Workshops
Community Action Workshops: Build Your SolarPunk Future
Join a SolarPunk Sangha workshop. Learn our framework for regenerative action, download our free workbook, and explore strategic actions for sustainability, spirituality, politics, economics, and culture.
🌕 What to Expect
Each workshop is a guided, collaborative session based on our unique framework. We move beyond doom and gloom to focus on actionable solutions and mutual support. You will:
It’s designed for both first-time participants and seasoned practitioners to structure their thinking and action. Inside you'll find:
Explanations of our core concepts: Circles of Sustainability, Game Theory, Mutual Aid, and more.
Guided exercises for personal reflection and systems thinking.
Worksheets for project planning and stakeholder mapping.
Lists of resources for deeper dives, reflection, and systems thinking.
🌕 How to run a Shop
Supporting documents to help facilitate and manage a workshop before, during, and after.
🎲 Strategic Action Catalogue
While in the workshop, you are deciding the type of action participants will collaborate over. We provide templates of Strategic Actions in our catalogue to help your workshop succeed. Check back for links to detailed guides for each Strategic Action in the future.
To resolve complex disputes (e.g., land use) by bringing all affected parties to the table as equals.
Invite representatives from industry, community groups, and government to collaboratively develop a binding agreement.
To create more representative outcomes and reduce negative campaigning.
Advocate for electoral reform legislation that replaces plurality voting with RCV, ensuring winners have broader support.
To build a pipeline of diverse future leaders.
Provide training in public speaking, policy analysis, and campaign strategy for women, people of color, and youth from marginalized communities.
To end racially discriminatory outcomes and reduce mass incarceration, focusing on rehabilitation.
Lobby legislators and build public campaigns to repeal laws that force judges to impose inflexible and excessively long prison sentences.
To legally recognize ecosystems as living entities with inherent rights, not merely as property to be exploited.
Draft, advocate for, and pass laws that grant rivers, forests, or ecosystems legal standing to be defended in court against harm.
To provide accessible, non-adversarial, and restorative approaches to resolving conflict and harm.
Create a local hub offering mediation, restorative justice circles, and legal clinics as alternatives to the costly and punitive court system.
To bring transparency to the influence of money and special interests on the political process.
Mandate that all professional lobbyists register in a searchable online database detailing who they represent and which officials they meet.
To investigate and prosecute corruption at all levels of government free from political interference.
Found an agency with its own budget, subpoena power, and specialized prosecutors to investigate graft within the government.
To encourage the exposure of wrongdoing by guaranteeing anonymity, job security, and legal protection.
Draft robust legislation that criminalizes retaliation and establishes independent agencies to receive and investigate disclosures.
To provide rapid, non-partisan verification of claims made by public officials.
Establish a consortium of journalists and academics dedicated to monitoring public statements and publishing detailed analyses.
To revitalize community-focused news reporting that holds local power structures accountable.
Secure grants and community donations to establish a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to in-depth reporting on city hall and local business.
To equip citizens with the critical skills to identify misinformation and manipulated online content.
Partner with libraries and schools to host workshops on source verification, algorithmic bias, and emotional manipulation.
To create an official space for victims and perpetrators of historical injustice to share their experiences and be acknowledged.
Organize public hearings where testimony is recorded, validated, and compiled into a final report with recommendations for reparations.
To address historical wounds through cultural acts that affirm the dignity of affected groups.
Commission public monuments/memorials, rename public spaces, and integrate a complete history into school curricula.
To bridge empathy gaps and preserve cultural memory between different age groups.
Facilitate workshops where elders share oral histories with youth, who then help digitize and creatively present these stories.
To provide a non-police, health-focused response for mental health, addiction, and homelessness crises.
Train and deploy teams of medics, mental health professionals, and peer support specialists to respond to relevant 911 calls.
To create a mutual aid system for responding to climate-related disasters, independent of slow state apparatus.
Organize neighborhood pods trained in first aid, emergency shelter, and resource distribution, using decentralized communication tools.
To transform resource scarcity from a source of conflict into a basis for cooperation.
Identify a shared environmental challenge (e.g., a polluted river) between conflicting communities and create a joint project to manage and restore the resource.
To democratize city development decisions, prioritizing green spaces and community needs over corporate interests.
Randomly select a representative body of citizens to work with urban planners and architects, making binding recommendations on city projects.
To embed creative, human-centered, and iterative problem-solving within government agencies.
Create a cross-disciplinary team to redesign flawed public services (e.g., permit applications) from the user's perspective, prototyping and testing new solutions.
To decentralize fiscal power and align public spending directly with community-identified priorities.
A significant portion of the municipal budget is allocated for citizens to directly propose and vote on projects (e.g., community gardens, solar co-ops, public transit).
To shift material production from extractive industries to regenerative, biology-based manufacturing.
Set up community labs experimenting with growing materials like mycelium (for packaging and insulation), bacterial cellulose (for textiles), and lab-grown leather.
To relocalize the production of goods and create circular economies around local materials.
Create a worker-cooperative that processes local wool, hemp, or flax into yarn and fabric, providing resources and tools for community members.
To democratize the means of production by creating freely available designs for essential tools and technology.
Create digital repositories with schematics for agricultural equipment, solar panels, and water purifiers, made from locally sourced or recycled materials.
To reduce ownership of rarely used items and foster a culture of sharing over consumption.
Establish lending libraries where community members can borrow tools, kitchen appliances, camping gear, and other expensive items.
To create a direct, resilient relationship between food producers and consumers, cutting out corporate intermediaries.
Residents subscribe to receive a weekly share of harvest from a local farm, sharing both the bounty and the risks of farming with the growers.
To fight planned obsolescence, reduce waste, and empower people with practical knowledge.
Organize regular events where volunteers with repair skills help others fix electronics, clothing, furniture, and appliances, teaching them how in the process.
To force corporations to internalize their externalities (e.g., pollution, carbon emissions) in their balance sheets.
Lobby for legislation that requires companies to audit and be financially responsible for their environmental and social impact, making sustainable choices more profitable.
To measure a company's performance based on its social and environmental justice, not just shareholder profit.
Require large businesses to undergo annual audits by a citizen panel on metrics like worker satisfaction, ecological footprint, and community benefit.
To create complementary economic systems that incentivize local trade and positive community actions.
Develop a digital or paper currency that is earned through volunteering, recycling, or shopping locally, and can be spent at participating businesses.
To enable communities to create their own ethical credit unions and lending circles.
Create robust, auditable software that allows groups to manage finances democratically, providing low-interest loans based on community need, not just profit.
To value all labor equally and foster a economy based on reciprocity and mutual aid.
A digital system where one hour of service (e.g., gardening, tutoring, repair) equals one time credit, which can be spent on an hour of someone else's service.
To keep wealth circulating within a local bioregion, strengthening resilience against global financial shocks.
Create a currency that is only spendable within a defined region, incentivizing local production and trade while discouraging extraction of capital.
To collectively own and benefit from shared resources and technological advancements.
Fund from taxes on automation and natural resources provides a universal dividend to all citizens, representing a collective ownership stake in the economy.
To remove land from the speculative market and ensure permanent housing affordability.
A nonprofit trust acquires land and owns it in perpetuity, selling or leasing only the buildings on it to residents at affordable rates, preserving community control.
To discourage land speculation, capture value created by the community, and fund public goods.
Tax the unimproved value of land, not the buildings on it, incentivizing productive use of urban spaces and reducing sprawl.
To create a decentralized, resilient internet infrastructure that is owned by users, not telecom corporations.
Install routers on homes and public buildings to create a wireless network that provides free, local communication and internet access.
To use technology for optimizing and fairly distributing community resources like energy, water, and transit.
Train AI models on local data to manage a smart grid, predict public transit needs, and optimize water usage, with all algorithms being public and auditable.
To create repairable, upgradable, and customizable technology that serves users, not manufacturers.
Design and manufacture appliances (e.g., refrigerators, washing machines) with standardized, replaceable parts and publicly available schematics.
To democratize the workplace and ensure that the value labor creates benefits the workers themselves.
Create a public fund that provides grants and loans for employees to buy out retiring owners and convert traditional businesses into worker-owned cooperatives.
To increase productivity and wellbeing while reducing energy consumption and environmental impact.
Encourage businesses and public institutions to shift to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay, promoting a better work-life balance.
To guarantee access to life's essentials (housing, food, transport, healthcare) as a social right, reducing the coercive pressure of work.
A city provides free public transit, subsidized healthy food, and housing guarantees, funded by progressive taxation and reduced bureaucracy.
To reclaim public space for free, shared cultural experiences that are accessible to all.
Use projectors and speakers powered by solar batteries to host film screenings, theater, and dance performances in parks and plazas.
To foster creativity that directly challenges waste culture and demonstrates abundance through reuse.
Host a community-wide collection of "junk," then workshops to turn it into musical instruments and art, culminating in a performance and fair.
To develop and play games (physical & digital) that are cooperative, teach systems thinking, and model SolarPunk principles.
Gather game designers, artists, and players to create and playtest games focused on collaboration, ecological restoration, and community problem-solving.
To preserve local history not in a single institution, but distributed and owned by the community itself.
Use a local mesh network or low-server platform for residents to upload and tag photos, oral histories, news clippings, and videos of local significance.
To bridge memory and future-casting by transforming past struggles into hopeful future narratives.
Record elders' stories of past challenges (e.g., organizing a union, fighting for civil rights), then have writers and artists re-imagine them as tales of triumph in a SolarPunk future.
To collectively imagine and design a desired future, making it a shared goal rather than a corporate or government mandate.
Use facilitated exercises, art, and model-building to allow citizens to articulate their hopes for the community in 20, 50, and 100 years.
To ensure vital practical knowledge is passed on and not lost to outsourcing and professionalization.
Document and offer free classes taught by community members on topics like food fermentation, basic mechanics, composting, and natural building.
To shift education from standardized curricula to self-directed, passion-based learning.
Develop a digital platform where learners of all ages can set goals, find mentors and resources, document projects, and receive community feedback.
To cultivate critical thinking, deep listening, and collaborative inquiry into fundamental questions.
Host weekly meetings in a cafe or library where a facilitator guides a group through a structured dialogue on a chosen philosophical or civic question.
To visually represent the diverse identities, histories, and hopes of the community in public spaces.
Facilitate workshops to gather ideas, then collaborate with local artists and residents to paint a large mural on a prominent public wall.
To connect people across generational and cultural lines by valuing both practical knowledge and personal narrative.
Pair youth and elders (or long-time and new residents) to share a skill (e.g., cooking, woodworking) and a related personal story.
To intentionally build social bonds and integrate new residents into the community fabric, preventing isolation.
Organize monthly communal meals in a public park or square, with a specific focus on introducing newcomers and sharing stories.
To redistribute the labor of childcare across the community, liberating parents and integrating children into community life.
Organize a network of caregivers (including retirees and youth) where parents contribute hours watching children in exchange for hours of childcare.
To co-locate childcare and elder care, facilitating meaningful connections between the very young and the very old.
Create a center with spaces for daycare and elder activities, with shared times for meals, storytelling, and gentle play.
To build a community culture rooted in explicit consent, communication, and respect beyond the gender binary.
Offer age-appropriate workshops in schools, community centers, and workplaces focused on communication, boundaries, and understanding diverse identities.
To carve out intentional spaces for solitude and mental restoration in the busy urban environment.
Designate and design small, accessible spaces in parks and public buildings as zones for quiet reflection, free from commerce and digital distraction.
To address health as a holistic state of wellbeing within a community context, not just the absence of disease.
Form peer-support groups that meet regularly to discuss challenges, share knowledge on preventative care, nutrition, and mental health, and provide mutual aid.
To allow healthcare providers to "prescribe" non-clinical community activities to address loneliness and improve health.
Doctors can refer patients to activities like community gardening, walking groups, or volunteer opportunities, with support from a community link worker.
To break the taboo around mortality and discuss end-of-life wishes openly, leading to more dignified and less medicalized deaths.
Gatherings in informal settings where people drink tea, eat cake, and discuss death with no agenda, objectives, or themes.
To find common ground across different spiritual traditions through shared reverence for natural cycles.
Organize public celebrations for solstices and equinoxes that incorporate elements, music, and readings from various world cultures and faiths.
To critically examine the role of technology in society and develop a shared ethic for its development and use.
A reading group that explores texts from various philosophies to build a community framework for evaluating technology based on its impact on human flourishing and ecology.
To generate hyperlocal, real-time air quality data owned by the community, not corporations or government.
Install low-cost, open-source air quality sensors on homes and public buildings, streaming the data to a public map.
To drastically reduce potable water waste by recycling water from showers and sinks for toilet flushing and garden irrigation.
Offer subsidies and workshops for installing approved greywater systems in homes and apartment buildings.
To mitigate flooding and recharge aquifers by replacing impermeable surfaces with water-absorbing landscapes.
Replace asphalt in parking lots and schoolyards with permeable pavers, rain gardens, and swales to capture stormwater.
To create perennial, low-maintenance sources of free food in public parks and on common land.
Design and plant guilds of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, and edible ground cover in public spaces, open for anyone to harvest.
To create a direct relationship between fishers and consumers, supporting sustainable fishing practices.
Modeled on CSAs, community members subscribe to receive a weekly share of the catch from local, small-scale fishers using ethical methods.
To reconnect people to existing food sources in their environment and view the city as an ecosystem.
Create and publish maps of public fruit trees, nut trees, and edible plants, and lead guided walks to teach safe identification and harvesting.
To replace water-intensive, sterile lawns with productive and beautiful native landscapes.
Offer grants, design templates, and workshops for homeowners to replace grass with food gardens, native plant gardens, or rainwater capture features.
To create dense, walkable, community-oriented neighborhoods that share resources and reduce ecological footprints.
Reform zoning laws to allow for clustered housing with common houses, shared kitchens, gardens, and cars, while protecting surrounding green space.
To reduce the urban heat island effect, manage stormwater, generate energy, and provide habitat.
Update building codes to require all new flat-roofed commercial and multi-family buildings to install either vegetation or solar panels.
To create a resilient, decentralized energy system powered by renewables and owned by the community.
Pool resources to install solar panels and battery storage on public buildings and homes, creating a network that can operate independently of the main grid.
To create a circular economy for construction materials by documenting everything used in a building for future reuse.
Mandate that new buildings have a digital record of all materials and components, making them future "warehouses" for construction projects.
To replace polystyrene and plastic packaging with home-grown, compostable mycelium alternatives.
Set up a community lab to grow mycelium molds for local businesses, turning agricultural waste into protective packaging that returns to the earth.
To make cycling a safe, viable, and primary mode of transport for people of all ages and abilities.
Create a fully interconnected network of physically separated bike lanes that connect residential areas to schools, workplaces, and commercial centers.
To reclaim streets from cars for people, drastically reducing traffic, noise, and air pollution in residential areas.
Group city blocks into "superblocks," where through-traffic is restricted to the perimeter, and the interior streets become green spaces for play and socializing.
To provide on-demand, affordable, and zero-emission public transit for first/last-mile connections.
Replace underused bus routes with a fleet of electric vans or shuttles, bookable via an app, that serve designated zones, owned and operated by the city or a co-op.
To normalize a culture of reuse and eliminate the concept of waste from public gatherings.
Mandate that all public festivals and markets provide compost and recycling stations, ban single-use plastics, and use reusable dishware systems.
To turn organic waste (food scraps, yard waste) into renewable energy (biogas) and fertilizer for local farms.
Install central digesters to process waste from neighborhoods, producing gas for cooking or electricity and nutrient-rich digestate for gardens.
To create a circular economy hub where businesses specialize in refurbishing, remanufacturing, and upcycling waste streams.
Zone an area and provide incentives for businesses that take apart electronics, refurbish furniture, and creatively reuse construction waste.
To reconnect fragmented habitats and support biodiversity by creating pathways for wildlife through the urban environment.
Identify and connect green spaces with native plant corridors, install wildlife crossings over roads, and create insect hotels and bird nesting sites.
To rapidly grow dense, native forests on small plots of unused urban land for biodiversity, cooling, and carbon sequestration.
Identify a small plot of land, prepare the soil, and plant dozens of native species densely, creating a self-sustaining forest in just years.
To preserve genetic diversity of food crops and empower citizens to become sovereign seed savers.
Create a library where gardeners can "borrow" seeds, grow the plants, and return seeds from the healthiest specimens at the end of the season.
