What’s Happening, 2026 – Climate Coaching Action Day

The 7th Climate Coaching Action Day takes place on 5th March, 2026

This initiative was launched in 2020 by Coaching at Work, but although we mark it, too, it was always intended to be an invitation for others to embrace, as have organisations, including the Climate Coaching Alliance (CCA), professional coaching and coaching psychology bodies, coach training organisations, including the International Society for Coaching Psychology, ISCP Faculty of Climate Change and Coaching Psychology, Academy of Executive Coaching, Positivity Coaching, Centre for Coaching, National Academy of Coaching Psychology, International Academy for Professional Development & affiliated Centres.

In support of Climate Coaching Action Day and in memory of the late Dr Alison Whybrow and her outstanding contribution to the coaching psychology profession and the field of climate conscious coaching, during March the International Society for Coaching Psychology Faculty of Climate Change and Coaching Psychology is releasing an Invited Paper given by Alison at the 10th International Congress of Coaching Psychology. The paper is titled Climate change and coaching psychology: How do we respond to the feedback we are receiving? Visit the ISCP Faculty of Climate Change and Coaching Psychology for the Zoom Link.

Coaching at Work is holding a free half-day conference on 5th March 2026. See below for the full conference programme. To register click HERE.

Join us on a journey to explore what it means for you to coach in these times

In these challenging times marked by the climate emergency, increased polarisation and conflict, mental ill health, increasingly widespread adoption of AI including in coaching, quality relationships are more important than ever. Relationship with self and the parts within, with our clients and colleagues in the profession, and with Mother Nature of whom we are part. How can we foster relationships that are more compassionate, more courageous and wiser? What does it mean in sustainability coaching to attend to our many relationships with greater presence, awareness, compassion and courage?

Perhaps you’re feeling unsettled given the global context. Maybe you’re beginning to consider making some changes in your practice, sensing that business as usual may no longer cut it but you’re not yet sure what that looks like or what it means for you. Maybe you’ve already started taking steps- baby, middling or giant- towards aligning your work with the challenges of our time. Perhaps it feels hard, lonely, heartbreaking, hope-inducing or joyful, or all of the above and more. Wherever you are, we welcome you into a space of enquiry, practice and connection.

This free online Coaching at Work conference to mark Climate Coaching Action Day 2026.

This conference will not be recorded. Therefore if you are really interested in the conference, we would recommend that you attend the event on the day.

Please register beforehand to secure your place.

To register click HERE.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Conference: Bridging the divide: courage, compassion and wisdom in climate coaching

09:25 Welcome with Prof Stephen Palmer

09:30-10:30 Workshop: Growing hope with Lorenza Clifford
What if we became really alive to the role hope plays? What might be possible when we prime ourselves to generate hope through cumulative daily practices? Lorenza offers a relational perspective on hope, inviting us to participate: reflect, draw or journal on our own experiences to grow hope.

10:30-10:45 Break and networking

10:45-12:15 Harnessing the power of Relational Mindfulness in climate coaching, with Liz Hall and Dr Emma Donaldson-Feilder.
Relational Mindfulness is a pioneering and timely coaching approach which helps us deepen connection in our relationships, with ourselves, our clients and the Earth, supporting more courageous collaborations and enhancing presence, awareness and wisdom. This session will be partly experiential – participants will have the opportunity to practise Relational Mindfulness dialogue exploring topics relevant to climate and sustainability coaching.

12:15-12:30 Take aways; handover to the Climate Coaching Alliance with Claire D’Abouville & close of conference

Pre-recorded sessions available all day:

a) Pre-recorded interview with the CCA’s Claire D’Abouville, Fran Smith and Kat Haber on the CCA’s research among pioneering climate coaches. In the interview, we talk about why the CCA carried out this research, what they found, and also some tips for sustainability coaching from the interviewees. Link to Zoom Recording HERE.

b) Pre-recorded lecture on Climate Coaching Psychology with Prof Stephen Palmer.

In this paper Climate Psychology and the emerging field of Climate Coaching Psychology will be discussed. The application of an informative, ethical, coaching psychology approach to tackling debilitating climate change worries, ecoanxiety and ecodepression will be described. The ‘Simple, Serious, Solvable’ approach to understanding and tackling climate change will be included. Climate change anxiety/eco-anxiety and eco-depression will be defined. Becoming a mental health-related climate-literate professional, knowledgeable about climate change to enhance information giving in coaching and coaching psychology practice and supervision is highlighted as an option for practitioners.

Click HERE to view Prof Palmer’s video.

c) Invited international congress paper with the late Dr Alison Whybrow recorded in 2020.

Climate change and coaching psychology: How do we respond to the feedback we are receiving? Visit the ISCP Faculty of Climate Change and Coaching Psychology for further information.

Click HERE for the Zoom link to watch Dr Alison Whybrow’s video.

The conference co-chairs are Liz Hall and Prof Stephen Palmer.

SPEAKERS & INTERVIEWEES

Claire d’Aboville, PCC, has been an executive coach since 2009. In 2020, she awoke to the urgency
and scale of the climate and environmental crisis. Since then, she has been continuously deepening her
expertise and shifting her focus from ‘business as usual’ to asking, ‘what is mine to do?’ She supports organisations and leaders that have made sustainability a strategic priority and are actively delivering on that commitment. Claire serves on the global leadership team of the CCA. Her work is driven by the legacy she wants to leave to her children and grandchildren.

Lorenza Clifford is an executive coach and coaching supervisor with a background in Psychology. She is a member and sponsor of the Climate Coaching Alliance, an Accredited Master Executive Coach with the Association for Coaching, and an Accredited Coach Supervisor with the Coaching Supervision Academy. She founded Coachange.org – working with leaders and coaches to face what is going on, working ‘with the grain’ of who they are, and their nature, ecosystems and economy. We are always coming to terms with new realities, and through enhanced curiosity, presence, choice and relationships, we can embrace our future courageously. 

Kat Haber is the curious climate coach who believes saving the planet starts with saving your sanity first –because you can’t pour from an empty cup, even if that cup is made from recycled materials. She’s spent years learning how to live more peacefully in all places, which sounds zen until you realise it means finding calm while the world is literally on fire and her own son drinks water out of plastic bottles. Kat proves climate action doesn’t require perfection, just curiosity, compassion and the willingness to keep showing up even when the news makes you want to hide under your sustainably sourced blanket.

Liz Hall is a leadership/ executive coach, trained mindfulness teacher and the editor of Coaching at Work since 2005. She’s the author of publications including Mindful Coaching (Kogan Page), Coach your team (Penguin Business), author/editor of Coaching in times of crisis and transformation (Kogan Page), and co-author with Dr Emma Donaldson-Feilder of Relational Mindfulness for coaches: Enhancing presence, awareness, wisdom, compassion and courageous collaboration (Routledge). She’s a contributor to Ecological and Climate Conscious Coaching (Routledge, March 2025). Committed to making a positive difference, including around how we navigate the climate emergency, Liz launched the annual Climate Coaching Action Day through Coaching at Work in March 2020, celebrating and promoting climate coaching, she’s a member of the Climate Coaching Alliance (CCA), co-facilitator of the CCA’s Compassion Community of Practice, and a coach with Social Movement Coaching, delivering CPD and coaching to climate & social justice leaders and teams. She’s trained to facilitate Joanna Macy’s The Work that Reconnects. Liz’s coaching is informed by mindfulness, compassion, somatics, attachment theory, systems thinking/feeling and adult vertical development, amongst others.

Dr Emma Donaldson-Feilder is a Relational Mindfulness (RM) and Insight Dialogue teacher, chartered coaching psychologist, coaching supervisor and chartered occupational psychologist, who aims to support the development of kinder, wiser workplaces. In 2019 she completed a Professional Doctorate, in which she conducted research exploring the use of mindfulness and RM in leadership development. Building on this work, she developed a range of RM programmes to support leadership development and coach development. Emma trained as a mindfulness teacher through Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (UK) and as an ID teacher and Interpersonal Mindfulness Programme teacher through the Insight Dialogue Community (USA). She is co-author with Liz Hall of Relational Mindfulness for coaches: Enhancing presence, awareness, wisdom, compassion and courageous collaboration (Routledge, 2025).

For many years, Emma’s work incorporated both research and practice in occupational psychology, particularly around the role of leadership and management in employee wellbeing. Her writing includes co-authorship of an award-winning book, Preventing stress in organizations: How to develop positive managers (Wiley, 2011). Her series on RM for Coaching at Work saw her receive a further writing award.

Emma divides her time between London (UK) and Shoreham-by-Sea on the South Coast of the UK, where she has discovered a deep love of the ocean to add to her pre-existing love of being in natural environments such as forests, grasslands and rolling hills. She finds walking and immersing herself in any of these worlds deeply healing and uplifting.

Prof Stephen Palmer

Prof Stephen Palmer PhD is a Chartered Biologist, Chartered Coaching Psychologist and Chartered Scientist. He is an HCPC Registered counselling and health psychologist. His university appointments include being an Honorary Professor of Practice at the Institute of Management and Health, University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), and an Adjunct Professor of Coaching Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He is a also Director of Studies and Supervisor for PhD students at UWTSD. He is Co-ordinating Director of the ISCP International Centre for Coaching Psychology Research, Faculty of Climate Change and Coaching Psychology.

Stephen is the Coaching at Work magazine publisher. He President of the International Society for Coaching Psychology, Vice President of the Institute of Health Promotion and Education and former President and Honorary Fellow of both the Association for Coaching and the International Stress Management Association (UK). He has written/edited 60 books and over 300 articles/book chapters on a range of topics eg wellbeing, stress, ecopsychology, climate coaching, relaxation & resilience. He describes himself as a pracademic who enjoys coastal walking and jazz. He is Chair of Relaxation UK.

Fran Smith, PCC MSc, is an experienced leadership coach with a deep passion for addressing the climate
crisis. Originally from the UK and now based in Brazil, Fran founded the Brazilian community of the CCA in She holds ICF-approved certification in Climate Change Mastery and has increasingly integrated sustainable and regenerative systems change into both her personal and professional life.

For free conference registration click HERE.

The 2025 Climate Coaching Action Day Podcasts:

Podcast: Liz Hall in Conversation with Emma Pearson

Podcast: Liz Hall in conversation with Charlotte Hastings

Coaching at Work produces Radio Climate Coaching Action, a 24/7 radio station which has interviews with coaches. Visit the station webpage for more information.