Social Sustainability
Voluntary Simplicity
Deliberately choosing lower consumption and a simpler life — the voluntary, philosophical wing of sufficiency.
Definition
Voluntary simplicity is a lifestyle choice to reduce consumption, possessions and paid work in favour of time, community, meaning and lower environmental impact — distinct from involuntary poverty in being chosen from abundance. Named by Richard Gregg (1936) and popularised by Duane Elgin's Voluntary Simplicity (1981), it ranges from downshifting careers to minimalism and off-grid living, and is studied as the lived form of sufficiency and degrowth values.
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