About
The Simplicity Institute is a non-profit education and research centre dedicated to advancing the Simplicity Movement. Directing our critique toward consumerist and growth-obsessed economies, our defining objective is to show that lifestyles of reduced and restrained consumption are a necessary and desirable part of any transition to a just, sustainable, and flourishing human community. We aim to promote this vision of the good life and help build a new society based on material sufficiency.
The Simplicity Institute was founded by Dr. Samuel Alexander and Dr. Simon Ussher, who currently direct the Institute. Dr. Ted Trainer has joined the Institute as a contributing author.
Dr. Samuel Alexander is a lecturer at the Office for Environmental Programs, University of Melbourne, Australia, and editor of Voluntary Simplicity: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture (2009). He is also the founder of the Simplicity Collective, a website and social network dedicated to exploring the relationships between voluntary simplicity, peak oil, and post-growth economics. Dr. Alexander’s PhD thesis, conducted through Melbourne Law School, is entitled “Property beyond Growth: Toward a Politics of Voluntary Simplicity”. Some of his articles are available here and here.
Dr. Simon Ussher is a medical specialist in Melbourne, Australia, and a passionate advocate of the holistic benefits of simple living, both personal and global. He is also the founder of ‘Simple Sunflower‘ – an online publication dedicated to lowering the barriers to sustainable lifestyles, and making simple living ‘simple’.
Dr. Ted Trainer is a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales. He has taught and written about sustainability and justice issues for many years. He is also developing Pigface Point, an alternative lifestyle educational site near Sydney, and a website for use by critical global educators, http://socialsciences.arts.
“The Simplicity Institute is a perfect complement to Samuel Alexander’s wonderful book, VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY: THE POETIC ALTERNATIVE TO CONSUMER CULTURE. We need more research centers of this type to help us find effective ways to escape the high-consumption lifestyle and create happier, healthier and more sustainable cultures. In a complex world, it’s not that simple to live simply, and this Institute will help provide some of the important information we need to live better on less.”
–John de Graaf, co-author, AFFLUENZA: THE ALL-CONSUMING EPIDEMIC and Executive Director of Take Back Your Time.
The Simplicity Institute was founded with the vision of a sustainable, just and flourishing society. Read more about our mission.
As the world enters into another long consumer boom, the Simplicity Institute is a beacon of hope. Its research into ‘post-consumerist’ lifestyles will help to provide the empirical foundation we need to transcend today’s culture and politics of ‘excess’. The Simplicity Institute recognizes the fundamental importance of consumption that can be sustained and what it means to live a balanced life.
–Clive Hamilton, author, GROWTH FETISH.
