What is the Community Climate Coaches Project?
Community Climate Coaches is an exciting, Europe-wide community climate action and climate justice project aimed at catalysing, supporting, and co-creating transformative change at the local and (bio) regional levels through community-led initiatives.
Who is this for?
Community Climate Coaches (CCCs) is an approach to train, support and enable community facilitators and catalysts across Europe to coach communities in local resilience in the face of the multiple social and ecological crises, and the opportunities this creates for change.
The outputs of this project are designed to cultivate a deeper connection with nature, build on the strengths of communities, and facilitate participative processes to enhance local resilience encouraging the adoption of more regenerative, circular, and restorative approaches.
The Context for Community Climate Coaching
While community climate action is essential for navigating the transition to a regenerative, low-carbon future, such efforts are often fragmented, inadequately facilitated, non-inclusive, and insufficiently supported.The urgent need for transformative change at local and bioregional levels calls for addressing interrelated ecological and social crises while ensuring a just transition for all.
The CCC project aims to catalyse systemic transformation by addressing the root causes of the converging challenges, to cultivate trust and relationships within the broader community, identify and connect local initiatives, and facilitate conversations that promote increased understanding and drive ambitious action for community-led responses.
The CCC Resilience Pathway: Two Waves and Six Phases
The Two Wave framework, which has been adapted from the Berkana Institute’s ‘Two Loop Model of Change’ and also encapsulate Joanna Macy’s concepts of “The Great Unravelling” and “The Great Turning”, is a valuable tool for comprehending the changes occurring as well as our position in the transformation process.
The two wave framework and six phases on the pathway can be seen as a map that relates to:
- a coach or facilitator’s personal journey,
- the process the community climate coaches lead the community through
- the overall CCC process of building community / bioregional resilience
Watch the video explaining the Two Wave Framework
The six phases embedded in the two wave framework are…
- Growing Personal Resilience and Capacity
The first stage of the CCC Resilience Pathway focuses on gaining a comprehensive understanding of the context and causes of the current ecological and climate situation, while also cultivating personal resilience and developing the capacity to navigate complexity.
- Building Collective Capacity in Community Engagement
In this second phase the focus is on how we relate and work with others. Building a team or community of practice, and developing our facilitation competencies to better support communities in creating meaningful change.
- Connecting with Community, Place and Nature
Phase 3 involves community climate coaches working with local stakeholders to facilitate a deeper connection with nature and place. By using observation exercises, dialogue walks, and facilitated appreciation activities, coaches foster stronger relationships within the community and with living systems.
- Mapping Strengths & Envisioning Community-Led Initiatives
In phase 4 climate coaches work with the community to identify local strengths and vulnerabilities through participatory asset mapping processes, capturing stories of the place and fostering the understanding and potential for community-led initiatives that fit the needs of the place.
- Hosting Dialogue & Nourishing Community-Led Initiatives
In phase 5 the Community Climate Coach hosts conversations with communities to co-create a shared vision for resilience and a just transition. This involves using tools such as scenario planning, visioning exercises, and inclusive facilitation techniques to engage diverse stakeholders and support the emergence of new regenerative systems aligned with community values.
- Deepening Impact & Amplifying Transformative Innovation
In the final phase of the CCC Resilience Pathway, community climate coaches create spaces for reflection, peer support, and celebration. While focusing on deepening impact, coaches aim to increase participation and scale up successful community-led initiatives to reduce emissions and strengthen resilience over time.
The 6 Phases are explained further in the CCC Toolkit and Resilience Pathway document and deepened through the following 5 competence areas, each with their own learning pathway that are explored deeper in our Competence Framework.
What are the outputs of the Community Climate Coaches project?
The consortium has developed the following outputs to help drive community-led climate action, regeneration and resilience.
Facilitating Resilience and Regeneration: A Guide for Catalysts of Community Climate Action
A summary of all the CCC project outputs translated into 7 languages.
The CCC Toolkit and Resilience Pathway
The Community Climate Coaches Toolkit and Resilience Pathway is a collection of carefully curated resources, methods, and practical approaches specifically designed to empower facilitators, coaches, and community catalysts to facilitate transformative change, implement regenerative interventions, and build resilience in local communities, city neighbourhoods, and bioregions through community-led initiatives.
- The complete CCC Toolkit and Resilience Pathway (English)
- Summaries are available in:
CCC Competencies and Learning Pathways Resources & Tools
The purpose of the CCC competencies and learning pathway work and outputs is to define and promote the role and vocation of Community Climate Coaches, to catalyse, scale and accelerate community climate action. These outputs explain the many roles and activities to be delivered, facilitated and activated by Community Climate Coaches in the communities they are working in to respond to the socio-ecological emergencies.
Click here for more details on the CCC Competencies Framework and Learning Pathways.
- The complete CCC Competencies and Learning Pathways Resources & Tools file (English)
- Summaries are available in:
The CCC Good and Emergent Practice Guide
The CCC Good and Emergent Practice guide is a compilation of stories and insights from community climate facilitators who are actively engaged in diverse climate actions across Europe. The guide features a range of inspiring individuals from different backgrounds, with different skills and experiences, who work in various contexts. The guide demonstrates that there is no single model for a coach, and that each will need to adapt their approach to their unique context and conditions. However, the emerging practices highlighted in the guide can be used as a starting point to learn from and build upon.
- The complete CCC Good and Emergent Practice Guide file (English) separated into 5 chapters
1: Good Practice in Community Development and Facilitation
2: Good Practice in Engaging with Local Government
3: Good Practice in Digital Collaboration and Blended Engagement
4: Good Practice in Community Climate Action
5: Good Practice in Inner Transition
- Summaries are available in:
CCC Blended Curriculum
The CCC curriculum presents a curated collection of both virtual as well as in-person activities along with an explanation of the overall training purpose and learning objectives as well as technical considerations to keep in mind. The training follows the 6 phases of the CCC learning pathway, and includes teaching support material such as posters, videos and recommended readings.
Regenerative Knowledge Commons (RKC)
An open-source, wiki-based commons for collectively (re)generating knowledge. The RKC is designed to make visible and tangible the constellations of individuals and collectives engaged in transforming their ecosocial systems guided by a regenerative or living systems paradigm. These self-organising constellations occur locally as Communities of Place and translocally as Communities of Practice and we refer to the place where these meet as transformative ecosystems. Supporting the emergence, growth, visibility and potency of such transformative ecosystems is the key purpose of the RKC.
The CCC Consortium Partners:
The Community Climate Coach project has been developed through a consortium of partners active in European Permaculture, Ecovillage, Transition Towns and Regenerative Design networks.
The partner organisations are:
- ECOLISE, the European network of communities taking action on climate change – Communities for Future – Platform for a network of communities taking action for a healthier, fairer, and more sustainable world.
- Cultivate Living & Learning, Ireland
- Centre for Ecological Learning, Luxembourg
- The Permaculture Association, Britain
- Resilience Earth, Catalonia, Spain
- FCiencias.ID, Lisbon University, Portugal
- Suomen Kylat RY,The Finnish Village Movement Association, Finland
- Hrvatska permakultura, Croatia
Since 2021, the partners have worked as a Community of Practice to advance Community Climate Coaching as a new vocation that assists citizens and groups to respond to the ecological and climate emergency through a form of community-led regenerative local development.
For more information or to receive training in this field, reach out to your local member of the CCC Consortium.
Become a Community Climate Coach!
Sign up to the CfF newsletter and subscribe to the youtube channel to be informed of training and materials.
Join the Community Catalyst Community of Practice
CCC is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme. Proj. ref.: 2020-1-IE01-KA204-066023
The European Commission’s support for this strategic partnership does not constitute an endorsement of the outputs that were produced, which reflect the views of the consortium partners alone. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
