by Greg Landua
The Setting:
Nestled in the hills and hollers of middle Tennessee, up on the Cumberland highland rim, in the small town of Hohenwald, TN, there are interesting things afoot. Financial Permaculture, the radical integration of finance and ecological design, is starting to take root.
Permaculture consciousness has spread across the globe since its inception by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Permaculture Design is most often applied to ecological landscaping and the possibility of creating dynamic, high-yield, diverse ecosystems. But what does all this system thinking and positivism have to say about economics? Although people all over the world have explored this topic, there are still many questions and issues to be worked out.
What does the Permaculture concept mean when applied to business? This question was at the heart of the recent Financial Permaculture Workshop in Hohenwald. The goal behind this unique course was to bring the world of Finance and Permaculture together in a safe space to explore the interconnections, edges, and design possibilities. In Permaculture design, we notice that the edges between systems are where a lot of the creative energy dwells. There is certainly plenty of edge between the usually for-profit world of Finance and the usually non-profit world of Permaculture.
Fueled by strong connections with the global regenerative network though organizations like Gaia University and the Ecovillage Training Center, a local steering committee was put together to help organize the event. The steering committee was lead by the Center for Holistic Ecology, a local non-profit focused on sustainability and local economic development and Solari, Inc., a financial consulting company run by Catherine Austin Fitts.
The Design
Using Fitts’ idea of “the invention room,” the goal of the workshop was to allow for exchange of ideas and to work toward the design of creative business plans that would benefit the local community which hosted the event. For two months leading up to the course, the local team of workshop conveners conversed with the local community to generate a list of businesses that would benefit the community. After several meetings, the community interests started to crystallize and a list of business ideas became the core of the curriculum for the workshop.
The businesses chosen by the local community to be designed during the workshop were:
• a Community-scale Ethanol Plan designed to be a zero waste Food and Fuel farm demonstrating permaculture principles;
• a Green Business Incubator to help start-ups in the community;
• a Farmers Market and community kitchen;
• a Green retrofit for an old warehouse to create a marketplace and offices to house local artisans.
During the workshop, these businesses were designed by groups lead by a instructor who is an expert in that specific field and has successfully created a similar business, and a skilled facilitator to help optimize group dynamics and learning. You can find information about each design on the Financial Permaculture wiki www.financialpermaculture.practivist.org, and blogs focusing on the group experience and the significant learning at www.financialpermaculture.org.
Of the five-day course, two days were devoted fully to design. The complexity of designing a business to our narrow standards that combine profitability with the Earthcare, Peoplecare and Fairshare ethics can’t be underestimated. This forced groups to take steps toward designing their own workflow, and trusting individuals and small groups to design small parts of the business to fit into a mosaic for the presentation. This kind of integrative model really pushes the envelop on systems thinking and allows people to start embodying the principles they are designing with. It is all fine-and-dandy to talk about people care as a central tenant of a business, and yet another thing to have to work as a group and provide space to hear different points of view as a collaborative design emerges to meet that ethical imperative!
The green business designs were intended to be conversation pieces and provoke questions such as:
- What would make this business sustainable?
- How do we close the loops of the supply chain?
- What other businesses would need to coexist to make a vibrant financial ecosystem with ample yields for humans and the earth?
The Discussion!
In order to truly explore these questions with a broader audience, and make the connection with the community more firm, the capstone of the workshop was a design presentation for a panel of local leaders. Reaching out to the local leaders of the community and honoring them for their commitment to service is a key part of getting any conversation started. By sharing the information and ideas we had in this way, it is really amazing how many connections were made and ideas planted. The panelists who were in attendance included local government, the USDA, State Representatives and a State Senator, members of the chamber of commerce and local newspaper.
The structure of the presentations was such that the local leaders were asked to comment about each business and presentation after the plan had been pitched. Comments were flattering, but also well-constructed with questions that hit the mark. Southerners can be tough nuts to crack. Hardheaded business acumen is a common trait in the rural South, where folks can be imminently practical. If a business will not stand up to the tests of reality, it won’t make it through a presentation to these folks. As the presentations went on, it became apparent that the creativity and thought put into the businesses was opening some doors and some minds.
Down to the Nitty Gritty:
With deep faith and strong community ties, the culture of the South is proudly rooted in the practical day-to-day. No airy-fairy ideas of ecotopia are likely to last long in Hohenwald. It seems counter intuitive that a radical earth-centered philosophy and ecological design method like Permaculture would start to be heard on the street corners. But, as the Mayor of Hohenwald said during his introductory speech to the crowd that had gathered from more than 25 states to explore the edges of our economic system, “God has got to be proud of y’all.” And he meant it. Hosting an event like this in such a conservative place really puts the ideas and practices of permaculture to the test. As the practicality and real power of permaculture shows itself, the next steps become clear. No time to waste with philosophizing, only down-home, grassroots change fueled by grits and grit.
A Community Currency is born?
With the National and Global Economies in a downward spiral, people are looking around for real life alternatives. One of the most tangible results from the course was the injection of over $28,000 into the local economy. When combined with an experiment in local currency issued by the Lewis County Chamber of Commerce, the economic multiplier (the number of times money circulates through a local economy before exiting) was raised by an estimated 3.8 percent on $5,000, which boosted the total net economic gain from the course to $47,000. The Local Currency was a hit at many of the businesses, and there are plans to start consulting with local bankers to work toward making a countywide regional currency to help boost the local economy.
Now after a month-and-a-half has lapsed, the energy generated by the workshop is still gathering momentum. Plans to turn Hohenwald into the first Transition Town in the southern US are percolating, and local community members are pursuing several of the business plans. By this time next year, Hohenwald can expect to have a green building supply store, a solar hot water heating company, and potentially several other businesses that were all sparked by conversation and exploration that took place during the Financial Permaculture workshop.
Perhaps the most interesting outgrowth is a monthly community gathering lead by different business leaders in the community who are going green. This phase will serve to highlight new services and products being offered in the community that are designed to localize the economy and lower energy and food bills. These steps, remarkably enough, also serve to reduce the ecological footprint, showing an alignment between economics and the environment that seems to be the holy grail of sustainability.
The Blogosphere and Financial Permaculture: We’ve Created a monster!
Amidst all of this localized innovation and discussion, blogging and videography also played significant roles. A team of Gaia University “associates” (Gaian for “student”) worked to help facilitate and document the event. Splitting into two teams, the Gaia U associates documented the event by blogging constantly through the course of the event. The original blog is continually being updated and now forms a meeting place for discussions and knowledge-sharing about the ins and outs of creating a financial permaculture. This discussion continues on www.financialpermaculture.org. The DVD, created by Byron Palmer, a documentary producer, is due to come out just after Christmas and will be available free as a download at www.financialpermaculture.com. Both the .com and .org sites were crashed by the amount of interest pouring in from around the world during the event. An idea whose time has come! This interest is continuing as the conversation broadens to include the spheres of alternative currencies, Peer2Peer economy models and other ways of organizing a society to take care of the earth, her people and share the surplus created by our abundance.
Because this event was designed to be an active exploration and the opening of a dialog, the integration of digital media is essential to create a more diverse conversation. Now, the threads that began in October in Hohenwald can be woven into the emerging tapestry of alternative economics and ecological design as we strive to create an interdependent system of Financial Permaculture around the globe.
The online resources that are complementing the local work being done on Financial Permaculture include an online social networking site, a blog and a website. The hope is to build all these into a comprehensive resource for community-based financial solutions. Authors and contributors are invited to submit articles to the blog. For information on joining the blog team, email
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.
Next Steps:
With conversation threads now weaving across the globe and local action being slowly pushed forward by dedicated business people, leaders and Permaculturalists, the Financial Permaculture Initiative is gearing up to host the second annual Financial Permaculture workshop, September 22 - 26, 2009. An exciting addition will be an intensive workshop September 18 - 20, covering complementary currency and its role in local economic development. These two workshops will be forming the residential intensive coursework of a Gaia University degree pathway in Green Business. (For more information about Gaia University, please see our side bar.)
Just after the 2009 course, the Continental Bioregional Congress is set to take place on The Farm, the venerable intentional community just down the road from Hohenwald. This convergence of the green movement will bring into focus the broader conversation of next steps as we step into a time where the wind is at our backs as we sail toward sustainability.
In addition to hosting the second annual Financial Permaculture course in Hohenwald, groups from around the country have been asking if the Financial Permaculture course can come on the road. Who knows… perhaps Financial Permaculture is coming to a place near you! Dove-tailing with the Transition Movement as a way to bring people together to design their relationships with one another and the planet, as we transition from oil dependency to local resilience, Financial Permaculture mixes the positivism and ecological wisdom of Permaculture with the bottom-line business sense of Finance.
Follow the Conversation:
To join the social networking group, go to www.livingmandalas.ning.com and sign up for the Financial Permaculture group.
To check out the Financial Permaculture Blog, go to www.financialpermaculture.org .
To check up on information about the upcoming workshop, go to www.financialpermaculture.com .
Greg Landua is the Director of the Ecovillage Training Center on The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. He is an active permaculture and ecovillage design educator, founding partner of the Nemawashi Partnership, and core member of the Living Mandala Design Collective. Along with teaching and practicing permaculture, Greg is an active bioregional organizer and NextGEN fellow helping to craft avenues and pathways for intergenerational dialog and collaboration in the shared enterprise of earth regeneration. Greg has studied marine and terrestrial ecology and evolutionary biology in the Galapagos Islands, translated for Amazonian rainforest guides, fought wildfires in the wilderness of Alaska, and studied the nuances of ecology and ethics. Greg has B.S. in Environmental Science and Ethics from Oregon State University, and a Graduate Diplomas in Organizing Learning for Ecosocial Regeneration from Gaia University International.
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