Duane Elgin is co-founder of Great Transition Stories, an internationally recognized author, speaker, and social visionary who looks beneath the surface turbulence of our times to explore the deeper trends transforming our world. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA in economic history from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006, he received the Japanese Goi International Peace Award in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.” In 2001, he received an honorary Ph.D. from the California Institute of Integral Studies for his work in “ecological and spiritual transformation.”
His books include Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (1981, republished 2009), Awakening Earth: Exploring the Evolution of Human Culture and Consciousness (1993), Promise Ahead: A Vision of Hope and Action for Humanity’s Future (2000), The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (2009), and Choosing Earth: Humanity’s Great Transition to a Mature Planetary Civilization (2020, updated 2022). With Joseph Campbell and other scholars, he co-authored Changing Images of Man (1982), which explored archetypes drawing humanity into a transforming future.
Duane has contributed chapters to more than two dozen books and published more than 100 major articles. In 1972, he worked as a senior researcher on the Presidential Commission on Population Growth and the American Future in Washington, DC. He then served as a senior social scientist at the think-tank SRI International, where he co-authored numerous long-range futures studies including Anticipating Future National and Global Problems (for the National Science Foundation), Alternative Futures for Environmental Policy: 1975-2000 (for the EPA), and Limits to the Management of Large, Complex Systems (for the President’s Science Advisor). Over the past 30 years, he has co-founded three nonprofit organizations working for media accountability and “Electronic Town Meetings,” including Bay Voice, which in 1987 collaborated with ABC-TV to produce an historic, hour-long, prime-time Electronic Town Meeting viewed by more than 300,000 people.
As a speaker, Duane has given more than 350 keynote speeches to audiences ranging from business leaders and nonprofit organizations to universities, film and media groups, and religious organizations.
Why their voice matters: Duane has spent five decades bridging rigorous futures research with accessible wisdom about how humanity can consciously evolve. From his early work on presidential commissions revealing our unsustainable path, through pioneering the voluntary simplicity movement, to his recent call for humanity to “choose Earth,” he consistently looks beneath surface turbulence to identify the deeper patterns of transformation. Duane combines the credibility of think-tank research with the accessibility of lived wisdom, demonstrating that a sustainable future requires not just policy changes but a fundamental shift in consciousness and lifestyle. By exploring humanity as part of a living, conscious universe, he offers a vision that is simultaneously pragmatic and sacred, showing how we can move from adolescent overconsumption to mature planetary citizenship through choices that are outwardly simple and inwardly rich.