Coaching for sustainability
Thoughts from my summer focused on sustainable leadership and sustainable development!
This summer I’ve been working on coaching for sustainability in a couple of different ways.
Developing sustainable leadership
I was delighted to deliver a keynote for the British Psychological Society’s (BPS) Division of Coaching Psychology and a masterclass for the International Society for Coaching Psychology (ISCP) on Sustainable Leadership in the last few months.
Sustainable Leadership is an evidence-based approach I’ve been working on for a while and hope to publish soon. Sustainability, in its broadest sense, implies a focus on how resources are sourced and utilised, and requires a concern for the impact of this activity on the wider environment. Sustainable leadership is about the impact leaders have on their own performance and wellbeing, the performance and wellbeing of others, and the impact on the organisation, and society more broadly.
Sustainable leadership is not a new model of leadership. Instead, it brings together contextual behavioural science, evidence-based management and evolutionary science to share the principles of successful leadership that can be generalised across contexts (i.e. the ‘what’ of successful leadership) and develop the leadership skills to successfully adapt those principles to any specific context (i.e. the ‘how’ of successful leadership).
In sustainable leadership, the focus is on the behaviours that lead to better long term impact. Psychological flexibility in sustainable leadership relates to the ability to intentionally notice internal and external experiences, and adapt to a context based on what is purposeful or important in that context. We can summarise it as:
Being purposeful - focusing on meaningful actions and doing more of what matters
Being intentional - noticing the context and doing what will work best
Being adaptable - evaluating impact on self, others, the organisation, and the wider community.
Coaching for sustainable development
My second focus for the summer has been in my role as a representative for the ISCP on the Sustainability Coaching Coalition (SCC). The SCC is a coalition of coaching accreditation bodies who all share a concern for and desire to support sustainable development globally.
The Joint Statement of the SCC has been updated, and represents the collective commitment of the signatories to addressing the sustainability needs of the world through our shared profession of coaching.
You can read the Joint Statement on the SCC website here - https://www.sustainabilitycoachingcoalition.org/joint-global-statement/
The SCC held a number of workshops talking about the coalition and it’s collective focus and goals (available to watch on the SCC website). One of the key things the SCC tries to achieve is creating spaces across the coaching industry and practice for conversations, learning and support for sustainable development in coaching.
The first round table event of the SCC will be on 18th and 19th November 2025 on Active Hope: How Coaches can Support the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change.
In this SCC Roundtable session, you will learn about the significance of the United Nations ICJ (International Court of Justice) Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and the potential positive impact it has on people and planet. We will then discuss how coaching and mentoring can help support the intention of the Advisory Opinion and support the concept of Active Hope.
SCC Roundtables are 90-minute sessions designed to provide a collaborative learning space where practitioners from the SCC Signatory professional bodies gather to discuss topics that are timely and important in the global coaching and mentoring community. Anyone with interest in the topic is invited to freely attend.
Further details and sign up for this event are on the SCC website here - https://www.sustainabilitycoachingcoalition.org/events/
If you’re a coach or other practitioner interested in coaching for sustainable development, I’d also recommend joining the Climate Coaching Alliance, who provide lots of resources, events and other ways of getting involved in coaching for positive climate behaviours - find out more at https://www.climatecoachingalliance.org/
Hazel and I also unpack climate and sustainability coaching in the most recent episode of The Coaching UnpACT Podcast which you can find here https://www.coachingunpact.com/podcast