The Eco-Social Stewardship Network is a global association dedicated to cultivating ethical societies through practical Love-In-Action, cooperative socio-economic stewardship, meaningful contribution to the stewardship of finite resources, and new ways of organising the conditions of everyday life.
ESSN seeks to seed practical socio-economic projects that establish the foundations for material security, dignified participation, responsible resource use, and the protection, conservation, restoration, and extension of the ecological systems upon which the quality of life and liberty of people and animals depend.
Our values express the ethical commitments that guide this undertaking, our mission defines the contribution ESSN exists to make, and our vision describes the societies and living systems we seek to establish.
Together, they establish a foundational framework for developing socio-economic relationships that bring to fruition SHARE Economy co-living associations and Right Livelihood forms of collaborative provisioning capable of supporting the flourishing of people, animals, and the living Earth.
The Eco-Social Stewardship Network is guided by values that shape the relationships we form, the resources we steward, the enterprises we develop, and the contributions we make.
We affirm:
These values are not aspirations detached from practice - they provide the ethical basis for the relationships, associations, enterprises, provisioning systems, and stewardship initiatives developed through ESSN.
The mission of the Eco-Social Stewardship Network is to seed, support, and connect practical socio-economic projects through which people can develop more equitable, cooperative, and responsible ways of provisioning, contributing, producing, sharing resources, and organising collaborative living.
ESSN develops the knowledge, relationships, capabilities, and associations required to translate ethical commitment into practical socio-economic contribution. Through the Stewardship Development Program, Friendship Circles, Collaborative Stewardship Guilds, Relational Commons, Co-Living Associations, Right Livelihood enterprises, and other practical initiatives, the Network seeks to establish foundations upon which people can secure their material needs while contributing to the well-being of others.
These socio-economic foundations are essential to ecological stewardship. When people have greater capacity to participate, contribute, provision responsibly, and exercise stewardship over the resources on which their lives depend, they can become active contributors to the conservation, restoration, and extension of the living systems that sustain people and animals.
ESSN therefore committed to addressing the underlying socio-economic conditions that contribute to ecological destruction, pollution, resource depletion, economic insecurity, and the displacement of responsibility for environmental consequences. Rather than treating ecological degradation as an isolated environmental problem, the Network seeks to cultivate socio-economic arrangements in which responsible stewardship becomes integral to the way people live, contribute, produce, provision, and organise their collective resources.
Through practical projects that include wealth-in-common Right Livelihood eco-social production and distribution endeavours coupled to competency-based participatory governance processes, ESSN seeks to demonstrate how socio-economic development can become a foundation for ecological responsibility, material security and sustainable peace that ensures the continuance of the living systems upon which all life depends.
We envision a world in which ethical socio-economic systems provide the foundations for material security, meaningful contribution, personal development, peaceful association, and responsible stewardship of the living Earth.
We envision Relational Commons, Collaborative Unions, Right Livelihood enterprises, and regional stewardship associations forming an interconnected socio-economic fabric in which people contribute their time, talent, and toil according to their abilities and share in the resources required to live with dignity and liberty.
Within these societies, economic activity is no longer organised independently of its social and ecological consequences. Production, provisioning, resource use, enterprise, settlement, and collective decision-making are increasingly organised around the long-term conditions required for people, animals, and living systems to flourish.
We envision socio-economic projects becoming practical foundations for the conservation, restoration, and extension of healthy ecological systems across land and sea – not as an isolated environmental program, but as an integral consequence of developing forms of livelihood, provisioning, association, and collective stewardship that sustain life rather than undermine it.
We envision principled-people progressively developing the knowledge, capabilities, relationships, and responsibilities required to become capable stewards; local initiatives connecting into regional associations; and regional associations contributing to a global network united by practical Love-In-Action and a shared commitment to the life, liberty, dignity, and flourishing of people, animals, and the living Earth.
The long-term vision is an enduring stewardship culture in which socio-economic security and ecological stewardship reinforce one another, enabling present and future generations to inherit both the material foundations of a dignified life and living ecosystems capable of sustaining it.
