Why climate coaching is vital, but undervalued: the missing inner dimension in sustainability

Policymakers often discuss the ‘levers of change’ that we must pull to achieve the profound transformation needed in forthcoming decades. However, these levers are typically viewed as external, focusing on material or economic conditions. Yet, there’s another neglected part to the equation regarding the collective “we” responsible for pulling these levers. Who are we exactly? What characteristics define us, and what strengths do we possess? What’s necessary for us to mobilise collective action on an unprecedented scale? This is a political challenge but is also an inner challenge: encompassing our psychology, our cultural dynamics, and our relationship with the more-than-human world.

This session will explore some of the reasons that the inner dimension of climate action has largely been missing from public discourse, and the recent progress in re-integrating it into our understanding of sustainable transformation. We will start by looking at the foundational role of mindsets, worldviews, paradigms, values and identity, before examining the importance of psychological states and traits such as climate distress, hope, acceptance, attention regulation, cognitive flexibility, trust and love. We will then provide an overview of recent approaches for integrating inner and outer change, with examples that can be applied within coaching practice.