CIC Annual Reporting
A commitment to do business on behalf of Earth – which includes its human and more than human inhabitants – underpins everything we do
We commit to:
- Recognise Earth as the primary stakeholder
- Map any work against the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while documenting how these activities contribute to a wellbeing economy
- Work only with clients who are committed to systems change that places Earth and all its inhabitants at the heart of what they do
- Place priority on ‘Earth gain’ i.e. activity that enables Earth to regenerate its natural resources while creating a reciprocal relationship between Earth and humanity that allows all life to thrive
- Prioritise the democratisation of coaching so that transformational change is delivered throughout communities and organisations through a multi-level approach
- Develop the evidence base within the coaching profession to advocate for economic systems change to a wellbeing economy – one where people and Earth are at the heart of all economic activity – and influence the policies and practices of the coaching profession
As part of this commitment we are required to submit an benefit report as part of our yearly financial accounts.
Year End 2024
During this financial year, we focused our efforts on deepening our climate and nature-based work through high-impact collaborations and community-driven innovation.
Innovation and Partnership Development
This year, our work focused on translating vision into grounded action — from nature-based solutions and digital innovation to neurodivergent inclusion and community-led climate action. We secured an innovation voucher through the Interface scheme, enabling us to partner with the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) to co-design and develop a viable food forest model. This £15,000 collaboration—£7.5k direct to UHI and £7.5k in-kind from Earthself—laid the groundwork for scaling food forests as nature-based solutions for communities and SMEs through Emiel’s Food Forest.
Community Climate Action with SWAN Autism
In partnership with SWAN Autism, we co-developed the NatureAware Coaching Adventure, one of only eight initiatives selected from over 180 applications to receive funding through the Scottish Government’s Climate Engagement Fund. This project empowered women and non-binary people within the autistic community to tap into their autistic joy of nature to create nature-positive community projects. The project launched in August 2024 and was over-subscribed.
NatureAware sits alongside national initiatives delivered by organisations such as the Princes Trust, National Museums of Scotland, and the Scottish Association for Marine Science.
Student-Led Food Forest Movement
In October 2024, we planted the first phase of Emiel’s Food Forest, bringing together a team of 40 individuals—including 16 students from five Scottish universities—for a transformational weekend of tree planting, storytelling, and personal growth. A total of 93% of the students wanting to continue to be involved.
This project was made possible by the support of pioneering businesses and individuals committed to a nature-positive future. We raised approximately £10,000 in financial contributions from businesses and invested an additional £20,000 in in-kind support and expenses to ensure a strong foundation for Scotland’s growing food forest movement.
Key supporters included:
- Champion: notch.eco
- Partners: Highland Game, Frinova Woodlands, Bidwells, Falling Leaf Clothing, BMP Europe, Think Partnership, Camu-fin Private Highland Club, Highland Travel, Taiga Upland, RTS Forestry, Britton Scotland
- Supporters: Own Your Step, Balanced by Nature
- Logistics Partner: Loch Rannoch Hotel and Estate
Establishing Earthself Initiatives
In response to overwhelming community interest, we launched Earthself Initiatives, a non-profit social enterprise to steward the food forest movement. Earthself Initiatives aims to:
- Utilise Emiel’s Food Forest as a living laboratory showcasing nature-based solutions for community and ecological benefit
- Inspire a student-led food forest movement across universities and communities in Scotland
- Engage individuals and organisations within a 50-mile radius of the Rannoch area in hands-on environmental learning and stewardship
NatureProcess Coach Training
We continued delivery of the NatureProcess Coach Training, following its Level 1 accreditation with the International Coaching Federation the previous year. Feedback from the current cohort, due to graduate in 2025, remains overwhelmingly positive. The programme continues to evolve in alignment with systemic and Earth-connected principles.
Digital Innovation and Prototyping
We secured a place on the fully funded Techscaler Start Up First Steps programme (delivered by Codebase), where we developed a prototype for our Earth Impact Assessment Tool. Participation in the AccelerateHER Hackathon supported the creation of a Minimum Viable Product, positioning us to explore digital pathways for advancing systemic impact measurement.
Sustainable Development Goals
Our work this year meaningfully contributed to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- SDG 4 – Quality Education
Through the NatureProcess Coach Training and NatureAware Coaching Adventure, we empowered individuals with the skills, awareness, and confidence to take aligned action in support of a thriving Earth. - SDG 5 – Gender Equality
The NatureAware project focused on women and non-binary people in the autistic community, amplifying underrepresented voices and enabling greater gender equity in climate action and Earth-connected leadership. - SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities
Our collaboration with SWAN Autism intentionally addresses the systemic exclusion of neurodivergent individuals from climate action based on neurotypical norms. - SDG 13 – Climate Action
Through community food forests, business partnerships, and climate engagement programmes, we supported individuals and organisations to take practical, nature-positive climate action. - SDG 15 – Life on Land
Emiel’s Food Forest is a nature-based solution that contributes to biodiversity, ecological restoration, and sustainable land use practices. - SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals
We fostered powerful partnerships across universities, social enterprises, government funders, and mission-aligned businesses to amplify systemic impact and advance collective climate goals.
A Note on Leadership
This year’s impact reflects not just strategic focus, but the lived commitment of our Founding Director — a late-diagnosed autistic woman continuing to lead from within recovery after autistic burnout led to her diagnosis in 2022.
Earthself’s work is shaped by the rhythms of Earth, systemic leadership that prioritises the health and wellbeing of people and planet over profit, and the lived intelligence of neurodivergence. As such, our progress is not measured by speed or scale alone, but by integrity, alignment, and the capacity to sustain transformation over time.
Consultation with stakeholders
All major initiatives undertaken this year were shaped by meaningful consultation with a diverse range of stakeholders.
- Emiel’s Food Forest was co-designed through a research-led analysis conducted by a UHI researcher, based on seven in-depth 1–2hour conversations with individuals involved in existing food forest projects across Scotland.
- Additionally, a full-day Business Lab with four University of Stirling students informed key components for embedding student leadership and long-term engagement in the food forest movement.
- A one-hour stakeholder session with core partners from Earthself’s broader ecosystem also helped shape the strategic direction for the food forest as a scalable nature-based solution.
This layered, relational approach ensured the food forest initiative was grounded in lived expertise, student voice, and systemic relevance across sectors.
Directors’ remuneration
The total amount paid or receivable by directors in respect of qualifying services was £9,096. An additional £7,827.13 was paid to directors to offset existing director loans made previously to the business. There were no other transactions or arrangements in connection with the remuneration of directors, or compensation for director’s loss of office, which require to be disclosed.
Transfer of assets
No transfer of assets other than for full consideration.
This report was approved by the board of directors on
25 March 2025
And signed on behalf of the board by:
Name: Neil Harrod
Status: Director
Year End 2023
During this financial year, we continued to work with the social enterprise Net Zero Nation after the launch of their Net Zero Accelerator, a twelve-month group learning programme designed to help SMEs gain SECR standard carbon accounts and expert advice to accelerate their journey to Net Zero.
This enabled the organisation to continue generating revenue and created a number of further partnerships that allowed the organisation to increase the number of SMEs taking part in their programme and help them explore ways to manage and mitigate their carbon emissions; a necessary part of their transition to becoming a more sustainable business that benefits Earth and all its inhabitants.
We also continued working with Shift Bristol, a Community Interest Company, that runs a 12-month personal sustainability course for individuals to equip them with the necessary skills to transition to a more sustainable way of life, supporting them to embed nature-ways ways of working into their daily operations and continue to develop the organisation.
We submitted Earthself’s NatureProcess Coach Training Programme to the International Coaching Federation for Level 1 Accreditation and subsequently received the accreditation. This enabled us to start recruiting a cohort due to start in the next financial year and to start exploring how to further enhance the programme so that it can further contribute to our community.
We continued to with a small number of additional clients to provide consulting and advisory services related to developing a small area of their organisation helping them contribute more effectively to sustaining life on Earth.
Lastly, we agreed to take on stewardship of 1.3 hectares of land on the shore of Loch Rannoch to create a community food forest and explore how these could become viable nature-based solutions for SMEs moving forward.
The SDGs contributed to the most in this year were 4: Quality Education and 13: Climate Action.
Consultation with stakeholders
The decision to take on stewardship of the land to create a community food forest was informed by conversations with a number of stakeholders, namely directors, clients, partners, potential funders and the public at large.
Directors’ remuneration
The total amount paid or receivable by directors in respect of qualifying services was £9,096. An additional £16,500.79 was paid to directors to offset existing director loans made previously to the business. There were no other transactions or arrangements in connection with the remuneration of directors, or compensation for director’s loss of office, which require to be disclosed.
Transfer of assets
No transfer of assets other than for full consideration
This report was approved by the board of directors on
21 July 2024
And signed on behalf of the board by:
Name: Tabitha Jayne
Status: Director
Year End 2022
Earthself works with forward thinking teams and organisations, people and communities who know there is a better way of doing business: one that is inspired by Earth itself.
Our financial year benefitted the community in the following ways: Earthself ran ‘The Future Series’: a two-week hybrid conference aimed at catalysing a ‘movement of movements’ with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland and around the world.
This event was run in support of COP26, in partnership with Net Zero Nation whose mission is to mass mobilise SMEs on their journey to Net Zero. It was funded by The Alef Trust; a global leader in transformative education and training in consciousness, transpersonal and spiritual psychology.
In total, 769 people registered for all the Future Series sessions. Throughout the two weeks of online sessions, we had 77 speakers. Over the course of two weeks, we hosted 33 different sessions and 1 post-COP26 event the week after.
This raised the awareness of a number of key organisations that are working to benefit Earth and all its inhabitants and helped created greater awareness of the positive climate action happening with Scotland and beyond.
Following this, we continued to work with the social enterprise Net Zero Nation to help develop and launch their Net Zero Accelerator, a twelve-month group learning programme designed to help SMEs gain SECR standard carbon accounts and expert advice to accelerate their journey to Net Zero.
This enabled the organisation to start generating revenue and create a number of partnerships that allowed the organisation to increase the number of SMEs taking part in their programme and help them explore ways to manage and mitigate their carbon emissions; a necessary part of their transition to becoming a more sustainable business that benefits Earth and all its inhabitants.
We also started working with Shift Bristol, a Community Interest Company, that runs a 12-month personal sustainability course for individuals to equip them with the necessary skills to transition to a more sustainable way of life. We supported their new director to transition successfully into the role as well as mapped the organisational purpose, identified roles and skills required to grow organization and assessed strategy, capacity, resources and impact. This enabled the organisation to develop an advisory board to support continued growth, maintain their services and revenue for the following year and identify next steps to further develop the organisation. We also worked with a small number of additional clients to provide consulting and advisory services related to developing a small area of their organisation helping them contribute more effectively to sustaining life on Earth.
Consultation with stakeholders
Some of our stakeholders are coaches who have previously trained with us. Following consultation with them, we started finalising Earthself’s NatureProcess Coach Training Programme so that we could submit it for accreditation with the International Coaching Federation as this would enable our stakeholders to apply for ICF accreditation themselves more easily. We also redesigned our go-to market strategy in light of learnings from previously running the programme due to continued interest from prospective clients who were interested in taking part in the coach training programme.
Directors’ remuneration
The total amount paid or receivable by directors in respect of qualifying services was £8,192.64. An additional £2,011.53 was paid to directors to offset existing director loans made previously to the business. There were no other transactions or arrangements in connection with the remuneration of directors, or compensation for director’s loss of office, which require to be disclosed.
Transfer of assets
No transfer of assets other than for full consideration
This report was approved by the board of directors on
25 July 2023
And signed on behalf of the board by:
Name: Tabitha Jayne
Status: Director
Year End 2021
The company received funding from the Alef Trust’s Conscious Community Project to run an applied research project, ‘Elf-strength of the Earth’ to explore whether it is possible to create a deeper connection to Earth in virtual spaces.
15 coaches and facilitators came together to create an EarthConnected Process. In total, 172 people participated in this research project. We recruited 144 people to take part in the online sessions. 105 people attended one of 11 pilot sessions. 16 countries were represented in the study; Phillipines, Indonesia, Australia, France, Germany, Greece, United Kingdom, Canada, United States of America, Japan, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Carribean Islands, South Africa and Sweden.
Additionally, through conversations with one of the project stakeholder’s we ran a separate session using a short film to catalyse an exploration of how to bring nature and Earth into virtual sessions.
Twenty-eight people took part in this phase of the project and a virtual guide to working with Earth and nature online was created during a four-week guided process. The statistical analysis shows that taking part in an Earth Connected Process created a shift the participants relationship with Earth.
One of the key positive changes this project created was a sense of community and connection with others. The majority of participants identified ways they could deepen their relationship with Earth. A number of the coaches and facilitators that took part in the pilot sessions were inspired to do more sessions based around this process and incorporate it into their own work.
Thanks to the coaches and facilitators’ who led the pilot sessions and paid their participation fee forward, Earthself was able to partner with Worldview Impact Foundation and plant 225 native species trees. These trees will be maintained for five years, which ensures a 95% survival rate. Over the next 30 years, these trees will drawdown 225 tons of carbon dioxide.
Through this project, the company actively contributed to 10 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 1 – No Poverty; 2 – Zero Hunger; 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing; 4 – Quality Education; 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth; 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production; 13 – Climate Action; 14 – Life Below Water; 15 – Life on Land and; 17 – Partnership for the Goals.
This project also helps contribute towards a wellbeing economy, which is a redesign of our current economic system into one that prioritizes the health and wellbeing of both people and Earth before profit. The evidence base shows that when people are able to receive the healing benefits of connecting with nature and Earth, they experience better relationships with other humans and take better care of the Earth itself. This connection also helps change people’s perspectives and enhance systemic thinking, creativity and innovation. These are essential components of redesigning the way all our human systems function.
Consultation with stakeholders
The company’s stakeholders were the coaches and facilitators who took part in the research project as well as a number of other organisations linked to the project; Sutra; Alef Trust and Earthaconter. Meetings were arranged with representatives from each organisation to ensure that the applied research project met their needs. Additionally there were a number of stakeholder sessions with the coaches and facilitators to ensure they were able to contribute to the development of the applied research project. Additionally participants in the applied research project were also considered stakeholders and were invited to reflect upon their experience over the course of a week after participating in a pilot session and sharing any feedback on the project. This enabled us to identify a number of key areas for future development of this project.
Directors’ remuneration
The total amount paid or receivable by directors in respect of qualifying services was £15435.63. There were no other transactions or arrangements in connection with the remuneration of directors, or compensation for director’s loss of office, which require to be disclosed.
Transfer of assets
No transfer of assets other than for full consideration
This report was approved by the board of directors on
31 July 2022
And signed on behalf of the board by:
Name: Tabitha Jayne
Status: Director
Before we created Emiel’s Food Forest, we had two key partnerships that helped us do business on behalf of Earth:
A simple way to help us integrate giving into our everyday business through linking core business activity to global impact.
A transparent, verified and efficient way to create regenerative sustainability that allows us to take planet action, track science-based impact and engage with data and content.