A Social Moonshot
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Stewardship Decision Lens
A Succinct Guide to Responsible, Enduring Decisions
Use this lens to guide core decisions through five stages of responsibility - in sequence.
We are operating in a period of diminishing returns from extractive decision-making. Decisions too often prioritise speed, scale, and novelty without sufficient regard for their broader consequences. Stewardship reframes leadership as custodianship: recognising that every decision inherits conditions from the past, shapes present realities, and sets precedents for the future.
The Stewardship Decision Lens is a practical framework for improving decision quality where responsibility, complexity, and time horizons matter. It asks those who carry responsibility to consider what has been inherited, who and what is affected, what requires care, whether a choice endures, and the legacy it sets.
See this as lens of orientation, a tool for slowing down decisions long enough to account for responsibility, without paralysing action. Stewardship begins not with answers, but with how we choose to decide.
1. INHERIT
Understand what you have received
Key prompt:
What existed before us that makes this possible?
2. IMPACT
Map consequences for people, culture, and nature
Key prompt:
Who carries the weight of this decision?
3. CARE
Identify what requires attention, repair, or protection
Key prompt:
What does responsible care look like here?
4. CONTINUITY
Assess durability and long-term viability
Key prompt:
Will this still make sense when we are no longer here?
5. LEGACY
Consider the precedent and teaching of this decision
Key prompt:
What are we teaching others to do through this choice?
This lens is offered as a free, shared framework — a way to make stewardship speakable, usable, and actionable across culture and commerce. It is designed to be adopted, referenced, and applied wherever decisions shape lives, landscapes, and meaning. Please share widely and use actively.
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Stewardship in Practice
Those who wish to take this lens beyond reflection and into lived practice are invited to sign the Stewardship Pledge and join the Age of the Steward — a growing body of leaders choosing to be accountable not just for outcomes, but for how decisions are made.