Our Story
Earthself is an Earth Intelligence practice.
We develop Earth Intelligence in practitioners, organisations and communities; helping people and systems learn from, align with and contribute to the intelligence that has sustained life on Earth for 4.5 billion years.
Founded in Scotland in 2015, Earthself began with a question that was both simple and disruptive:
What would it look like to take Earth seriously — not as metaphor, backdrop or resource, but as the most sophisticated intelligence system we have access to?
Earth has been solving the problems of life, adaptation, resilience and interdependence for longer than any human institution, framework or discipline. Its intelligence is not abstract. It is legible, practicable and directly relevant to how organisations lead, decide and operate.
That insight became the foundation of everything Earthself has built since.
What we have learned
Over more than a decade of research, practice and methodology development, one pattern has emerged consistently.
The organisations, leaders and practitioners we work with are not lacking in values, commitment or capability. What is often missing is the knowledge, practice and grounding needed to connect those existing strengths to Earth’s intelligence, and through it, to the risks, opportunities and decisions that matter most.
This is the gap Earthself exists to close.
How we work
Earthself works across three interconnected areas.
With practitioners through the NatureProcess Coach Training, an ICF Level 1 accredited programme that develops coaches and practitioners grounded in nature-based methodology and Earth Intelligence.
With organisations through the Nature Readiness Review and EarthConnected development programmes, helping leadership teams understand their current position, identify knowledge gaps, and build the capacity to navigate a changing operating environment.
With communities through Earthself Initiatives, developing food forests, biocultural heritage projects and commons-based work that embeds Earth Intelligence in place and practice.
Each area is distinct. All three are expressions of the same body of work.
Where we come from
Earthself was founded by Tabitha Jayne, an ecological leadership practitioner, researcher and writer with more than two decades of practice in the field.
Her work draws on peer-reviewed research in Earth connection, the NatureProcess methodology, and doctoral research at Strathclyde Business School examining how dominant leadership development frameworks exclude neurodivergent and ecological ways of knowing.
That last thread matters to how Earthself operates. As an autistic-led organisation, we are committed to neuro-inclusive practice; not as an addition to our work, but as integral to it. The exclusion of neurodivergent epistemologies and the exclusion of ecological knowledge are, in our view, connected phenomena. Addressing one without the other leaves the work incomplete.
What has remained constant
Throughout a decade of evolution, from small coaching practice to Community Interest Company, from individual methodology to multi-strand organisation, one thing has not changed.
Earth is at the core.
Not as metaphor. Not as brand. As guide, teacher, collaborator and stakeholder in everything we do.
Earthself is structured as a CIC so that ecological benefit scales with organisational growth. As the organisation grows, so does its contribution to Earth and community. That is not aspiration. It is written into our governance.
We continue to evolve — listening, learning and adapting — in the same way that any living system does.