Our purpose is to bring work back to where people live. The past 200 years have been a story of separation in many areas, including work. We want to write a new chapter in society, the chapter about interconnectedness. For many jobs in the developed world, it is no longer necessary to commute to a “factory” to work, as it was prior to the introduction of information technology. In Switzerland alone, 2.4 million people (50% of the workforce) could work from anywhere. Yet, we see a massive stream of commuters every day, consuming lots of energy (both in terms of natural resources and personal energy). By bringing work back to where we live, we can reduce CO2 emissions, strengthen local communities, and make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

By 2030, 50% of all employees shall be able to work where they live. We begin the journey in Switzerland and want to become an enabler for this transition worldwide. The VillageOffice cooperative is the platform for this transition. We are connecting with the corporate world through subscriptions. We provide our know-how, the IT platform, community and financial support. We will start by running various VillageOffices flagships ourselves which will serve as a learning ground for the community.

We intend to build capacity and transfer technology by enabling local communities to launch and run their own VillageOffices.

This initiative is governed by the VillageOffice cooperative. We are united by our purpose while coming from many different backgrounds. Recognizing that we cannot solve problems with the same mindset with which they were created, how we resolve issues is equally important as what issues we go after. We are a for-profit organization and our legal form of a cooperative binds us to reinvest our profits to best express our purpose. Our venture, self-organizing using Holacracy, strives for an evolutionary purpose which allows for the wholeness of each person. We are part of the B-Corp community and build on a network of partners sharing our values and supporting our purpose.

Corporations, SME, coworking spaces, local authorities on communal, state and national level