ecoliteracy

David Holmgren: RetroSuburbia – The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator with Bill Mollison of the permaculture concept following the publication of Permaculture One in 1978. Since then he has developed three properties, consulted and supervised in urban and rural projects and presented lectures, workshops and courses at a wide variety of events and venues in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues but always illuminating another aspect of permaculture thinking.

At home (Melliodora in Hepburn, Central Victoria), David is the vegetable gardener, silviculturalist and builder. Within the international and growing permaculture movement, David is respected for his commitment to presenting permaculture ideas through practical projects and teaching by personal example, that a sustainable lifestyle is a realistic, attractive and powerful alternative to dependent consumerism.

As well as constant involvement in the practical side of permaculture, David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability, the focus of his seminal book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.  This book has been significant influences on the development of Transition Initiatives around the world. More recently his Future Scenarios work has seen him recognized as a significant thinker about the “Energy Descent future.” After a decade of significant international travel, David is no longer flying but continues to do some international presentations by Skype and pre-recorded video including receipt of the recent award by Italian environmental organisation.

Interview Highlights:

  • From the co-originator of the permaculture concept, David shares his definition of what permaculture is and what it is not

  • Discussion of David’s new book, RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future

  • An unpacking of many economic ideas based around what David Holmgren argues is the basic economic unit of society: the household.

—-

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

---

Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

---

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 8,000+ subscribers and get our free 60-point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 350+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. 

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods: Decolonizing & Reindigenizing Our Relationships (Rebroadcast)

Subscribe to Next Economy Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Google Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts.

Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community.

She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony.

Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art.

---

Interview Highlights:

  • Kanyon CoyoteWoman speaks to her experience as an ancestor in training and as an indigenous entrepreneur

  • The importance of establishing authentic relationship through asking, listening, respecting, humility, & permission

  • Why we should be shifting policy to authentically understand & respect local indigenous cultures

---

LIFT Economy Newsletter

Join 7000+ subscribers and get our free 60 point business design checklist—plus monthly tips, advice, and resources to help you build the Next Economy: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

---

Next Economy MBA

This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (https://lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing network of 300+ alumni who have been exposed to new solutions, learned essential business skills, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Learn more at https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

---

Show Notes + Other Links

For detailed show notes and interviews with past guests, please visit https://lifteconomy.com/podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts by visiting: https://bit.ly/nexteconomynow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy
Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Noran Sanford, Ravin Patel, & Norman Garcia-Lopez: "Flip Your Prison" with Growing Change

Noran with youth.jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Founder of Growing Change, Noran Sanford grew up in an abusive, working-class Scot-Irish family in rural North Carolina. Ever since a young age he had a strong sense of justice, and took a stand against racism in his home even though it meant getting knocked down.

Scholarships for community involvement in high school helped Noran attend university at UNC-Chapel Hill. There he co-founded one of the few college Habitat for Humanity chapters in the country and, when then-President Reagan’s policies resulted in large populations of people shifting from mental health institutions to homeless shelters, he rallied UNC’s athletes to volunteer in shelters, helping deescalate violent situations and prevent police intervention. As a young professional, himself diagnosed with PTSD, he won awards his work in the passage of mental health parity laws in Virginia and for his work advocating for students with disabilities.

In 2000, Noran got married and moved back to Laurinburg to provide home care for his mother who was an Alzheimer’s victim. He “was stunned to find that our challenged area had grown more difficult.” Noran had been heavily involved in community work but, after 20 years “in the trenches”, he became disillusioned with the impact he was having as a counselor. Then, five years ago, at the funeral for “another young man who was lost to gang violence” he made the commitment to “never stand at another graveside for a young person I worked with asking myself if I could have done ‘more.’ This is the 'more.'”

Interview Highlights:

  • How Growing Change is a youth-empowered model taking closed prisons locally – among the hundreds nationally – and transforming them into a replicable model with sustainable farms that generate revenue and livelihoods while regenerating the land and local communities.

  • Hear directly from youth leaders Ravin Patel and Norman Garcia-Lopez about their skills and experience with Growing Change

  • Stay tuned for the Growing Change youth-led DIY “Flip Your Prison” series on their YouTube channel and the “Prison Flip Toolkit” soon to be available on their website (where you can support their work by donating via their PayPal link)

Resources:

Youth Are Flipping an Abandoned North Carolina Prison into a Sustainable Farm

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Doria Robinson & Princess Robinson: BIPOC Community Wealth Building at Cooperation Richmond

Doria Robinson.jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Growing up with a mother who was an illegal resident from Samoa, a single parent of 4 children with no educational background, Princess Robinson was raised in a low income community in Richmond CA with little resources and an unstable home.

Now herself a mother, wife, Richmond resident, and community advocate, Princess Robinson has worked with Urban Tilth, as an environmental steward, restoring creek ecosystems and providing fresh locally grown produce in food deserts throughout Richmond.

After years of community service, neighborhood meetings, community boards, and serving in many initiatives working toward a Just Transition economy throughout her community (such as beautification projects, alternative housing solutions, and implementing sustainable practices through climate justice systems), as a returning college student, Princess graduated 2019 with 3 AA degrees in business, sociology, and liberal arts.

Currently, she serves as a Project Manager for Cooperation Richmond where she supports her community members develop and launch worker-owned cooperative businesses in their community.

Doria Robinson is a 3rd generation resident of Richmond, California and the Executive Director of Urban Tilth. She is also a cofounder of Cooperation Richmond, a Richmond-based, resident-led worker-owned cooperative developer and small loan fund that builds community controlled wealth through worker-owned and community-owned cooperative businesses and enterprises by and for low-income communities and communities of color in Richmond whose wealth has been extracted.

Doria is also a dedicated Food Sovereignty, Climate Justice and Just Transition Activist, as well as the co-convener of US Food Sovereignty Alliance Western Region and an active member of the Climate Justice Alliance and Richmond Our Power Coalition. Doria currently lives in the neighborhood where she grew up in Richmond with her wonderful 18-year-old twins.

Interview Highlights:

  • The genesis of Cooperation Richmond, from Urban Tilth to leveraging values-aligned enterprise through cooperative development that supports and really meets people where they’re at

  • Some background on the Seed Commons, spawned by The Working World, and it’s relationship with Cooperation Richmond

  • An overview of the racialized and economic history of Richmond California – from the impact of wartime industries to Chevron and the significance of these community efforts in that context

  • A call for listeners to create local loan funds or investment clubs that advance Cooperation Richmond’s model in your local community

Resources:

Urban Tilth

The Working World

Rich City Rides

Star Wyngz

Princess Robinson’s work w/ Wildcat Creek

Richmond Progressive Alliance

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Etc.

  2. RATE & SUBSCRIBE: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Spotify | Etc.

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

David Holmgren: RetroSuburbia – The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future

Portrait_539_David_Holmgren_LFS-1_l.jpg

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator with Bill Mollison of the permaculture concept following the publication of Permaculture One in 1978. Since then he has developed three properties, consulted and supervised in urban and rural projects and presented lectures, workshops and courses at a wide variety of events and venues in Australia and around the world. His writings over those three decades span a diversity of subjects and issues but always illuminating another aspect of permaculture thinking.

At home (Melliodora in Hepburn, Central Victoria), David is the vegetable gardener, silviculturalist and builder. Within the international and growing permaculture movement, David is respected for his commitment to presenting permaculture ideas through practical projects and teaching by personal example, that a sustainable lifestyle is a realistic, attractive and powerful alternative to dependent consumerism.

As well as constant involvement in the practical side of permaculture, David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability, the focus of his seminal book Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.  This book has been significant influences on the development of Transition Initiatives around the world. More recently his Future Scenarios work has seen him recognized as a significant thinker about the “Energy Descent future.” After a decade of significant international travel, David is no longer flying but continues to do some international presentations by Skype and pre-recorded video including receipt of the recent award by Italian environmental organisation.

Interview Highlights:

  • From the co-originator of the permaculture concept, David shares his definition of what permaculture is and what it is not

  • Discussion of David’s new book, RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter's Guide to a Resilient Future

  • An unpacking of many economic ideas based around what David Holmgren argues is the basic economic unit of society: the household.

—


This episode is brought to you by the Next Economy MBA.

What would a business education look like if it was completely redesigned for the benefit of all life? This is why the team at LIFT Economy created the Next Economy MBA (http://www.lifteconomy.com/mba).

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month online course for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective. 

Join the growing network of nearly 250+ alumni who have learned essential skills, increased their confidence in Next Economy business fundamentals, and joined a lifelong peer group that is catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life.

Courses are offered twice per year. Learn more and/or register today at http://www.lifteconomy.com.mba.

—

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps expose these ideas to new listeners:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-economy-now-business-as-a-force-for-good/id1074584017

For show notes and past guests, please visit www.lifteconomy.com/podcast

Sign up for our monthly newsletter to get tips, advice, and guidance on how you can help create the Next Economy: http://www.lifteconomy.com/newsletter

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFT_Economy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods: Decolonizing & Reindigenizing Our Relationships

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community. She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art.

Kanyon_mid.jpg

Interview Highlights:

  • Kanyon CoyoteWoman speaks to her experience as an ancestor in training and as an indigenous entrepreneur

  • The importance of establishing authentic relationship through asking, listening, respecting, humility, & permission

  • Why we should be shifting policy to authentically understand & respect local indigenous cultures

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE this post on social media!

  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

Amelia-HS-1.jpg

Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE this post on social media!

  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Brock Dolman: Thirsty for a Balanced Water Budget

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Brock Dolman co-directs the WATER Institute, Permaculture Design Program and Wildlands Program. He has taught Permaculture and consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally in Costa Rica, Ecuador, U.S. Virgin Islands, Spain, Brazil, China, Canada, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba and widely in the U.S. He has been the keynote presenter at numerous conferences and was featured in the award-winning films The 11th Hour by Leonardo DiCaprio, The Call of Life by Species Alliance, and Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution by Vanessa Shultz. In October of 2012, he gave a City 2.0 TEDx talk. Brock completed his BA in the Biology and Environmental Studies departments at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1992, graduating with honors. For over a decade, he has served as an appointed commissioner on the Sonoma County Fish & Wildlife Commission. 

Brock-Dolman.jpg

Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Brock Dolman include:

  • Unpacking aspects of the ecological, biological, & economic importance of water

  • Adaptation to global warming by maximizing/stretching our water budgets at various scales

  • Suggestions for transitioning ecologically from viscous cycles to virtuous cycles & personal resilience strategies

  • An overview of some of Brock’s exciting projects at The WATER Institute at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center and beyond

Resources:

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Beth Rattner: Exciting Opportunities Through Biomimetic Design

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Beth Rattner is the executive director for the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit co-founded by Janine Benyus. Beth directs the Institute’s strategic vision and mission to create a new generation of nature-inspired innovators and oversees the organization’s three programs: Youth Design Challenge, Global Design Challenge + Launchpad, and AskNature. She is a frequent speaker on how biomimetic design in products, cities, and agriculture can bring about a new level of repair and cooperation to our economy and ecosystem which in turn will spur new levels of social equity. 

Prior to this position, Beth worked with William McDonough and Michael Braungart on The Upcycle, the sequel to Cradle to Cradle, before she helped co-found the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and became its first executive director and vice president. Beth was also a managing director for one of the first sustainability business consultant firms, Blu Skye, and business manager for Hewlett Packard’s Emerging Market Solutions (EMS) group. This HP internal “start-up” championed a new lens on providing technology solutions to those who earn less than $2 a day. The team launched HP’s first multi-user, daisy-chained computer for poorly funded schools and a solar-powered printer. The printer provided microfinance opportunities for women who brought paid photography to remote villages, allowing people to photograph their family events for the very first time. Beth is a graduate of U.C.L.A. and Loyola Law School and lives in Marin County, California.

Beth Rattner with old pup.jpeg

Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Beth Rattner include:

  • A brief introduction to the field of biomimicry

  • How so much of what we depend upon in the chemical & materials world could be addressed through structural design

  • Examples of exciting products inspired by biomimetic design

  • How biomimicry is a perfect compliment to many of the solutions proposed in Project Drawdown

  • How the Biomimicry Institute can capture the genius of today’s engineers and designers to solve today’s most pressing challenges

Resources:

Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE this post on social media!

  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Penny Livingston-Stark: Ecoliteracy, Permaculture, and Regenerative Design

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Penny Livingston-Stark is internationally recognized as a prominent permaculture teacher, designer, and speaker. She holds a MS in Eco-Social Regeneration and 3 Diplomas in Permaculture Design. She has studied, taught with, hosted and learned directly from Bill Mollison, and David Holmgren the co-founders of Permaculture and the developers of the Permaculture Design Certification Course curriculum.

Penny has been teaching internationally and working professionally in the land management, regenerative design, and permaculture development field for 25 years and has extensive experience in all phases of ecologically sound design and construction as well as the use of natural non-toxic building materials. She specializes in site planning and the design of resource-rich landscapes integrating, rainwater collection, edible and medicinal planting, spring development, pond and water systems, habitat development and watershed restoration for homes, co-housing communities, businesses, and diverse yield perennial farms. She as taught Herbal Medicine Making, Natural Building and Permaculture around the US as well as Bali, Indonesia, Peru, Germany, Mexico, France, Turkey, Portugal, Australia, Belize, Brazil, England and Costa Rica.

With her husband James Stark, and in collaboration with Commonweal — a cancer health research and retreat center — Penny co-manages Commonweal Garden, a 17-acre organic and certified salmon-safe farm in Bolinas, California.

Penny co-created the Ecological Design Program and its curriculum at the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, co-created the Permaculture Program at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center with Brock Dolman, co-created the Earth Activist Training with Starhawk and she co-founded the West Marin Grower’s Group, the West Marin Farmer’s Market, and the Community Land Trust Association of Marin. Penny has also worked with the Marin County Community Development Agency and Planning Department to develop recommendations on sustainability for updating the Community Plan.

Penny is a founding member of the Natural Building Colloquium, a national consortium of professional natural builders, creating innovations in straw bale, cob, timberframe, light clay, natural non-toxic interior finishes and other methods using natural and bio-regionally appropriate materials for construction.

She has been featured in the following films: Symphony of the Soil by Lily Films and Deborah Koons Garcia, 2012: A Time for Change by Joao Amorim and Daniel Pinchbeck and Permaculture: The Growing Edge by Belili Films and Starhawk.  Contact Penny at penny@regenerativedesign.org.

penny-livingston-stark-web.jpg

Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s interview with Penny Livingston-Stark include: 

  • A glimpse into the early days of permaculture in the US and common misconceptions about permaculture

  • The importance of ecological literacy and appreciating design considerations such as “embodied energy” of system inputs

  • Appreciating bird song and other gifts of our nonhuman neighbors

  • How dairy and cattle ranching is stigmatized but how it can in fact be a powerful driver of ecological regeneration if managed to optimize for soil health

  • The importance of supporting your local herbalists

 

Resources:

Permaculture

Ecoliteracy

Regenerative Design Institute

Tom Ward

Rick Valley

Bill Mollison

Ianto Evans

John Todd

Lost Valley Education & Event Center

Jude Hobbs

The Ecology of Commerce

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

Constructed Wetland

Sacred Economics

Embodied Energy

David Holmgren

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Kelsey Ducheneaux: Resprouting Ancestral Seeds & Local Economies

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Kelsey Ducheneaux is a member of the Lakota Sioux Nation. Alongside her work as a beef cattle rancher on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Ducheneaux is the youth programs coordinator and natural resource director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, a national organization working to improve Indian Country. 

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Resources:

Intertribal Agriculture Council – Youth

Native Youth Food Sovereignty Alliance

Organic reach: Food sovereignty moves to the web

Project H3LP

Lyla June

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Darrie Ganzhorn: Transforming Land & Lives at Homeless Garden Project

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Darrie Ganzhorn is the executive director of Santa Cruz’s Homeless Garden Project, an incredible nonprofit that provides job training, transitional employment and support services to those in need on an organic farm and garden.  Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Ganzhorn studied marine biology at UC Berkeley. She worked at the Hopkins Marine Station after graduation, but when her son was born, she had an epiphany. “I didn’t want to do research anymore. I wanted to do something based on human needs. I wanted to do something that was more basic and vital,” Ganzhorn said in her interview. She found meaningful work at the Homeless Garden Project, where she interned in 1991 when she began working one-on-one with Project trainees, not long after the Project was started by UCSC philosophy professor and social visionary Paul Lee.  Darrie has held various positions at the Homeless Garden Project evolved. She provides a multi-year perspective on the development of this internationally known organization.

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Resources:

Shop around in HGP's Online Store

Growing Hope, part 1  & Growing Hope, part 2 (This thirty minute video, narrated by Harrison Ford was filmed in 1996 and shows the beginnings of the homeless garden project. DVD available here.)

Book: Unearthing Seeds of Fire: The Idea of Highlander

HGP Blog Post: Here, Amongst the Flowers and Vegetables

Permaculture Action Network

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Valentin Lopez: Restoration of the Amah Mutsun & The Lands They Steward

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Valentin Lopez has been the Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band since 2003, one of three historic tribes that are recognized as Ohlone. Valentin is Mutsun, Awaswas, Chumash and Yokuts. The Amah Mutsun are comprised of the documented descendants of Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz. Valentin Lopez is a Native American Advisor to the University of California, Office of the President on issues related to repatriation. He is also a Native American Advisor to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Valentin is actively involved in efforts to restore tribal indigenous knowledge and ensure our history is accurately told. Finally, Valentin is working to restore the Mutsun Language and is a traditional Mutsun singer and dancer. As Chairman, Valentin is a standing member on all Tribal committees and Boards.

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Resources:

http://amahmutsun.org/land-trust

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Winona LaDuke: Seeds of Hope for a Healthy Next Economy

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party. As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non profit organizations in the country, and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and community commitment. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms.Woman of the Year ( with the Indigo Girls in l997) , and the Reebok Human Rights Award, with which in part she began the White Earth Land Recovery Project. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards- including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a boardmember of the Christensen Fund. The Author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel- Last Standing Woman, she is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues

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https://www.winonashemp.com/

 

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.


Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Massey Burke: Natural Building, Carbon Sequestration, and Resilience in Climate Chaos

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Massey Burke is a natural materials specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work centers on research, design, and hands-on implementation of building with low-carbon, natural materials, with an interest in applying natural building to existing buildings and the urban fabric. She also teams up with organizations such as the California Straw Building Association and the Ecological Building Network to generate technical information on carbon and natural materials in the built environment, and works on code issues surrounding natural materials through the Cob Research Institute and other collaborators. More on her work can be found here.

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.


Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Gopal Dayaneni & Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan: Frameworks & Strategies for a Just Transition

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan is Co-Director of the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project (MG). Since 2007, MG has been bridging the gap between our current social movement strategies and the scale of the unfolding ecological crisis. As a collective member, Michelle leads trainings, facilitates strategy sessions, and works with other groups to foster a just transition to local living economies. Michelle brings over a decade of experience pairing resilience and resistance in fostering a just food system as the founding director of the Center for Food and Justice and a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow. She organized community groups in South Los Angeles and family farmers from across California to forge model programs and policy campaigns to shift power in the food system. She was one of the early initiators of the Farm to School movement in the U.S. Under her leadership, the Center for Food and Justice organized high school students, parents, and cafeteria workers in a campaign for healthy school food in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, Michelle served as co-director of the School of Unity and Liberation from 2005-2008 before joining Movement Generation. She has a M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA and grew up in Southern California. Michelle is now setting roots in Berkeley where she gardens with the extended Movement Generation family and her two lively daughters.  Contact Michelle: michelleATmovementgeneration.org

Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980’s. Gopal is an active trainer with and serves on the boards of The Ruckus Societyand the Center for Story-based Strategy(formerly smartMeme). He also serves on the advisory boards of the International Accountability Project, and Catalyst Project. Gopal works at the intersection of ecology, economy and empire.  Gopal has been a campaigner for Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition on human rights and environmental justice in the high-tech industry and the Oil Campaigner for Project Underground, a human rights and environmental rights organization which supported communities resisting oil and mining exploitation around the world. Gopal has been active in many people powered direct action movements, including the Global Justice/Anti-Globalization Movement, Direct Action to Stop the War, Mobilization for Climate Justice, Take Back the Land, and Occupy.  Gopal is the father of two young direct action junkies, Ila Sophia and Kavi Samaka Orion, and lives in an intentional community with 9 adults, 8 kids and a bunch of chickens.  Contact Gopal: gopalATmovementgeneration.org

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Resources:

https://movementgeneration.org

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers). You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Bettina von Hagen: Blending Capital & Worldviews That See the Forest for the Trees

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Bettina helped launch Ecotrust Forests and joined Ecotrust Forest Management (EFM) as CEO in 2008. Bettina has spent the past 15 years working to promote economic viability, social equity, and environmental health in the Pacific Northwest with a particular focus on forestry. A former commercial banker, Bettina has over 20 years of experience in banking, impact investing, and fund management. She also has significant expertise in emerging markets in ecosystem services, particularly the forest carbon market, where she is involved in developing markets and protocols for high-quality forest carbon projects at the state, regional, and federal levels. Previously, Bettina was Vice President at Ecotrust for forestry programs and for the Natural Capital Fund, a $20M fund which invests in key businesses and initiatives in the conservation economy. Prior to joining Ecotrust in 1993, she was a vice president and commercial lender at First Interstate Bank of Oregon and has been a Member of Environmental Advisory Board of Wells Fargo & Company since March 2006. She currently serves on the board of Forest Trends. Bettina has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of the Pacific.

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Some highlights from Erin’s interview with Bettina include:

  • The origin story of Ecotrust & Ecotrust Forest Management and the blended capital approaches to addressing complex ecological challenges

  • How unlike early U.S. conservation approaches that divorced people from the land, Ecotrust brings an approach that integrates conservation w/ community needs in ways that advances conservation while advancing livelihoods (ie: 100% of the landscape matters & 100% of people matter)

  • Ecotrust’s creation of a for-profit bank that targeted enterprises enhancing ecological and social outcomes – a bank that grew into and was acquired by Beneficial State Bank, carrying the same original intention

  • Ecotrust describes their worldview & style of forestry as the 5 R’s – Rotation, retention, reserves, resilience, relationships – suggesting practices that foster regional forest systems which yield greater value and health, rather than narrowly managing for a single commodity like timber

  • Ecotrust’s deep involvement & relationship w/ tribal communities from elevating indigenous worldviews to repatriating ancestral lands and other natural resources

 

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County.  You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Kevin Bayuk: Our Journey to an Economy that Works for the Benefit of All Life

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Our dearly beloved co-founding member of the LIFT Team, Kevin Bayuk's has his roots in entrepreneurship, having spent nearly a decade starting and growing technology companies, and activating projects and organizations that regenerate healthy ecosystems and socially just and joyful environments. After immersing himself in all aspects of starting and growing companies, Kevin focused his attention on learning about and teaching eco-systemic design. Nowadays Kevin merges his experience in business with his experience in permaculture to help businesses care for people while enhancing the earth.  

Kevin also serves as the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown developing the business case to address climate change through existing practices and technologies. He frequently teaches classes, workshops, does public speaking, facilitates meetings, plans events and provides one on one mentoring as a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute San Francisco. Kevin has helped design and start food security gardens and public learning experiences intent on reminding people that we, too, are nature.

Kevin has raised millions of dollars to capitalize business operations, led teams of more than 30 employees, and can speak well to the benefits and pitfalls of raising capital and the many paths of growing a business. He loves spreadsheets and loves to dig into operating models. One investor of Kevin’s last technology company said, “Kevin oozes strategy.”

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Some highlights from Ryan’s interview with Kevin include:

  • Kevin recounts his process of shifting away from a worldview overwhelmed by proliferation of problems/suffering to one where he recognized countless opportunities to solve problems and inspire a movement of solutions

  • How the genesis of Kevin’s interest in business & economy as powerful lever for social change grew from observations that much suffering is rooted in our system of economy that informs our cultural norms and identities

  • A leisurely stroll through LIFT’s long term vision, from LIFT 1.0 to LIFT 5.0 and how the LIFT Team balances cynicism and optimism on the path to realizing our vision

  • Some resources from which the LIFT Team derives inspiration

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LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Ryan Honeyman is a Partner at LIFT Economy and author of The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good (Berrett-Koehler Publishers).  You can follow Ryan on Twitter @honeymanconsult or email him ryan@lifteconomy.com.

Sasha Kramer: Restoring Soil & Healthy, Dignified Livelihoods

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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**Special Announcement:

Next Economy MBA

The Next Economy MBA is a nine month course for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g., vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from a regenerative, Next Economy perspective.

Dr. Sasha Kramer is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL). Dr. Kramer is an ecologist and human rights advocate who has been living and working in Haiti since 2004. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology from Stanford University in 2006 and co-founded SOIL that same year. SOIL is a non-profit that uses ecological principles to address the basic human rights issues of sanitation, food and access to a healthy environment. SOIL’s current work focuses on developing social business models for the provision of household sanitation in vulnerable urban communities in Haiti. While Sasha spends the majority of her time living and working in Haiti, she is also a global advocate for the recycling of nutrients in human waste, helping others implement sustainable sanitation projects and inspiring people around the world to participate in the sanitation revolution. Dr. Kramer has been recognized as a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, an Architect of the Future with the Waldzell Institute, a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year and an Ashoka Fellow.

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Some highlights from Erin’s interview with Sasha include:

  • Taking a public health problem and transforming it into an environmental solution and, in the process, creating livelihood opportunities in the sanitation sector with a mix of both private and public sector support rather than taking the traditional humanitarian aid approach

  • SOIL’s pilot project designing and modeling a replicable sustainable financial model after experiencing hard learned lesson transcending the assumption that exists across the sanitation sector and development sector in general, that if you introduce the technologies or infrastructure to solve a problem, the ongoing maintenance will take care of itself or be done by volunteers

  • Why composting human waste and soil fertility is an important solution in the face of climate change

  • The challenges in creating a financial model around something like sanitation that should be a basic human right and how SOIL has navigated those challenges

 

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Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.