Capability building for sustainability and climate teams working in complexity
Dr Josie McLean helps sustainability and climate teams in government, councils and Landscape boards build the capability to work in genuinely complex conditions, sustain the people doing the work, and create real change without burning out.
I work with sustainability and climate teams who are technically excellent but worn down by everything around the work: plans that go stale, conflict from every direction, and passionate people quietly burning out. Over a twelve-month engagement, I develop the team and its leader on their real projects, building the capability to work in complexity, hold hard conversations, and sustain themselves. This is not training. Capability gets built on live work, so it sticks.
Why passionate sustainability teams burn out
You know this team. You might lead it. The people are passionate and technically excellent. That's not the problem. The problem is what surrounds the work.
Three things wear these teams down:
Plans that don't move. Detailed plans that took months to write, then sat unused, overtaken by events.
Conflict from every direction. Difficult conversations with landholders and community on one side, and with colleagues and executives competing for a finite budget on the other.
Quiet burnout. People who care so deeply they exhaust themselves, with a sense that no one ever taught them how to do this part of the job.
These teams have been trained to pull technical levers: better data, better plans, better business cases. Those levers don't shift cultures, resolve conflict, or protect passionate people from exhaustion. The capability that's missing now is the capability to work well in complexity.
Three capabilities Dr Josie McLean helps teams build
About Dr Josie McLean
Dr Josie McLean is a systems practitioner, author and organisational consultant based in South Australia. She has spent more than two decades helping organisations navigate complex change, and in 2025 was named one of twelve global pioneers of Regenerative Coaching.
She is co-founder of the Climate Coaching Alliance, a global community of around 4,000 coaches and leaders, and co-editor of the first book on climate coaching, Ecological and Climate Conscious Coaching. Her work sits where systems thinking, leadership development and purpose-driven change meet. She has worked with Green Adelaide, Landscape boards, local government and the South Australian Governor's Leadership Program, which she facilitated for over fifteen years.
Frequently asked questions
Who is this for? Sustainability and climate teams in government, councils and NRM/Landscape boards, and the managers and leaders who run them.
Is this training? No. Capability is built on your team's real projects and initiatives, not in a classroom, so the learning transfers and sticks.
How long is an engagement? A typical engagement runs over twelve months, combining monthly leader coaching with quarterly full-day or monthly half-day team sessions.
What problems does it address? Plans that stall in complex conditions, conflict with community, stakeholders and colleagues, and burnout in passionate, high-performing people.
How do we start? With a no-obligation discovery conversation, or a short block of three leader coaching sessions, whichever feels right.
Who is Dr Josie McLean? A systems practitioner, author and consultant with over two decades of experience in complex organisational change, named one of twelve global pioneers of Regenerative Coaching in 2025 and co-founder of the Climate Coaching Alliance.