WHY SLOW UP

On the weekend of 24–25 October 2026, as we shift to winter time, we invite everyone to slow down for 25 hours. The seasonal shift marks a natural moment of slowdown. Yet our economy moves in the opposite direction, demanding constant availability, production and consumption. The result is visible everywhere: rising burnout, exhaustion and loneliness, growing inequality and ecosystems pushed beyond their limits.
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Mental, social and ecological crises are intertwined. They are the result of an economy driven by extraction and GDP over wellbeing. These are not individual failures, but signs of a society chasing “harder, better, faster, stronger,” burning out people and planet. SLOW UP is therefore not a call for personal self-care, but an invitation to slow down collectively.

But the question is also: who actually has the time to pause?
Women still perform around three quarters of unpaid care work worldwide. Many precarious workers juggle multiple jobs with little control over their time. For migrants, shift workers or single parents, rest is often a luxury rather than a right. Even in wealthy societies, time is unevenly distributed. Work is increasingly insecure, performance pressure more constant, leaving less room for rest or connection.
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At the same time, consumption is offered as comfort for exhaustion.
The cycle is familiar: the harder we work, the less time we have, and the more we consume to fill the gap. Young and old alike are caught in a culture of 'never enough', and radical individualism.

The result: we are outrunning ourselves and the planet. We are failing the Paris Agreement, flirting with 1.5°C of global warming, and have already crossed six of nine planetary boundaries. Meanwhile, human rights and mental health are under pressure worldwide.

‍The good news: not all is lost. These crises are the result of deliberate choices—and we can make different ones. It can be better. As Margaret Mead famously said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Protests amplify shared concerns, and signal to decision-makers that change is needed. Activism comes in many forms. Sometimes it is loud and urgent, sometimes quiet and soft. We believe we need both. SLOW UP belongs to that softer spectrum: a form of activism that tries to build bridges instead of polarization. It also brings back something often missing in activism: joy and rest.
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Many of today’s crises are not accidents, but the result of ideas we stopped questioning: endless growth, efficiency above care, quantity above quality, and profit maximization above fair trade.

Slow Up for Humanity invites everyone to consider this set of questions: what makes a life worth living, and how can we make that life accessible to as many people as possible? Who gets time to rest? Who decides what counts as productive? And who benefits from a world in which everything and everyone must always be available, productive and consuming? What might we gain if we allowed ourselves and the Earth more time to rest and recover?

Research confirms that most people want a humane society on a liveable planet, why then do we allow policy makers to move in the opposite direction?