What is Climate-conscious Coaching and Facilitation?

Well it definitely doesn’t involve asking you about your recycling habits, unless that’s what you want! As with all coaching and facilitation, the content of what we talk about is up to you, and I won’t be bringing my own agenda. But it may at some point cover one of the following if you wanted to:

Your relationship with nature, and how you engage with it for your wellbeing
Degrowth: coaching and facilitation around how you might de-grow your work life or organisation, reduce your income and expenditure, downsize.
Sustainability: creating action plans to make your organisation/business/building greener.
Space to think about the climate emergency; this could be working through a process such as The Work that Reconnects, or just be a held space for you to process your thoughts and feelings about this.

A Shared Context

I see coaching and facilitation as collaborative conversations, and would suggest that the best collaborations occur when there is a shared understanding of the context in which we are living. We don’t have to agree on everything, but a meaningful conversation needs to recognise the impact of our actions on the wider world outside the coaching session.

While we are talking, our every breath is reliant on access to oxygen. We may also be sipping water or tea in the pauses between our words. Having access to clean-enough air and water is a privilege not available to everyone on our planet. Our coaching conversation will be taking place within this context, with the understanding of the destruction being done to the earth and all the life on it, and the unfair impact for those living with the impact of climate damage, often compounded by the destructive impact of colonialism and capitalism. The context will include an understanding of inequality, a need for social justice and change, and the potential for a harmonious relationship with nature and each other.

Training and Background

To hold a space which can encompass such grief as well as hope, I’ve done a lot of work alongside my coaching and facilitation training. I studied Ecopsychology with the Centre for Ecotherapy, and 10-steps to Personal Resilience and Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate with the Good Grief Network. I’ve been a participant and a supporting facilitator on Joanna Macy’s brilliant The Work that Reconnects. I’ve spent five years as a Trustee of a local community garden and wellbeing charity Plot 22. I’ve trained as an activist and protested on the streets. Together with Emma Haughton of Generate, we’ve developed a workshop for other coaches and facilitators, Coaching on this Earth, helping them think about how they might bring the earth as a stakeholder into their work.