Global Ecovillage Network

Who we are

The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) is a growing network of regenerative communities and initiatives, founded in 1995, and with consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council and United Nations Environment Programme. GEN consists of five regional networks (GEN Africa, GEN Europe, GENOA - Oceania and Asia, CASA - Latin America, and GENNA - North America), a youth network (NextGEN), and a global coordinating body – GEN International, registered as a Scottish Charity in 2013. GEN reaches out to over 6000 projects and ecovillages in 114 countries, and builds bridges between policy-makers, NGOs, academics, entrepreneurs, activists, community networks and ecologically-minded individuals across the globe in order to develop strategies for a global transition to resilient communities and cultures.         

Ecovillages are laboratories and ongoing experiments in community-based, low-impact and sustainable living. They exist in rural or urban environments, and include indigenous and traditional as well as intentional communities - new villages and neighbourhoods where people have come together to create a different way of life. They are united by their willingness to consciously cocreate a different world through reshaping everyday life together, and their commitment to weave together the social, cultural, ecological and economic strands of life using participatory process and whole systems design.  You can read more about the values and principles of ecovillages here. 

GEN's purpose is to link and support ecovillages, educate the world about them, and grow the ecovillage movement - to inspire, scale and facilitate communities and people from all walks of life to become active participants in the transition to a resilient and regenerative human presence on Earth. 

Our activities fall into those three key missions:

1) SUPPORT ECOVILLAGES & ECOVILLAGE LIVING: Create new and support existing ecovillages to thrive and serve as diverse laboratories, learning centres and models of land- and community- based social, ecological, economic and cultural regeneration, adaptation and resilience. Weave connections, foster relationships, collaboration, and solidarity in the ecovillage network.

2) EDUCATE THE WORLD ABOUT ECOVILLAGES: Build skills and capacity for regenerative, community-based living through providing learning opportunities and ecovillage-based training to a diversity of audiences. 

3) BUILD THE ECOVILLAGE MOVEMENT: Grow the reach, visibility and support of ecovillages as well as the opportunities to engage with and support our movement. Join efforts with others in the larger movement for a transition to a regenerative, just, and peaceful world.