Opus works to create and support responses to achieve urgent systemic change.

We do this by telling stories, bringing people together and demonstrating proofs of possibility.

Credit: Dora Dami

Opus is a worker-owned social enterprise with the aim of finding systemic responses to society’s most complex problems. We're based in Sheffield, northern England. Since 2008 we've hosted projects in the city that further the conversation around issues like poverty, inequality and climate breakdown.

Our work recognises that the problems faced by our city, the UK and the wider world are complex and intersecting.

We can't solve these problems one at a time – that's why we're involved in dozens of different projects seeking to make change in areas such as climate, poverty and marginalisation.

We are at crisis point

Rich countries like the UK are deeply complicit in the extraction and colonialisation of resources and peoples around the world. Our material and energy usage is causing us to exceed the boundaries of what our planet can sustain.

At the same time, the dire effects of our extraction from the global majority means that many countries are unable to meet the basic needs of billions of people. These countries, primarily in the global south, are also experiencing the worst effects of ecological and climate breakdown.

In Sheffield and in the wider world, we are seeing a series of intersecting crises of increasing severity and frequency unfold. Our food, energy, housing, democratic and eco systems are at real risk of collapse.

We urgently need to build resilient new systems with the capabilities to address the urgent problems that we face now, and in the near future. These systems need to meet the needs of everyone on the planet, without compromising earth’s life-supporting systems.

Learn about our Theory of Change