About us

Lowimpact.org is a network of hundreds of organisations and thousands of individuals, providing information, opinion and advice on 250+ self-provisioning and commons topics.

Low-impact living means obtaining the essentials of life:

• ourselves – individually (self-provisioning) and together (commons)
• using fewer resources
• with less waste (inc. greenhouse gas emissions and toxic chemicals)

But something makes that extremely difficult:

The problem

Below is the short version (here’s the long version).

There’s a global corporate empire that’s putting us in extreme danger. It destroys nature, democracy and community, promotes war and makes it difficult to get what we need from any other source. Voting or begging governments to do something doesn’t change that, because states are part of the empire, not a counterbalance to it. Protest barely registers with them, and they’re too strong to overthrow. So we have to:

1. build an alternative to empire to draw money away from it and cut off its source of wealth and power;
2. lay the foundations for a new system;
3. prepare for what’s coming, by providing for ourselves and looking after each other in communities – especially working-class communities (the vast majority of the world, often overlooked by ‘alternative’ movements), by providing affordability and jobs.

The response

The way we can do that is by:

1. self-provisioning: We’ve been working with a network of specialists to provide a bank of information and advice on 250+ self provisioning and commons topics, including what you can do. We’re going to need these skills. You can get stuck in straight away.
2. building the commons: we’re part of a network of people – in Stroud, Liverpool and London – using Elinor Ostrom‘s principles plus new commons ideas to build commons infrastructure in all sectors, without debt, interest or banks, in ways that can be federated together, and can never be sold out of the commons. We’re talking with people in other towns in the UK and in countries on all continents, with a view to ‘replicating and federating’ successful commons projects.

Get involved

1. If you live in or near Stroud, contact us about being a commons customer, investor or volunteer.
2. Anywhere else, contact us to talk about launching a commons group in your community.
3. Look at our bank of topics, see what might work for you, and give it a go.
4. Comment on the blog, or send us a blog article.
5. Contact us if you’d like to volunteer for Lowimpact or our commons partners.
6. Spread the word.

Here’s our story so far and our theory of change.