Training
Coach training and leadership development
Join a course
Learn to work with Nature for client wellbeing and planetary health
Experiential, evidence-based learning, led by a Chartered Environmentalist and Professional Certified Coach
Training in Nature Based Coaching Skills
Register now for our online course starting 29 April 2025
Course overview
Through our experiential and evidence-based programme you will learn to partner with Nature in your work. You will enhance your coaching skills, and accelerate your growth as a coach who benefits client wellbeing and planetary health.
The course will cover the major frameworks, theories and models that you need to understand; develop your working knowledge of the imperatives behind working with Nature; and offers a rich learning environment to develop a more confident practice.
Nature Based Coaching Skills is the first course of its kind to be led by a Chartered Environmentalist and Professional Certified Coach.
Expected benefits include:
- Inspire confidence and establish credibility through an understanding of the science behind your coaching craft
- Find a richer, more rewarding relationship with Nature, with benefits for health and wellbeing
- Connect your clients more deeply with the present moment, so they experience increased clarity and creativity
- Inspire clients to support the natural world and create ripples effects for systemic change
- Empower yourself and others to take meaningful action for self and the Earth.
In a nutshell
30 hours CPD with certificate of completion via a 10 week virtual live course.
Nature Based Coaching Skills training is experiential and interactive, and involves small group discussions, plenaries and teachings, as well as live practices.
- Six, 2 hourly sessions of live teaching online.
- 2 hours live action learning
- 6 hours reflective self-study
- 6 hours co-coaching
- 4 hours memory supportive testing and reflective journalling
- 6 hour face to face workshop (optional)
- Online resources, recordings and an ongoing graduate community of practice
- A copy of the book ‘Being in Nature: 20 Practices to Help you Flourish in a Busy World’
- Discounts on retreats.
Next course starts 29 April 2025.
Course fee discount may be available for subscribers.
Course details
Course dates
Courses start on Tuesday 29 April 2025. There are 2 options to choose from: Course A (Oak) which runs at 0900-1100 BST/UTC+1, Course B (Willow) which runs at 1700-1900 BST/UTC+1
Module 1, 29 April 2025
Module 2, 13 May 2025
Module 3, 27 May 2025
Module 4, 10 June 2025
Action Learning Set, 15 June 2025
Module 5, 24 June 2025
Module 6, 8 July 2025
Face to face workshop (optional), 19 July 2025 1000-1700
Course fees
The cost of the Nature Based Coaching Skills course is £999. To secure your place, please complete the registration form and pay the deposit, which is £200.
There is an optional face to face workshop at Knepp Wilding project in Sussex, UK, after the course. This is subject to an additional cost of £150 paid for on registration, or at a later date.
Payment details are in the registration form. Our training terms and conditions can be found here. A discount may be available for members of the Natural Coaching Community. VAT is included in all prices.
Your place will be confirmed following receipt of your form and deposit. You will be invoiced the appropriate balance for payment 30 days before the course starts.
Aims and objectives
The course aims to develop Nature Based Coaching skills, through experiential, evidence-based learning. By attending this course you will:
- Understand ethics and safety when working outdoors
- Be able to use scales to measure benefit and impact
- Understand how to apply the ‘Five pathways to nature connectedness’ in your work
- Experience Nature Based Coaching practice, reflective learning, action learning sets, group discussions and plenaries – including working with metaphor, seasons and systems
- Learn personal practices to build connection with Nature.
“The obvious emotional connection to nature is backed up by science, but we do need to think about it properly to respect and protect it.”
CIEEM ‘Science of Nature & Health’ training participant
“Great to share our personal experiences of nature and how to embed this into what we do professionally as coaches.”
‘Coaching for the Planet’ training participant
Why this course?
For too long, coaching has been limited to indoor, inward-looking ‘self-discovery’. Coaching has been virtually silent on the climate crisis, the ecological emergency, and issues of health, social justice and equity. This needs to change.
We believe that coaching needs to support and enable a new relationship with the planet. A relationship based on worthwhile and sustainable life for all. This is what we call ‘Nature Based Coaching’, and why we have established a family of learning called The Natural Coaching CourseTM.
Interest in coaching in the outdoors, and working with Nature and climate change is growing fast. More clients are asking to work in this way. Whilst others are finding out that when they do, they find unexpected benefits.
“Our vision is for a profession that invites nature to be co-coach, and contributes to a regenerative and sustainable way to live on this planet that we share.”
James Farrell & Diana Tedoldi – International Coaching Federation Conference, 2021
But Nature Based Coaching is more than a ‘walk and talk’. It is a philosophy and practice that starts with deepening our own relationship with Nature. Nature Based Coaching supports coaches and clients to transcend the self and include the planet in the frame.
The course distills this experience for you – an offer akin to whisky, rather than water. Material and knowledge for you to sip, savour and enjoy in the company of likeminded souls. Roots for you to trust and grow from as you adapt in your own learning journey, with the confidence that you understand the key frameworks, models and evidence behind your work.
Our courses are underpinned by a scientific and psychological evidence base, and informed by years of practice in the art and craft of Nature Based Coaching. They draw on the competencies of the International Coaching Federation, but will work for coaches from any professional body.
Longer term benefits
In the longer term, we aim for you to benefit in the following ways.
- Deepen and strengthen your coaching mindset. Learn to embody a more nature-connected mindset and way of being that benefits you personally, and as a coach. Enhance what is unique about your coaching philosophy and practice in a way which is authentic to you. Work ethically and responsibly in partnership with Nature.
- Become more ‘eco’ and ‘we-go’. Strengthen bonds with your communities. Reduce your impact on the planet. Ignite action that is good for the environment, people and Nature.
- Enhance your coaching business and its positive impact. Apply relevant theories and frameworks more effectively in terms of client outcomes. Open up your clients to a richer palette of awareness and possibilities. Boost happiness, wellbeing and life satisfaction.
Who is the course for?
Nature Based Coaching Skills training is for coaches who share a vision for a profession which works for the planet, as well as the person. It is aimed at coaches working at, or above, ICF Associate Certified Coach, EMCC Associate, Association for Coaching Coach or other relevant level. If you’re not sure, please ask.
You may be new to working outdoors with clients, or looking to enrich your existing practice. You may want to find out how to bring Nature and the planet into indoor coaching conversations, or you might just be curious about the benefits of a nature-connected life and work.
There is no requirement to have any special access to, or expert knowledge of, wild, green or blue spaces. Nature Based Coaching can take place anywhere – in city or country, from windows or the tops of mountains!
However, there will be a commitment to invest in your personal development and nature-connection every week, as well as participate fully in reflective practice and in co-coaching.
Our expertise
The course leader, James Farrell, is passionate about the relationship between human and planetary health and wellbeing.
James developed the first professional training on nature and health for the Chartered Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management (CIEEM), and has led workshops, webinars and conferences on Nature Based Coaching for the International Coaching Federation and Climate Coaching Alliance, and for Government departments. He has delivered a range of other relevant training for staff and senior leaders – including collaborative working, positive psychology, equity diversity & inclusion and urban greening.
James is an experienced leader, and brings over 30 years of learning from creating change in the environment and sustainability sectors. He is a Chartered Environmentalist, with a Masters Degree in Conservation.
As a Professional Certified Coach, he specialises in leadership transitions, ADHD coaching and supporting mental health. He has been coaching clients outdoors and with Nature for nearly ten years.
He has lived a life full of Nature – from managing remote Scottish islands, to busy inner city wildlife sites. He is author of ‘Being in Nature – 20 Practices to Help you Flourish in a Busy World‘, and TEDx speaker ‘Let Nature be your coach’.
You can read more about James here.
Join us!
Secure your place now by filling out the registration form via the link below. Or if you have questions before you sign up, do reach out. We hope to hear from you soon.
Leadership and team building
Harness the power of nature-connection to boost health, happiness, collaboration and planetary action
Fun, engaging and inspiring support to build leaders and their teams
We offer customised learning, development and team building sessions for organisations large and small. They can take place outdoors, or online via Zoom, and are delivered by expert facilitators and underpinned by sound science. Former clients include the NHS, Greenpeace UK, and Chartered Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management.
“I don’t know that I can express the depth of my gratitude for this session.
I left feeling I had been immersed in nature!”
Course participant
This work can be extended to helping your organisation think about how becoming more Nature connected is good for your people, your customers and your estate.
Photos ©The Natural Coaching Company, TEDx Aston University, Matt Ellery