We are aiming commons education to people, organizations, and communities, who can enhance their well-being by jointly cultivating and managing their common pool of resources, need to learn/discover/develop effective distinctions, tools and methods for doing so. The Commons is a rapidly growing social, cultural, and economic life form; supporting its development requires the development of new capabilities and perspectives, individual and collective.

The educational offers of the School of Commons provide a framework for understanding both historical and contemporary Commons issues. More importantly, they provide both practical and conceptual knowledge, tools and methods that commoners can use for building and protecting their commons.


Vision
We acknowledge and respect the inherent indivisibility of humanity as a whole. Thinking, sensing and acting from the vantage point of that inherent unity, we align with the emergence of a better future for all.

We envision a world, where domination is replaced by partnering and commoning as the mainstream way of organising work, learning, and social life. There, grounded in the consciousness of inherent unity, organisations are responsive to the whole, including their members, stakeholders, the noosphere, the biosphere, and future generations.

It is a world in which the full development of everyone is the goal of the whole. People work in democratic workplaces free of fear and exploitation, in all public, private, and commons enterprises. Work as creative self-expression is not the privilege of the few, anymore. All social institutions are designed and function to increase aliveness, joy, and prosperity for all.

Economy, politics, culture, and community life revolve around cultivating a diverse variety of commons institutions. A flourishing market plays an important but not the central role. The locus of freedom, innovation, and creativity shifted from it to the Commons.

Purpose

The purpose of the School of Commoning, as a Community Interest Company, is to carry on activities that benefit society, namely, to enhance individual and collective competences in the protection, governance, and cultivation of commons.

We help people, organisations, and social systems become more competent and co-intelligent in improving the quality of life for all, by developing better practices for strengthening and governing the Commons as an autonomous partner to the private and public sectors.

We do that by developing and delivering educational, media, networking, and "serious game" projects that promote the Commons, and inspire others to do the same.

Principles

1. Commoning

Our originating principle, by which all others are infused, is commoning. The verb “to common” refers to the ensemble of social practices used by commoners in the course of managing shared resources and reclaiming the commons. Commoning is always built upon a “network of social relationships that arise from the implicit expectations that we will take care of each other and on a shared understanding that some things belong to all of us and must be used in a sustainable and equitable way - which is the essence of the commons itself.” (Julia Ristau, co-director of On the Commons)

When commoning becomes a conscious choice as an expression of the inherent connectedness of humanity as a whole, it will be possible to meet all our challenges responsibly, creatively and meaningfully, by acting from the whole “we” rather than the "I/me" or an exclusive "we/my group".

We work with our members, associates, clients, and other stakeholders in full commitment to their realizing their highest potential.

The following principles are inspired by the first:

2. We organise ourselves in ways that foster relationships, participation, creativity, learning and development.

3. We welcome and appreciate creative friction coming from the beyond-ego expression of our diverse talents, experiences, and learning paths.

4. We continually enhance the collective intelligence of the Company and its ecosystem, and seek collective wisdom to guide it.

5. We foster collaboration and co-evolution with all commons, movements of transition to a sustainable world, and other potential allies.

Honoring those principles, we contribute to human and social evolution towards greater complexity, connectivity, and integration at higher levels of harmony and well-being.

This draft Declaration is intended as a statement of first principles that lay out the institutional framework for planetary boundary thinking - the concept that there are critical Earth-system processes and associated thresholds that we need to respect and keep within in order to protect against the risk of irreversible or even catastrophic environmental change.

Particularly with the upcoming Rio+20 meeting in 2012 in mind, those behind this Declaration believe there is an urgent need to take action on this governance issue to ensure that everyone, including present and future generations and nature have the protections necessary to live in a social and physical environment that provides for their health and well being.