Lowimpact.org launched in 2001 as the ‘Low-Impact Living Initiative’, providing information, books, training, products, services, advice and signposting to help people live in a ‘low-impact’ way – i.e. to reduce their impact on nature.
In time, we realised that living low-impact in corporate capitalism is no more possible than living safely on the Titanic, and so we teamed up with specialists to help build the commons economy as a viable alternative to corporations and the state.
Our content has now moved to Growing the Commons (GtC), a ‘knowledge commons’ launched in 2025 – a global resource, owned and governed by practitioners, comprising:
1. Knowledge base. Browse the huge bank of commons and commons-related topics. We need these skills to provide for our communities and to build commons and small businesses. Topics are maintained by specialist curators, who will add new topics, so the knowledge is held as a genuine commons.
2. Blog, with news, projects and opinions. Please subscribe.
3. Forum, for comments, discussion and queries. Please register and say hello.
There’ll be a book out soon by Dave Darby, founder of Lowimpact.org: The Commoners’ Manifesto: Neither Capitalism Nor Communism.
Snapshot of the Lowimpact.org topics in 2025.
Here’s our story and our theory of change.