Natural Catalysts 2026: Leadership Programme Advancing Racial Equity in the Environmental Sector Opens Applications

Natural Catalysts is a 12-month leadership development programme designed to reshape how leadership is understood, accessed, practised, and sustained across the environmental sector. It focuses on racial equity, leadership transformation, organizational change, and systems thinking, delivered through a partnership between Common Purpose and Makani Cambridge. The initiative invites organisations to nominate a duo of participants, one Global Majority Leader and one Senior Leader, to participate together to drive long-term systemic change in the environmental sector in the UK.

Participants will engage in a 12-month programme including in-person residential learning, online sessions, peer communities, and leadership development focused on systems-change approaches; the structure supports Global Majority Leaders and Senior Leaders working together to drive organisational change.

Organisations operating in the environmental sector may nominate a pair of participants: a Global Majority Leader and a Senior Leader. The Global Majority Leader must be in a paid role, have lived experience of racialisation in the UK, and be mid-management level or above; the Senior Leader must be in a paid senior role with significant decision-making power.

Organisations can nominate a duo of participants and apply via the provided Apply Here form.