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It started in one of those ‘what if…’ conversations between friends. What if the world wasn’t loaded in favour of a small minority of its people? What if we could look after the planet as well as looking after ourselves? What if a bunch of people tried to exploit the power of new technology to live a little more generously?

And this is what it came to: people, families, households across the UK and in other countries, embarking on small everyday but sustainable lifestyle changes in favour of all the people and the whole of the planet.

Signing up to the Generous community (it’s free), is about wanting to do a little bit more and little bit more often in order to make shared life on our planet sustainable.

Something is better than nothing is our motto.

One person might decide to turn off the tap when cleaning his teeth, another might start filling the kettle with only enough water for that single cup of tea. Someone will check their light fittings – and decide to switch to energy saving bulbs – someone else might decide to go meat-free one day a week or improve what they give to charity.

What we can do will depend on our circumstances. Generous is about community not compulsion. It’s about getting somewhere together, rather than feeling it’s all hopeless, what difference can one person make?

When you commit to an action (Go Generous), you can add your own comments about how it worked in practice – and any tips you have for others who are thinking about it. And if you’re not sure about whether an action is right for you (Giving blood? Eco balls in your washing machine?) ask other Generous members or see what they’ve posted.

Those of us who’ve been on the Generous trip for a while have not just found wisdom in the crowd – but inspiration too. As the anthropologist Margaret Meade put it, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.’

So, if you’ll permit a moment of glassy-eyed delusion, Generous is a small group of people intent on changing the world – you’re welcome to join in. At the time of writing we have 1600 members and we’re heading for a a cumulative total of 10,000 different generous actions.

Our original hunch still feels on the money: that the gap between rich and poor in our world should not be the way it is, that we only have one planet to share and that there is more to life than how much stuff we can pile up. And for some of us, as we have tried to embark on a life of living more generously, we’ve also gleaned a few clues that maybe this was how we were supposed to be living all along.

Generous At Work

Generous At Work is a simple way to engage teams in tangible, measurable actions that support your Values and CSR agenda. To find out more about what Generous At Work could do for your organisation click here.