Why more managers are going back to nature

Waking up on a chilly morning in the woods near Reading, in southern England, with the first rays of the sun streaming through his tent and a slight stiff neck, Steve Waygood could be forgiven for thinking he’d signed up for the wrong course.

But this is “experiential learning” in the raw: an increasingly popular practice used by companies to connect their workforces to the real substance of their environmental policies.

As head of responsible investment at British insurer Aviva, Waygood is already more on board than most. But eco-hat or not, he still sees the value of ditching his suit for a few days and stepping into nature. “If we forget to savor the world,” he says, quoting acclaimed American children’s writer EB White, “what possible reason do we have to save it?”

Exasperated corporate environment departments may well be asking the same question. For all the rhetoric about corporate sustainability and ESG in recent years, little seems to be working.

According to a recent global survey by the UK communication agency Kite Insights, the majority (56%) of workers cannot explain their own company’s climate commitments – despite an overwhelming volume (77%) working in this area.

So could ditching the classroom and heading for the mountains close this troubling disconnect?
Andres Roberts has few doubts. Founder of the Bio-Leadership Project, a UK nature-inspired consultancy and grants network, he is a veteran leader of training experiences for organizations such as the Barbican Centre, food retailer Better Food and the natural cosmetics. He’s also the man behind Waygood’s sleep in the woods — part of a weekend retreat aimed at, in Roberts’ words, “reigniting our ability to see the big picture.”

By conventional training standards, his methods are unorthodox, ranging from games and conversations around campfires to journaling and brainstorming under blue skies. Building on the fundamental belief that being in nature is the best way to understand nature, Roberts recently helped create a training program for the European division of American outdoor clothing brand Patagonia.

Held in a forest outside the Dutch city of Utrecht, the “University of the Earth”, as Patagonia calls it, seeks to encourage employees to connect with the company’s stated mission – namely, the somewhat ambitious promise to “save our planet Christmas”. Describing it as the “company’s own forestry school,” Evelyn Doyle, Patagonia’s head of people and culture, insists the outdoor environment is critical to the initiative’s effectiveness.

“Whether it’s sunny or wintery, we’re in the environment we talk to,” she says. “It’s about bringing people back to nature so they can learn not from PowerPoints, but from the ecosystem around them.”

Anne-Marie Robles, Patagonia’s District Retail Manager, was only too happy to leave the formal classroom behind. A member of the first class at the University of Earth, she describes her experience in the forest as “entering a green screen room”.

Gone is the usual training paraphernalia in stuffy rooms and scribbles on the whiteboard, replaced by the wind on your skin and dirt under your feet.

For three days, it was a break from drafting strategy on whiteboards and, instead, the sight of trees and the feel of the wind in your hair.

“It sounds very esoteric and hippie, but I actually found it to be a really liberating environment to approach topics from a completely different point of view,” he reflects.

Pukka Herbs, a Bristol-based herbal tea and supplement brand, has a very similar arrangement with The Eden Project, an eco-education charity based in southwest England. During a two-night stay, groups of ten employees at a time undertake a range of structured and unstructured activities, from individual nature walks to private tours of the institution’s famous hothouse rainforests.

The primary objective is for participants to have the time and space to consider the company’s values, both at the “individual level” and the “Pukka level”, explains Suzy Stollery, the brand’s personnel director. “All these activities combined gradually move you from the head to the heart. So it’s not so much a cognitive process, but an embedded process where you really feel things,” she says.

Emma Colwill confirms the impact of stepping out of a conventional learning environment. As director of global business development at Pukka, her daily focus is on building new markets.
But after a few days at the Eden Project (she’s been three times in all), she felt able to “gain perspective” and “see things as they are”.

“I was amazed at how the experience of nature as a classroom allowed me to tap into my inner wisdom – my conscious and unconscious self – which can be really valuable in a business context,” she says.

The most enthusiastic supporters of nature training as a classroom tend to come from the more progressive end of the business spectrum (the values ​​of “truth,” “respect,” “clarity,” and “courage,” for example, derive from traditions of ancient wisdom).

But those on the harder side of capitalism are experimenting too. These include HSBC, Europe’s largest lender, which has a long-standing training partnership with the charity Earthwatch.

To date, the UK-based bank has placed more than 15,000 employees in the program, which started out as an offsite location for those with direct responsibilities related to the environment, but is now open to employees in any field.

The change shows a growing realization that meeting bold corporate sustainability goals cannot be the work of a team specializing in the environment, but requires full buy-in.

Success here, in turn, depends on shifting employees’ mindsets from the “what?” from environmental responsibility to “why?” says John Ward-Zinski, director of business development at Earthwatch Europe. “‘Why is it important?’ ‘Why is our organization spending so much time on these things?’ ‘Why should I care?’ Getting employees to start asking these questions is like going beyond just marking alternatives, still so common in many companies,” he says.

But dispatching employees in their hiking boots and rain gear takes an additional layer of effort on the part of everyone, employer and employee. So is it really worth it?
George Ferns, professor of organizational studies and sustainability at Cardiff University, insists it is. Employees with a connection to nature exhibit a stronger sense of purpose, he says, as well as a greater willingness to carry out employers’ environmental plans. However, nature-based training has its challenges, he admits. An immediate concern is maintaining initial employee engagement. A week or two after returning to work, memories of the honeysuckle scent and birdsong can quickly fade.

“The hope is that the lessons from these experiences will spill over into people’s daily operational lives, but the effect often wears off as they continue their work,” says Ferns.
Encouraging participants to write down their main thoughts or set clear resolutions can help sustain the positive outcomes of a course, he suggests.

Some companies are also looking to incorporate nature-based learning resources into their office environments. Pukka, for example, now has a dedicated, tech-free “retreat space” in its main office where employees can go for a quiet moment of reflection, say, or some yoga.

A greater challenge, of course, is the very real possibility of a clash of cultures. As business-friendly as these alternative training providers try to be, their world is about protecting the planet, not hitting targets or changing products. In that sense, attendees can expect plenty of invitations to “be present,” as well as plenty of talk about “interconnectedness,” “regenerative thinking,” and similar eco-friendly concepts.

Pam Horton, manager of The Eden Project’s leadership programs, admits that some participants may find the experience uncomfortable, especially at first.

If people can be patient and avoid worrying about having to turn off their phones or even hug a tree, however, the effects can be profound.

“We have a lot of people who come to us who have never stopped and immersed themselves in nature, [mas] when they do the effects can be really huge,” says Horton.

Even so, for the hardened urban dweller unaccustomed to the great outdoors, the idea of ​​camping or even an evening stroll through a dark forest can still seem daunting.
Aviva’s Waygood is wary of companies that force employees to participate, but his main advice is still that everyone should try at least once. The only exception is the staunch skeptics. Not only will they not be able to get anything out of the experience, he suggests, “they will ruin it for everyone else.”

As for him, he’s already in touch with the Bio-Leadership Project team for new weekends outdoors — though perhaps in a motorhome next time.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves