The Conditions for Flourishing
Our working framework identifies 36 conditions across four interconnected layers. It is not intended as a final theory or a checklist against which every person, place or society can be mechanically scored. It is a framework for asking better questions.
01/Creation
Creation
The world we inherit.
Is life becoming more capable of renewing itself?
01Life & Inherent Worth
Life is more than an input to human systems; living beings and the conditions that sustain them matter beyond immediate utility or price.
02Earth & Life-Supporting Conditions
Atmosphere, water, soils, climate, energy flows and ecological relationships are the material foundations on which human life depends.
03Interdependence
Organisms, places and communities are shaped through relationship, exchange and mutual dependence across scales.
04Place & Particularity
Life happens somewhere. Land, water, climate, ecology and history shape what is possible and what responsible action requires.
05Limits & Finitude
Every living system operates within boundaries of time, energy, materials, carrying capacity and mortality.
06Cycles, Renewal & Regeneration
Durable flourishing depends on replenishing what is used, repairing what is damaged and respecting rhythms of growth and rest.
07Diversity & Generativity
Difference, variation and adaptation can increase resilience, learning and the possibility of new forms emerging.
08Mystery, Wonder & Humility
Reality exceeds any single model; wise participation requires curiosity and humility about what we know and control.
Creation is the ground beneath the framework: the conditions we receive before we choose, organize or build.
02/Self
Self
The participant.
Are people becoming more alive, capable, grounded and responsible?
09Vitality
Physical, emotional and energetic capacity to live well, recover from strain and engage fully with life.
10Safety & Security
Enough physical, psychological, social and material security to move beyond chronic survival mode.
11Psychological Integration
The capacity to acknowledge, metabolize and repair difficult experience rather than suppress or transmit it.
12Agency, Freedom & Responsibility
Meaningful choice paired with responsibility for consequences, relationships and the conditions that make freedom possible.
13Competence & Learning
Knowledge and practical capacity to act effectively, with curiosity and willingness to revise a model when reality changes.
14Creativity & Expression
Freedom and capacity to imagine, make, experiment and express distinctive potential.
15Meaning, Purpose & Contribution
A sense that life matters and contributes to something beyond immediate self-interest.
16Love & Relational Capacity
The ability to form secure, caring relationships, listen, keep commitments and repair rupture.
17Connection with the Living World
Experiencing oneself as part of a living world, with attention, reciprocity and responsibility toward other beings and places.
18Rest, Renewal & Enoughness
The capacity to stop, recover, enjoy and recognize enough rather than making constant production the highest good.
Flourishing grows through responsibility, relationship, connection with place and rhythms of effort and renewal.
03/Culture
Culture
How we live together.
Does the relational field allow people to think, choose and act together wisely?
19Belonging & Community
People are known, valued and able to contribute without erasing difference.
20Trust & Repair
Integrity, transparency and accountability make trust possible; broken commitments can be repaired.
21Reciprocity
Value moves through mutual contribution rather than one-way extraction.
22Care & Mutual Support
Communities can care for children, elders, vulnerable people and the wider conditions that sustain life.
23Cooperation, Challenge & Excellence
Collaboration and challenge can coexist without undermining shared wellbeing or future cooperation.
24Shared Meaning, Values & Worldview
Stories and values provide orientation without requiring sameness or ideological conformity.
25Discernment & Attunement
People can notice context, relationships, signals, consequences and what remains unknown before acting.
26Collective Intelligence & Wisdom
Diverse knowledge can be integrated while preserving disagreement, testing assumptions and learning from outcomes.
27Participation, Responsibility & Collective Agency
People have meaningful influence over decisions shaping their lives, together with responsibility for shared consequences.
28Relationship with Place & More-than-Human Life
Culture remains connected to land, water, other species and particular places through lived knowledge, care and responsibility.
Culture is the relational field through which individual capacities become shared ways of living.
04/Systems
Systems
What we build.
Do the structures we build make flourishing easier to sustain?
29Ecological Integrity
Ecosystems retain the diversity, functioning and relationships through which they sustain and renew themselves.
30Earth-System Stability
Climate, oceans, freshwater, soils and other planetary processes remain within conditions compatible with flourishing.
31Sufficiency & Opportunity
People have the material foundations, capabilities and genuine opportunities needed for a dignified life without ecological overshoot.
32Justice, Rights & Human Dignity
Rights and inherent dignity are protected while resources, risks, responsibilities and decision power are distributed fairly.
33Diversity, Resilience & Future Optionality
Systems retain enough redundancy, adaptability and diversity to absorb disruption and preserve multiple viable futures.
34Adaptive & Commensurate Governance
Authority matches consequence, includes those affected and operates at the scale where decisions can be made and corrected.
35Integrity & Coherence
Stated values, actual behavior and resource allocation remain connected through feedback that exposes contradiction.
36Limits, Value Plurality & Trade-offs
Systems recognize multiple legitimate forms of value, real limits and the need to choose among competing goods rather than optimize everything.
Durable systems remain accountable to the conditions that make life possible, not only to growth, efficiency or control.
05/The whole
Flourishing is a reinforcing loop.
- Creation provides the conditions for life.
- Self develops the capacity to participate.
- Culture shapes how people relate and choose together.
- Systems make those choices durable and feed back into every layer.
The aim is not to optimize one layer in isolation. It is to strengthen coherence across the whole.
See how we put this to work →