Biography

Lawrence Ellis is a respected sustainability advocate who uses a range of vehicles (high-level consulting, filmmaking, transformative teaching, activism, writing and others) to help shift our global culture away from ecological destruction, extractive and exploitative economics, and inhumane political and social systems… towards a life-honoring culture.

His unique approach combines the best of ancient wisdom traditions with contemporary innovations such as complexity science that promote systemic, large-scale change – from personal to political to planetary.

A Rhodes Scholar who took his graduate degree at Oxford University, Lawrence has worked with large-organization leaders, filmmakers, Indigenous communities, and fellow visionaries and thought-leaders.

He is a Trustee of World Merit, and serves as the Lead Sustainability Engager/Advisor with/to its 100,000 young leaders, ages 18-35, in more than 100 countries around the globe.

Full Bio

For more on the Great Shift from a destructive culture to a life-sustaining culture, see The Motivation.

For more details on Lawrence’s clients, films, symposia, books, and transformative teaching, see The Work.

The Motivation

At the heart of any visionary and inspired body of work is a powerful guiding motivation.

Lawrence’s core motivation is the current state of crisis on our planet — system-wide, survival-level crises of climate change, massive species extinction, and a destructive dominant culture promoting unchecked consumption, waste generation, human immiseration, and  Earth-resource ravaging that is well past a sustainable level.

These system-wide, global crises have prompted visionary inquiry into possible innovative approaches for facing and mitigating these challenges.These visionary responsive movements have been called The Great Turning, The Great Work, The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, and The Great Shift — among other names.

Lawrence’s core life mission is to assist our global culture in a transition towards a life-honoring culture that respects the radical interconnectedness of all life: human life, other species, eco-systems, and the Earth itself.

For more information on this core mission in action, see The Work.

The Approach

“The really wonderful thing that happened to me when I was in space was this feeling of belonging to the entire Universe… We’re at the point in time now where we need to take radical leaps in order to be able to continue to live on this planet. We have to think about it in a much broader, grander fashion.” Astronaut Mae Jamison

The Sustainability movement, and our individual and collective efforts in support of it, are all a definitive and focused response to the crises that threaten life on Earth — very real crises that are altering life as we know it, not just for human beings, but for all Life on the planet.

Specific threats include climate change, species extinction, economies in collapse, ecological overshoot …. to name a few. While there isn’t one, universally-agreed-upon definition of sustainability, the most widely quoted definition comes from the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations:

“[meeting] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The implicit focus on enduring systems and processes involves not just ecological, but also economic, social, and political dimensions. One of Lawrence’s unique contributions to the sustainability movement is what he calls, Full-Spectrum SustainabilityTM – an integrated, whole-system response to the calling for humans to step into a new way of being.

The Work

Lawrence has …

… advocated for a synthesis of Indigenous Wisdom & Modern Science to more effectively meet the steep challenges of our time;

… fostered breakthrough progress on a renewable technology with the potential to preserve threatened ecosystems and generate hundreds of millions of dollars of profit annually;

… helped to shift the national conversation on pollution, resulting in subsequent shifts in policy, culture and behavior across the U.S.;

… served as a Trustee of World Merit, and as Lead Sustainability Engager/Advisor with/to its 100,000 young leaders, ages 18-35, in more than 100 countries around the globe;

… supported cultural revitalization of millennia-old Indigenous wisdom practices in support of Indigenous-led projects;

… advised an award-winning documentary film team for Planetary, sequel to Overview.

… and more.

The Praise

Over the years, Lawrence has earned much praise from his clients and colleagues for his work, as well as numerous awards and distinctions. A small sampling includes:

Contact

You can reach me directly by phone at (510) 444-7284. Or, fill out the form below and I’ll get right back to you.

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