Climate Coaching: Are We Addressing Symptoms or Transforming Systems?

The climate crisis isn’t just an environmental emergency; it’s a mirror reflecting humanity’s failure to align with the intelligence of Earth. While parts of the coaching industry have made progress by integrating sustainability, regenerative practices, and nature-based approaches, these efforts remain fragmented and lack the adaptive depth needed to confront the crisis head-on.

Climate coaching’s unintentional focus on carbon footprints and sustainability, though well-intentioned, is dangerously reductionist. By prioritising carbon metrics, any efforts risk perpetuating greenwashing—creating the appearance of sustainability without addressing deeper systemic impacts. It reinforces hollow gestures, like tokenistic nature-based activities or carbon offsetting without true ecological alignment prevalent in business, distracting from the urgent need for adaptive change.

Earth doesn’t negotiate, and neither should we. If climate coaching ignores these systemic impacts, it is accelerating the collapse of the very ecosystems it claims to protect. The path forward demands a fundamentally different approach—one that integrates Earth’s intelligence and is capable of continuous adaptation to address root causes, not just symptoms.

Encouragingly, themes from the Climate Coaching Action Day 2025 conference—such as embodied adaptive coaching and coaching in the polycrisis—suggest a growing recognition of the need for adaptive intelligence.

But the real issue isn’t just in focusing on climate change in coaching—it’s in what it ignores. To genuinely address the crisis, coaching must adapt from simply coaching for nature to coaching as nature—an approach rooted in systemic intelligence and aligned with Earth's own life-sustaining principles.

The question is no longer whether coaching can adapt, but whether it can adapt fast enough. Because, let’s be clear: a growing number of coaches recognize that coaching is in crisis too.

Why Nature Coaching Offers a More Comprehensive Approach: Biophilia and Nature Connectedness

Nature coaching rejects the fragmented and reductionist approaches that dominate the coaching industry today. At its core, nature coaching begins with biophilia—the innate human connection to nature—and expands into nature connectedness, recognizing that only some biophilia values actually deepen our relationship with nature and Earth. This approach goes beyond using nature as a backdrop; it seeks to rebuild the fractured relationship between humans and the natural world, fostering a deep sense of interconnectedness.

Research shows that nature connectedness not only enhances well-being but also expands our capacity for empathy and long-term thinking—qualities that are essential for addressing the climate crisis systemically. When coaching practices start from this place of connection, they open the door to a fundamentally different way of engaging with the world: one that values ecosystems as partners, not resources.

From this foundation, nature coaching can then integrate systemic intelligence and adaptive capacity in a way that enhances life instead of seeking to control and conquer it. This shift is not just essential; it’s non-negotiable if coaching is to contribute meaningfully to the regeneration of ecosystems and an Earth where all life thrives.

But nature coaching has to go beyond coaching in nature, which uses natural settings as a backdrop. Leadership retreats in nature have been happening for decades—even some of history’s darkest figures understood the power of natural settings. Without recognizing Earth’s intelligence as an active participant capable of adaptation, even the most well-intentioned approaches risk being superficial at best and dangerously misguided at worst.

Call to Reflect: Is Climate Coaching Enough?

The climate crisis is not a technical problem—it’s a crisis born from humanity's failure to align with Earth’s adaptive intelligence. While the coaching industry has made strides by incorporating sustainability and regenerative practices, these efforts remain fragmented and lack the depth required to address the crisis meaningfully. Let’s stop pretending progress has been enough. It’s nowhere close

The question is not whether we can afford to adapt coaching practices, but whether we can adapt fast enough. By ignoring Earth’s intelligence and reinforcing the climate change narrative, we are accelerating the collapse of the very ecosystems that sustain life.

So, for coaches, leaders, and change-makers, the choice is clear:

• Will you continue to support fragmented efforts that create the illusion of progress, or will you commit to adaptive change that addresses root causes?
• Will you guide clients towards temporary sustainability, or will you empower them to adopt regenerative practices that align with Earth’s intelligence?
• Can you afford to cling to climate coaching when coaching as nature offers the only path to the real regeneration of all that we hold dear?

We cannot save what we refuse to see. The window is closing faster than we dare admit. Now is not the time for conversation. Now is the time for aligned action that takes you into a deeper relationship with nature and Earth itself. Because if we are brutally honest about what’s at risk, it’s not Earth. It has a track record of regeneration after an extinction event. Humanity? Not yet.

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Earthself’s NatureProcess Coach Training Programme (ICF Level 1) helps you master the art of coaching with and as nature—whether outdoors, indoors, or online—in a way that is fully neuro-inclusive.

By joining, you’ll not only develop deep coaching with and as nature skills but also contribute directly to the growth of the Scottish food forest movement.

Cohorts start in May, September, and November 2025.

Get in touch to learn more and secure your place.

Earth is calling...