ECOCIVILIZATION
COALITION
Who we are
We hold a shared understanding that the dominant world order is unravelling—
taking with it the illusion of progress that has caused unprecedented inequality, ecological degradation, cultural erasure, and systemic violence.
In its place, we believe that a different world is not only possible,
but already exists at the margins and is taking root.
We are devoted to nurturing these shoots.
Our intention is to be of loving and humble service,
motivated by a core belief in the sanctity and value of all life.
Coalition Team
The Coalition Team is comprised of people from different parts of the world who have come together united in our commitment to co-create a life-affirming, ecologically grounded, radically democratic world.
In 2024, we began as an informal working group, and are currently in the process of shifting to a distributed, sociocracy-inspired organizational structure—a governance approach inspired by living systems that emphasizes consent-based decisions, transparency, and empowerment.
Nafeez Ahmed
Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a bestselling author, award-winning investigative journalist, and noted international security scholar, as well as a policy expert, filmmaker, strategy and communications consultant, and change activist. He is the author of "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It" (2010), which inspired the award-winning documentary feature film, "The Crisis of Civilization" (2011).
Phoebe Barnard
Phoebe Barnard is a conservation and global change biologist, behavioural ecologist and sustainability strategist. She is founding CEO of the Stable Planet Alliance, affiliate full professor at University of Washington and research associate of the African Climate and Development Initiative and FitzPatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town. Previously, she led the Pacific Biodiversity Institute, was chief science and policy officer at the Conservation Biology Institute, and was lead scientist of Climate Change BioAdaptation and Biodiversity Futures at the South African National Biodiversity Institute. She is a global citizen and film co-producer, coauthor of the World Scientists’ Warnings of a Climate Emergency and follow-on papers, and determined to avert the trajectory of humanity from the abyss.
Benjamin Bellegy
Benjamin Bellegy is the Executive Director at WINGS. Prior to WINGS, Benjamin was managing international programs at Fondation de France, where he launched and led several pooled funds and collaborations with other foundations and supported philanthropy development in the Global South. He has previously worked for the International Cooperation Agency of Monaco and for several NGOs in Ethiopia, Tunisia and Canada. He earned a political sciences diploma and a master’s degree in non-profit management from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Grenoble, and a master's degree in communication and information sciences from the Stendhal University of Grenoble.
Philip Clayton
Philip Clayton holds the Ingraham Chair of Theology at Claremont School of Theology and is affiliated faculty at the Claremont Graduate University. Clayton earned a joint Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Yale University and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Munich. He has published over 20 books and hundreds of academic and popular articles. Over the course of 25 years of teaching and researching, Clayton’s interests migrated gradually from philosophy through the science-religion debate to constructive theology. Clayton held a variety of leadership positions in the international debate on the science-religion relationship, including Principal Investigator of the Science and the Spiritual Quest program. He has been an outspoken advocate for multicultural and multi-religious approaches to the field.
Amanda da Cruz Costa
Amanda Costa is a climate activist, young adviser to the UN Global Compact, founder of the Sustainable Perifa Institute, and presenter of #TemClimaParaisso?, a program about the climate crisis. Graduated in International Relations, Amanda was recognized as #Under30 in Forbes magazine, TEDx Speaker, LinkedIn Top Voices and Creator and in 2021 she was deputy curator of Global Shapers, the youth community of the World Economic Forum.
Manish Jain
Manish Jain is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems, cultural imaginations and inter-cultural dialogue. He is one of the leading planetary voices for unlearning, deschooling our lives and reimagining education. He has served for the past 26 years as Chief Beaver (ecosystems builder) of Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of some of the most innovative educational experiments in the world: the Swaraj University, the Jail University, Complexity University, Tribal Farmversity, the Creativity Adda, the Learning Societies Unconference, the Walkouts-Walk-on network, Udaipur as a Learning City, the Families Learning Together network, Berkana Exchange. He co-launched the global Ecoversities Alliance with 500+ members in 50 countries.
Karima Kadaoui
Karima Kadaoui, is a Co-Founder and Executive President of Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development, Morocco. Her process has weaved and been woven with the threads of her 25 years of experience working in private, public and social sectors. She worked with top tier companies in a big 5 management consultancy and as the associate senior consultant of a territorial development consultancy she co-founded. In the Moroccan government, she worked on public policy and governance in quality of the advisor to the Minister of Employment, Vocational Training and Housing. She is a board member and advisor to Imal Initiative for Climate and Development the first independent non-profit North African climate think tank as well to Africa Voices Dialogue.
Julia Kim
Dr. Julia Kim is a Global Wellbeing and Wellbeing Economics expert, program facilitator and researcher. She is an explorer of the terrain connecting inner transformation and broader systems change, drawing on her past career as a physician and public health researcher in Africa and Asia, Senior Policy Advisor at the United Nations (UNDP and UNICEF), and Program Director at the GNH Centre Bhutan. She integrates global experience in the fields of leadership development, contemplative practice, program facilitation, research, and policy in the fields of wellbeing, wellbeing economics, global health, and sustainable development. Julia holds degrees from the University of Manitoba, Cornell University, Tufts University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. He is the author of “The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning” and “The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe”. He has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization, and is the founder of the Deep Transformation Network, a global community exploring pathways toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth. His upcoming book, “Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All”, will be published by Melville House in May 2026.
Jen Mason
Jen Mason is Operations Lead for the Ecocivilization Coalition. As an independent consultant, Jen co-designed and co-facilitated the Systems View Lab and Conversations on the Principles of Life with Fritjof Capra and offered a variety of team building and communication workshops. Earlier in her career, Jen worked in K-12 settings in Canada, the US, and Australia supporting young people in developing eco-literacy/systems thinking skills, gaining proficiency as participatory decision-makers, and building their agency as change-makers. Jen started the first Forest School for elementary students in Canada and played a role in bringing the Forest School model to Canada. She has a Ph.D. and Masters in Sustainability Education from Prescott College, and a B.Ed. in Experiential Education and B.A. in Political Science from Queen’s University.
Lynn Murphy
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a “conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
Osprey Orielle Lake
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International (WECAN). She works nationally and internationally with grassroots, Indigenous and business leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future. Osprey is Co-chair of International Advocacy for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and the visionary behind the International Women's Earth and Climate Summit. She has served on the board of the Praxis Peace Institute and on the Steering Committee for The UN Women’s Major Group for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.
Samantha Power
Samantha Power is a Co-Founder and the Director of the BioFi Project and the Founder and Principal Consultant of Finance for Gaia. She is a Regenerative Economist, Futurist, and Bioregionalist based in Oakland, CA. Samantha is author of the book, "Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet" which makes the case for and explains how to build institutions to shift capital to place-based regenerators to achieve global climate and nature-related goals, while enabling the transition to regenerative economies. To turn this vision into a global movement, Samantha co-founded the BioFi Project — a collective of experts supporting bioregions around the world to design, build, and implement BFFs inspired by the templates laid out in the book.
Hajar Tazi
Hajar Tazi is a storyteller, ecosystem weaver, and systems-transformation catalyst at the service of planetary wellbeing. As Director of Ecosystem Weaving & Strategic Initiatives at the Synergia Institute, she also serves on the boards of the Post-Growth Institute and Shareable and is an ambassador of Kincentric Leadership and the Inner Development Goals. In addition, she is part of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and co-chairs UNEP’s Faith for Earth Youth Council. Hajar’s work is inspired by indigenous cosmovisions and deep ecology, and is fueled by a calling to inspire fellow humans to look beyond our apparent differences and unite minds, hearts, and hands to lovingly care for each other and our beautiful home, the Earth.
Atossa Soltani
Atossa Soltani is Director of Global Strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance, supporting a coalition of 30 Indigenous nations in Ecuador and Peru that aims to protect 35 million hectares of tropical rainforests by establishing a protected region that is off-limits to industrial-scale resource extraction. It advocates a new economic model, under Indigenous peoples’ stewardship, that prioritises the well-being of Indigenous communities, as well as the ecological integrity of the whole bioregion. Atossa is also the Founder and Board President of Amazon Watch, where she served as the first Executive Director for nearly two decades. A native of Iran, Atossa moved to the United States at the age of 13. She holds a B.S. in Public Policy Management from the University of Akron, Ohio.
Mirian Vilela
Mirian Vilela is the Executive Director of the Earth Charter International Secretariat and the Center for Education for Sustainable Development at UPEACE. She coordinates the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter and served as a member of the UNESCO Expert Reference Group for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Prior to her work with the Earth Charter, Mirian worked for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development for two years in preparation of the 1992 UN Earth Summit and a year at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Mirian holds a PhD. in Education from LaSalle University and a Master´s Degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is originally from Brazil.
Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace is a Co-Founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. Previously he was Executive Director of NEF—the New Economics Foundation for 12 years and International Director of Oxfam GB (responsible for Oxfam’s emergency, development and policy work worldwide) for 10 years. Prior to this, he spent 7 years with the World Bank, in Washington DC, working on industrial and financial development in East Asia, and 13 years working in business, including leading a successful turnaround of a 1000 employee business. Stewart has Master’s degrees from Cambridge and London, an Honorary Doctorate from Lancaster University, and was awarded the O.B.E. for services to Oxfam. He is also Chair of the Conservation Farming Trust and co-author of the recently published “A Finer Future”.
"EcoCiv is here to cultivate the longing for a different, better world, to offer a sense of agency and empowerment for people to do the inner and outer work that it’ll take for us to shift into new frames, new stories and a new way of being"
Manda Scott, Advisory Partner
Our Role
We see our role as being a transformation catalyst, serving as connective tissue, linking people, initiatives, and narratives in ways that allow a powerful new planetwide movement to come into being.
We aim to embody in our actions the values of the world we long for—building relationships of trust, listening deeply, and collaborating from a place of interconnectedness, reciprocity, and love.
What We Bring
We acknowledge with gratitude the many groups around the world already working toward transformative change. We see them as friends and allies, and seek relationships of mutual support, learning, and synergy.
Read on to learn what is distinctive about us, about our orientation, and how we situate our work within the broader movement of change.
Questions We Are Living Into Together
Advisory Partners
Our work is enriched by a growing network of Advisory Partners—prominent change-makers who are aligned with the Ecocivilization vision and are prepared to support the Coalition.
We are grateful for the support of:
Mary Evelyn
Tucker
Alexandra Mitsotaki
David Korten
Rupert Read
David Bollier
Scott Sampson
Oren Slozberg
Asher Miller
Executive Director,
Steve Waddell
Founder & Co-lead,
Herman Greene
Author,
Manda Scott
Host,
Rebecca Henderson
University Professor,
Gus Speth
Carlos Álvarez Pereira
Caroline Lucas
Roman Krznaric
Gail Bradbrook
Sandra Waddock
Rick Hanson
Aseem Shrivastava
Irene Papaligouras
Former Leader,
Jamie Bristow
Writer & Policy Advisor
Indra Adnan
Founder and Co-lead,
John Bell
Founder,
Tomas Bjorkman
David Orr
Tamzin Ractliffe
Paul Raskin
Douglas Rushkoff
Mindahi Bastida
Michael Albert
Shaun Paul
Founder,
Nadia Sandi
Co-founder,
Pat Kane
Founder and Co-lead,
Coryna Ogunseitan
Director,
David
Sloan Wilson
Mamphela Ramphele
Jonathan Rose
Fritjof Capra
Randy Hayes
Scherto Gill
Song Li
Tom Llewellyn
Ben Lasser
Development Director,
Benoît Lallemand
Vice President
Steven Knapp
President and CEO,
Sam Crowell
Our Partner Network
We are building loose networks of partners around the world to guide, support, and work with us to bring about a diversified, life-affirming planetary future.
With a loving spirit and a fierce devotion to the sacredness of life, we invite all those who align with our vision to join us in attempting to reorient humanity's trajectory toward a better future.
Organizational Partners
We are initiating relationships with a growing number of groups whose vision align with ours, and with whom we hope to develop ongoing, mutually nourishing collaborations
Wisdom Circle
Indigenous leaders and elders who wish to offer guidance about moving forward in sacred reciprocity with Earth
Community Members
Individuals and organizations who want to become part of
a grassroots network helping to work toward
an Ecocivilization