of creativity in an era of limited resources.”

Scott is the author of five books and many articles on adaptive reuse, self-reliance, and employing natural systems in cities. His publications include NatureStructure: Infrastructure for Nature, This Could…, 50 Ways to Mine the City, Reprogramming the City, and the practical toolkit How to Reprogram the City. He has worked in eight countries to help communities and decision-makers see opportunity in what they already have.

Through Tell the Bees, Scott applies this global perspective locally—designing spaces that are beautiful to use, feasible to maintain, and accountable to ecological outcomes. Based in Greater Boston, Massachusetts, he partners with recovery and behavioral health centers, senior living communities, remembrance and natural-burial landscapes, and civic campuses to grow places where care, culture, and biodiversity flourish together.

In recognition of his work, Scott was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce in London in 2010.