Ecological Ethics: For the End of the World As We Know It
Tim Hollo explores ecological ethics, responsibility and the forms of leadership needed in a period of accelerating environmental and social change.
Read in the current issueExplore by Subject
Leadership for Sustainability
Leadership for sustainability is not simply about occupying a position of authority. It is about helping people, organisations and communities understand complex challenges, work across boundaries, make wiser choices and move from intention into action. Whole Life Times explores leadership as a relational and systemic practice — one concerned with responsibility, collaboration, imagination, courage, learning and the creation of conditions in which people and the living Earth can flourish together.
Leadership for Sustainability is also a regular Whole Life Times feature within the wider Sustainable Living theme. As new issues, Dialogues and Special Editions are published, this page can therefore grow as a continuing record of people, ideas, organisations and movements helping shape more sustainable and regenerative futures.
Latest
Recent Leadership for Sustainability material
Thinking Outside the Tank
Tim Hollo reflects on leadership, institutions and social change as he steps down as Executive Director of the Green Institute.
Read articleSatish Kumar at 90
A life of peace, simplicity, ecological renewal and educational leadership.
Read articleHumanity's Great Upshift
Leadership for civilisational transformation across consciousness, ecology, education and social systems.
Open Special EditionThe Great Upshift of Humanity
Ervin Laszlo and others on paradigm change, planetary consciousness and leadership for a new global civilisation.
Read Special EditionWhole Life Times · Sustainable Living
A continuing Leadership for Sustainability feature
Leadership seen across society, not only at the top
Whole Life Times uses Leadership for Sustainability broadly. Leadership may be exercised by scientists, educators, community organisers, politicians, authors, activists, designers, entrepreneurs, farmers, artists and people helping create new institutions, technologies, communities and ways of living.
The emphasis is on leadership that contributes to ecological responsibility, social wellbeing, regeneration, systems change and a more life-affirming future. Because this is a continuing WLT feature, articles can remain discoverable here long after the issue in which they first appeared.
One subject, several ways of learning
The magazine provides editorial context and written reflection. WLT Dialogues allows readers and viewers to encounter leaders in extended conversation. Special Editions can then bring multiple voices together around major themes such as women in sustainability leadership and the emergence of eco-civilisations.
Explore Further
Leadership for Sustainability subjects
Gaiarcadia
Leadership within an emerging eco-civilisation
Gaiarcadia provides a natural setting for exploring leadership because the transition towards a more regenerative civilisation cannot be accomplished by any one profession, institution or sector. It requires people who can connect ideas, communities and systems, help new forms of collaboration emerge and hold a longer view while working with the realities of the present.
Systems Leadership
Leading across interconnected challenges
Climate, water, food, technology, education, cities, health and culture continuously influence one another.
Leadership therefore increasingly requires the capacity to see relationships rather than isolated problems.
Explore the Summit programme
GaiaSelf
Leadership and an enlarged sense of self
If leadership is shaped by how we understand ourselves, then the movement towards GaiaSelf raises an important
question: what changes when responsibility extends beyond the organisation or nation towards the wider community of life?
Explore Our Cosmic Journey to GaiaSelf
Regenerative Practice
From vision to implementation
Regenerative agriculture, sustainable cities, renewable technologies and other Summit themes show how leadership
becomes practical through projects, institutions, communities and new ways of organising.
Explore Gaiarcadia sessions
Developing the capacities to lead differently
Gaiarcadia Academy can provide an ongoing setting in which leadership is explored alongside systems thinking, ecological literacy, consciousness, collaboration, ethics and the practical work of creating regenerative change.
Explore GaiarcadiaLeadership on the journey towards Gaiarcadia Summit 2028
The continuing editorial journey towards the second Gaiarcadia Summit offers an opportunity to meet people already helping to lead change, learn from their experience and gradually build a richer conversation around the forms of leadership the coming decades may require.
Follow Summit 2028Gaiarcadia Academy · GAIAS · Summit
Education & Leadership for the Gaianthropocene | Ecozoic era
Leadership was already woven throughout the inaugural Summit
Although the 2024 Summit did not place all leadership material inside one dedicated session, leadership was present throughout its exploration of the Great Upshift, regenerative agriculture, climate and renewable technology, sustainable cities and ecovillages, education, systems thinking, GaiaSelf and collective transformation.
Leadership for Sustainability becomes a dedicated Summit session
The 2028 Gaiarcadia Summit is planned to include a dedicated Leadership for Sustainability session, creating a clearer meeting place for leaders from politics, education, community, business, research and regenerative practice to explore the forms of leadership required for the decades ahead.
Follow Gaiarcadia Summit 2028Leadership as a Field of Practice
From individual leaders to collective capacity
Leadership knowledge is distributed
Some of the most useful knowledge about leadership lives in universities and books, but much of it also lives in communities, movements, organisations, projects and the experience of people doing difficult work in the world. The developing Whole Life Universal Field of Knowledge can connect these different forms of knowledge without pretending that any one source owns the subject.
That allows leadership material from WLT, Gaiarcadia, sister publications, educational networks, researchers, practitioners and other trusted sources to become discoverable through common themes while retaining its own provenance.
Leadership does not have to sit at the top
Many complex challenges are better approached when leadership is distributed through networks of people who bring different knowledge, experience and perspectives. The task then becomes less about commanding from above and more about creating conditions in which collective intelligence can emerge.
Editorial Roadmap · 2026–2028
A leadership field that is actively growing
Jeremy Lent
An article based on the WLT Dialogue with Jeremy Lent is planned for this issue, with a second follow-up article planned for a 2027 issue.
Greens WA, climate leadership and ecological culture
Planned coverage includes Sophie McNeill and other Greens WA members and politicians; Professor Peter Newman on climate optimism and despair; Satish Kumar at 90; and Rowland Benjamin.
Passionate Politics: A History of the Greens in WA
WLT plans coverage of the book launch, together with a video recording of the event and its speakers for the Whole Life Times YouTube channel.
Women Leaders in Sustainability
A planned WLT Special Edition will draw upon interviews with women leaders from Greens WA and from other organisations and companies. Some of these interviews will also become part of the growing WLT Dialogues library on YouTube.
Eco-civilisations: emergent and future
Two major Gaiarcadia Summit 2028 sessions are planned around emerging and future eco-civilisations. In the lead-up to the Summit, WLT Dialogues will interview new scholars and thought leaders from the USA, Europe, Australia, China and other countries. Those conversations are intended to feed a WLT Special Edition and, after the Summit, an expanded book tentatively titled Eco-civilization Upshift.
From the WLT Archive
Leadership for Sustainability by year and issue
-
Thinking Outside the Tank
Tim Hollo on institutions, leadership and social change.
-
Ecological Ethics: For the End of the World As We Know It
Ethics, responsibility and leadership in a turbulent ecological era.
-
Satish Kumar at 90
Peace, simplicity, ecological renewal and educational leadership.
-
Tiny Homes, Big Vision
Fremantle Mayor Ben Lawver on housing innovation and local leadership.
-
Humanity's Great Upshift
Transformational leadership for a new ecological civilisation.
-
Creating a We-topia of Infinite Possibility — Anuraj Gambhir
Collaborative leadership and co-creative possibility.
-
Awakening the Heart of Humanity
Heart intelligence, coherence and leadership from within.
-
Education & Learning for Thriving in the Gaianthropocene | Ecozoic
Leadership through education, systems thinking and cultural change.
-
Man on a Whole Life Mission: The Great Upshift of Humanity — Ervin Laszlo
Paradigm change and leadership toward a new global civilisation.
-
EARTHwise Constitution for a Planetary Civilization — Anneloes Smitsman
Governance and principles for a regenerative planetary civilisation.
-
Transforming a Death Economy into a Life Economy — John Perkins
Economic leadership and systemic transformation.
-
The Upshift to Syntony in Thought and Action — Alexander Laszlo
Systems thinking, resonance and collaborative leadership.
-
Renewable Energy Now & Then — Prof Ali Sayigh
Long-term leadership in the global transition to renewable energy.
-
Era of Insanely Cheap Energy — Prof Martin Green
Scientific leadership in photovoltaic innovation.
-
Zero Carbon Cities — Sasha Ivanovich
Urban leadership for sustainable city design.
-
Emergence & Shaping of the Gaianthropocene — Zhiwa Woodbury
Cultural leadership, ecological identity and planetary transformation.
-
Putting the World Back Together — Autumn 2022
Peter Le Breton on Gregory Bateson, complexity and integrative thinking.
-
Pandemic Brooding: Brown Tech in New Clothing — Summer 2021/22
David Holmgren on resilience, social cohesion and navigating division.
-
COP26 Fallout — Summer 2021/22
Political and civic leadership around climate action.
-
Zero Carbon Green Cities — Summer 2021/22
Urban transition and practical sustainability leadership.
WLT Dialogues
Conversations related to Leadership for Sustainability
Regenerative Leadership
Conversations with people helping organisations and communities move beyond sustainability towards regeneration.
Systems Change & Collective Intelligence
Exploring how leadership can work with complexity, networks, relationships and distributed knowledge.
Leadership, Ethics & Responsibility
What does responsible leadership look like when decisions affect people, communities, future generations and the living Earth?
Growing WLT Dialogues Library
People whose conversations are feeding future WLT coverage
Jeremy Lent
A WLT Dialogue exploring the cultural, philosophical and civilisational ideas underpinning ecological transformation. An article based on the interview is planned for the April–June 2026 issue, with a follow-up article planned for 2027.
Professor Peter Newman
Dialogue and article material on climate optimism and despair, planned for the July–October 2026 issue, connecting climate action with cities, transport, public policy and the psychology of hope.
Satish Kumar
Founder of Schumacher College and a major voice for peace, simplicity and ecological renewal. WLT's July–October 2026 coverage celebrates his 90th birthday on 9 August 2026.
Sophie McNeill & Greens WA voices
Articles and Dialogues with Sophie McNeill and other Greens WA members and politicians form part of the July–October 2026 leadership coverage and a growing record of political and civic leadership for sustainability.
Julian Cribb
A WLT Dialogue with one of Australia's prominent writers on global risks, food, sustainability and humanity's future, adding another important voice to the growing leadership and futures library.
Rowland Benjamin
Environmental activist, eco-cartoonist and eco-freako performance artist. His July–October 2026 WLT coverage brings activism, satire, ecological concern and public communication into the leadership conversation.
Related Resources
Continue exploring
Gaiarcadia
Leadership within eco-civilisation
Explore Summit and Academy material concerned with systems change, collaboration, regenerative practice and the future of civilisation.
Visit Gaiarcadia
WholeLifeResources.org
Leadership, education & organisational resources
Discover organisations, learning opportunities, publications and other resources connected with leadership and change.
Visit Whole Life Resources
Curated Knowledge
Leadership knowledge beyond WLU
Selected books, research, networks, practitioners and sister publications can be connected here as the Whole Life Universal Field of Knowledge grows.
Explore the Reference Library