What a fantastic group of engaged and engaging change-makers turned up for the online event that Jo Peters and I ran on 23 June for London Climate Action Week!

In this taster session for our ‘Resilient Leadership for People and Planet’ workshop, we use Active Hope practices which help people to move from overwhelm, despair or inertia to renewed motivation, empowerment and agency.

We guided participants through several rounds of sharing, deep listening, and reflection, in small groups and in plenary. Here’s how the participants – who had not met each other before – described their feelings at the end of the one-hour session:

 ‘motivated’

‘connected’

‘understood’

‘grateful’

‘energised’

‘reassured’

Thanks to Jo for facilitating alongside me, and gratitude for the pioneering Active Hope work of Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone.

31 October 2024 By Alison Maitland

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster – and I don’t use the phrase lightly. Together with fellow coach Nick Martin, I’ve been facilitating a climate action group experience called The Week with these wonderful participants from across a mix of professions.

We watched three films on consecutive days about the climate, biodiversity, food and pollution crises, hosted by Frederic and Helene Laloux. After each, and then exactly a week later, we held deep conversations about our feelings and the actions these motivate each of us to take to save what we can of our precious planet.

Although it’s the second time I’ve facilitated this experience, I found this one even more powerful, and I’d recommend experiencing it more than once.

Here are some things that have really stuck with me:

The drip feed of negative news is not enough to activate people, unless we’re directly impacted. Continue reading →

14 Feb 2024    By Alison Maitland

You’re a leader with influence. You’re aware that people across your organisation are anxious about the future, facing the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, conflict, polarisation, and rising living costs.

What is your role? How can you best support their resilience and sense of agency?

Here’s how a group of leaders at 3M, the US manufacturing company whose brands include Post-it notes and Scotch tape, responded.

Read more in my LinkedIn article here.

14 Dec 2023    By Alison Maitland

Rising anxiety about the climate and environment is affecting not only young people but workers of all ages. How should employers respond? In this report that I co-authored for The Conference Board, a business think-tank, we show how companies can begin by:

• Finding out how prevalent eco-anxiety is in your workforce;
• Engaging leaders across functions to provide joined-up responses;
• Acting to mitigate climate change through organizational strategies;
• Demonstrating evidence of pro-environmental actions;
• Validating eco-anxiety as a healthy response to what’s happening;
• Creating channels for employees to voice their concerns and hopes;
• Equipping managers to have conversations with employees about eco-anxiety; and
• Providing ways for employees to take collective environmental action.

You can download the report for free here. I welcome your feedback.