Power Circle

The Ubuntu Power Circle seeks to activate a commons-based bioregional living economy to redefine our relationships with each other and Mother Earth, including the elements of air, fire, water, and
land.

We support policies and community initiatives to steward the land and build collective economies that value all of life, by:

Curating consciousness-raising content (including an online learning platform and podcast) and model programs and policies
Catalyzing cross-sector gatherings and activations
Aligning policy strategies and building collective power across land, materials, energy, water, climate justice, and solidarity economy networks in collaboration with wisdom holders and cultural artists
Experimenting around mutual exchange, e.g. land-based exchanges, skills exchanges, mutual aid, and community currencies
Leveraging regenerative, non-extractive funding streams for community investment and land stewardship

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Why a commons-based, bioregional living economy?

The Power Circle of the Ubuntu Initiative is focused on designing and activating commons-based living economies.

We believe individualistic, material-focused cultural values and an extractive, endless growth economy are at the root of the poly-crises we face.

The predominant climate interventions of today focus on reducing production-based emissions. Yet only over a quarter of U.S. carbon can be addressed by current production-focused climate policies.

The majority of U.S. emissions are embedded in the global supply chain, in our materials, and are essentially imported carbon. These Scope 3 emissions are driven by a consumer economy of mass production, planned obsolesce, conspicuous consumption, and resource and labor extraction.

This is the next generation of climate work that the Ubuntu project seeks to address.

We are highlighting and growing work rooted in the following principles and practices:

Bioregionalism: supporting regional solidarity economies, reflective of local ecologies and governing at the scale of watersheds, energy-sheds,
and foodsheds.
Commoning: collective practices for stewarding resources for the benefit of an entire community over a single individual’s profit.
Corporate producer accountability: holding industry accountable to creating durable, repairable, non-toxic products and reducing supply chain emissions.
Cultural repair: remembering, reclaiming, and bringing forward ancestral and earth-based wisdom and appropriate technologies
Ecocultural Stewardship over Consumer Materialism: Enabling and expanding opportunities for eco-cultural land and resource stewardship
Relational well-being: Realigning municipal economic drivers toward life-affirming values, such as community well-being, not GDP
Targeted Universalism, centering frontline communities, including Black, Indigenous and low-income communities, with tailored programs or interventions, while aspiring toward universal goals for all.
Urban to Rural Connections: Supporting urban to ruralconnections, not divides.

Sign-on to our campaign to protect and invest in Freedmen’s Settlements:

In partnership with the Chisholm Legacy Project, we are working in solidarity with Freedom Settlements across the country for their recognition, protection, investment, and resilience. Here is a short video entitled "Freedmen Settlements: A Story of Community Resilience" with some deeper context on the history. We invite you to sign on to this federal petition to pass the federal Freedmen’s Settlement Resolution.