Leading in the Wild – For Sustainability Professionals

Why this Course?

Over the past year, the climate change landscape has shifted dramatically.

Climate action has slipped down the priority list for many governments, companies, and institutions. And you may feel the consequences of that every day in your work: shrinking budgets and ambitions, weaker mandates, harder conversations, growing resistance. At the same time, the window for limiting irreversible damage is closing.

Climate resilience, or cultivating the conditions to anticipate, adapt, and transform in response to unavoidable climate change impacts, is becoming essential. Yet many sustainability professionals were never trained for this kind of work. Many have asked me: How do we navigate deep uncertainty? How do we lead when there is no clear roadmap, no consensus, and often no institutional backing? Where do we look for inspiration and guidance when the predominant Western knowledge system is full of biases and limitations?

This work requires an upgrade in technical skills. But it also asks for new capacities that are deeply personal: The emotional capacity to stay engaged over the long arc of transformation, while witnessing destruction, grief, and violence; Moral clarity in complex and chaotic systems; The courage to act when outcomes are uncertain; The capacity to embrace new ways of knowing and doing, as well as engage in unexpected collaborations. In a very real sense, you are being asked to lead in the wild.

No wonder this can feel overwhelming.

You are already balancing deadlines, reporting requirements, stakeholder expectations, and personal commitments. You care deeply. You are doing your best. And yet you may sense that something more is needed: not just more effort, but a different way of leading.

The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone! This course is designed to help you grow that capacity.

In this course, I will share what I have learned over 20 years of working towards climate resilience and regeneration: from project finance and research at the French Development Agency, to coordinating climate adaptation knowledge and loss and damage with the UN, to developing more transformative approaches as the founder of One Resilient Earth.

I will share what has helped me stay grounded, responsive, and creative in this work over time. My motivation is simple: to support you in developing the skills and resilience you need to navigate complexity with agility, design climate resilience intiatives that tackle the root causes of climate vulnerability, and re-imagine leadership in your own context —without burning out, becoming discouraged, or losing sight of why you started.

What is this transformative course about?

This transformative course is all about practical knowledge, tested tools, and hands-on activities that help grow the technical, emotional, and relational skills you need to develop climate resilience in your own context and with the people you serve.

It is about re-imagining leadership and supporting sustainability professionals in practicing what it takes to lead transformation in complexity, when there is neither a playbook nor directly visible results, and yet so many humans and more-than-human beings who need you to act differently now.

It is designed to help you face real-world challenges, while acknowledging the essential work you are already doing, and the precious experiences you bring to this emerging learning space.

It is about acknowledging what we know and what we do not know, what we need to keep learning together, and what we need to reckon with, take accountability for, grieve, or repair.

We are opening dialogues, and spaces to grow together.

Whom you will be learning with?

Who is this course for?

This course is for corporate sustainability leaders and professionals, NGO practitioners, and consultants working on socio-ecological transformation and related topics.

It will be particularly relevant for you if you are seeking:

• Alignment: There is a noticeable gap between your purpose and the values and actions of your organisation. You feel like you have to mask your true self and perform when you are at work. You want to gain the skills and confidence to speak up about what matters to you and take aligned action.
• Upskilling: You feel concerned about increasing climate instability locally and globally, and even more so by the fact that climate change impacts and risks are barely factored into the work that you do. You feel that the knowledge, tools, and methods you have are outdated to drive the change you want to see in the world.
• Depth: You notice yourself being in a reactive mode to what’s happening in the world, unable to find and sustain focus and prioritise long-term goals. You feel stuck in an environment that focuses on solving symptoms rather than addressing root causes. You have a longing for deep work, with potential for systemic transformation, but don’t yet know how.
• Peers: You are doing all you can to push for new models, systems, or ways of being, yet feel alone in this endeavour. You are misunderstood, set aside, over-extended, both restless and powerless, as change needs to happen now. You crave a community of peers to feel supported, be held accountable, and exchange ideas.
• Consistency: You have taken courses, done retreats, learnt about new frameworks but nothing sticks. You are open to learning, un-learning, and experimenting with new perspectives and tools, but need something else to embed courage and care more fully into your life, so as to keep going with joy and fulfillment.

This course might not be for you if:

• You are looking for quick fixes, ready-made solutions, climate-resilience to-do lists, and certainty.
• You are uncomfortable questioning the status quo, examining your own assumptions and biases, or opening up to a deep transformation of our ways of living, working, and organizing.
• You think that tending to our emotions, exploring our inner world, and questioning cultural narratives is a waste of time, as we should focus our energy only on taking outward action.
• You cannot dedicate at least 2 hours a week to participate in the live sessions or engage with the recordings.

We are growing a strong network of committed humans who are ready to grow together in reciprocal relationships.

What will you learn?

You will learn new essential leadership skills and capacities to keep doing your much-needed work in a chaotic climate. 

These climate-resilience building skills will help you guide your teams and support your community in a context-specific way, regardless of whether you work in biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation, socio-ecological transformation, circular economy, ecosystem regeneration, or other green/sustainable sectors. They include developing:

·   Systems-thinking and critical thinking skills to understand and address the root causes of climate vulnerability

·   Emotional capacities to keep engaging in the work despite climate chaos and the unknowns of transformation

·   Accountability and repair skills to engage with others with integrity, acknowledging the harms that are caused by our entanglement with the current systems.

·   Storytelling skills to reframe climate resilience as a gateway into a deep transformation of how we live, work, and relate to one another

·   Futures thinking and creativity skills to keep envisioning and relating to different futures and climate-resilient ways forward

To help you acquire those skills and capacities, this course will give you a deeper understanding of:

·   Multifaceted factors contributing to vulnerability to climate change

·   Both incremental and transformative approaches to building climate-resilience, including approaches that connect climate-resilience to Indigenous knowledge systems and practices, social and ecological regeneration, and deep-time thinking.

·   Co-creation and collaboration that fosters accountability, repair, openness, and joint-learning

Throughout the course, you will learn how to connect with all your emotions deeply, grow your imagination and curiosity, and your ability to lead with care without overstretching yourself. You will do so in a peer group of maximum 30 fellow leaders.

How is the course structured?

The course will take place over 8 weeks from May 5th to June 23rd, from 3-5 pm CET every Tuesday (check your local time). It will consist of:

·   Weekly interactive workshops of 2 hours, which will be recorded in case you cannot attend

·   An optional weekly online space for questions, in case you need to further discuss specific challenges or issues that you are facing

·   Weekly assignments to ground your learning into your own context and daily practices

·   Weekly care practices to expand your emotional capacities over time

·   Additional learning materials in the form of curated readings, bonus videos of presentations given by climate-resilience leaders, selected podcasts… to dive deeper into specific topics

·   Access to a moderated online platform to ask questions in writing, and connect with other participants in the course. The platform will serve as a repository for the online resources and will remain live after the course ends.

The course commitment should be 3-6 hours per week. You will receive a certificate of completion after taking a final assessment.

We can also facilitate extra access to mentors from different regions, so as to discuss your specific challenges more in depth.

What are the dates, times and pricing?

The course will take place over 8 weeks from May 5th to June 23rd, from 3-5 pm CET every Tuesday.  Check your local time.

We offer trust-based sliding-scale pricing. This means we trust that you choose the pricing that best matches your privilege and financial circumstances. The normal price reflects the true cost of this course. We use a social pricing method, which means that we rely on participants who can afford a higher participation price or “pay it forward ticket” for those with less privilege and financial means to participate. Any extra resources generated through this course will be used to support the non-profit activities of One Resilient Earth, including supporting young change-makers from marginalized backgrounds working towards climate resilience.

We provide invoices upon request. If several members of your team would like to join together, please contact us.

• Corporate/ Pay-it-forward rate (for those with financial stability and a readiness to support others in participating):  €900
• Normal rate (true cost of the course): €650
• Supported rate (for those from underprivileged regions and backgrounds):  €450

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the sessions be recorded? 

Yes, recordings will be available after each session on our online learning platform.

Do you offer full scholarships? 

Our ability to offer full scholarships will depend on the number of pay-it-forward contributors and will remain limited for this programme. However, there are numerous learning journeys that One Resilient Earth offers for free to young changemakers, educators, and creatives. Visit our online learning platform to learn more.

How can I reach you if I have some more questions?

Please email us at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. We are also open to scheduling a short call with you if you would like to check whether this online course is the right match for you.