How to Share the Commons

The reimagined Commons takes special care to reach every member of UW–Madison’s environmental community. Courtesy of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Anyone who has taken an introductory environmental science course will be familiar with the concept of “the commons,” the natural resources — air, water, land, wildlife — that are shared and stewarded by humans. The term derives from a 1968 essay titled “The Tragedy of the Commons,” by ecologist Garrett Hardin, which posits that these unregulated resources are depleted by overuse. But at the UW, the Commons is a resource that thrives the more people use it.

The Commons is the flagship publication of the UW’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Founded in 2002 under the name In Common, the publication has seen several iterations, from a biannual printed newsletter to a monthly digital magazine. Its latest version, launched in fall 2025, takes special care to reach every member of the UW’s environmental community.

According to Chelsea Rademacher ’13, communications manager at the Nelson Institute, the Commons team was already preparing to redesign the publication when the federal government released updated digital accessibility requirements in April 2024. These new guidelines became the core of the Commons’ transformation from a digital flip-book to an immersive, multimedia experience.

Each issue, delivered quarterly to email inboxes, features a striking cover that links to a curated, thematic home page. Each storytelling element is designed to create an equitable user experience when accessed with assistive technologies like screen readers and text-to-speech software.

“Offering everything with as much accessibility consideration as possible in order to reach the broadest community we can is really just the Commons living up to the Nelson Institute’s identity,” Rademacher says. “Access and equity are important to anyone who cares about the environment, because we all want to succeed together on this planet that we share.”

Published in the Summer 2026 issue