Stay at the Shangri-La hotel with 5-star amenities.  Centrally located with easy access for a graceful transition from airports to the Land of Smiles.  Arrive by 7pm local time for a community dinner with Participants and Staff.

Meet our incredible staff and join  an orientation session for the week ahead:covering the thematic arcs, highlighting program experiences, advising on how to engage with locals, and opening with some ice breakers to build community within this cohort.

Stay at the Sri Prakpra Boutique Resort Hotel outside of Hat Yai.  Fly from Bangkok to Hat Yai in Southern Thailand. 

Hat Yai offers unique regional insights that make it a meaningful destination for those interested in sustainability and environmental resilience. The city has implemented notable flood mitigation strategies in response to recurring monsoon-related disasters, positioning it as a practical case study in urban climate adaptation for tropical regions. Its location near the Malaysian border also makes it a strategic site for observing cross-border environmental collaboration and regional efforts in pollution control and resource management.

Hat Yai’s growing eco-tourism, local waste reduction movements, and university-led environmental research reflect a rising commitment to sustainability at the community level. For climate-conscious professionals, Hat Yai offers a valuable perspective on how mid-sized cities in Southeast Asia are tackling the evolving challenges of climate change.

We'll start diving into shorter sessions while here, focusing on local history and needs, as well as climate impacts and innovation.  We'll introduce you to local businesses and farmers who are navigating complex international markets, and growing/sourcing raw materials locally. 

The area around Hat Yai hosts the island of Koh Yor - the last island before the lagoon empties into the Gulf of Thailand.  We'll meet with Muslim and Buddhist communities living together and share a meal and/or tea, learning about their communities, world views, and hopes for peaceful transitions with regard to business and climate matters.

While in Koh Libong we'll visit with fisher folk communities that live a traditional and sea-dependent life.  We'll seek to understand their perspectives on the changing environment, climate change, and solutions they're using to adapt. 

These areas are entirely stewarded by the local community - with limited tourism and intentional protection against the ‘colonialism of tourism.’  We'll explore the recent damage by a heat wave - including severe coral bleaching.  This is about a 3 hour drive from Hat Yai to the dock, and then a short boat trip to Koh Libong and the hotel and activities.

This second day on the island will focus on facilitated discussions and local short explorations to keep active.  

Our discussions will seek to integrate lessons learned from local farmers and climate-affected communities, with outcomes focused on influencing future business endeavors back home.

These conversations inevitably will challenge basic paradigms for business operations, and we will discuss navigating internal bureaucracies at work - and learning to tell better stories so business profits can remain a priority while more holistic and environmentally conscious decisions can be prioritized.

Returning back to the area around Hat Yai, we'll continue digesting the experiences and perspectives of the locals we've met along the journey so far.  We'll move into more practical terms of the curricula by practically applying different Terra Genesis models to your organization, its management, and how you might be an advocate for triple bottom-line profits: money, people, and planet.

Take some time to collect your thoughts, get a little work done, and relax on the sand: Hat Yai is approximately 45 minutes from serene beaches like Samila Beach in nearby Songkhla.  All the usual beach activities can be expected, plus the opportunity to eddy out and process all that you've experienced.  Hat Yai has great activities and tours to engage with, from taking local arts classes, or visiting bustling markets, eating at one of the lively street food scenes, visiting local temples, or connecting and learning about southern Thai traditions.

For those interested in more time  local culture, we can continue to take a deeper view into local farmers and their community, exploring different crops and diverse landscapes means there's something to learn for each participant's business. 

Fly out of Hat Yai to the US, via Bangkok.  We'll wrap up with some heartfelt reflections and activities to send you on your way with more hope and optimism, as well as establish some alumni norms around this cohort and how to further support each others' work at your respective businesses.  

Our hope is that connecting to each of these incredible local individuals, augmented with some framework for how to integrate change from source material to sale, you'll have a future of great allies to support this most important work.