An interesting post over at Transition Culture on the application of permaculture ideas to business. It is suggested that:
“In many ways business is already ahead of the rest of us in terms of some of the thinking approaches that are required for energy descent. They are used to thinking ‘lean’ and getting the most out of things. The shift will be from merely prioritising output to thinking more widely. These principles offer a good lens through which to look at how to build resilience for business.” – David Holmgren.
To this end they came up with twelve permaculture principles that can be applied to building sustainable businesses:
- Observe and Interact
- Catch and Store Energy
- Obtain a Yield
- Apply Self Regulation and Feedback
- Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services
- Produce No Waste
- Design from Patterns to Details
- Integrate Rather Than Segregate
- Slow and Small Solutions
- Use and Value Diversity
- Maximising Edge – “Don’t think you are on the right track just because its a well-beaten path”
- Creatively Use and Respond to Change
To me a particularly interesting point right now is no 7, “design from patterns to details”. Coming from a software development background and currently rejecting the way that software design patterns are used I find this to be an interesting idea signifying more of a dichotomy between the way that permaculture designers use design patterns on the one hand, which I suspect is closer to whatChristopher Alexander had in mind, and what software designers mean when they talk about software design patterns. This is something that I have posted about over at the other place, but I am only just dipping into A Pattern Language and haven’t formed enough of an understanding or opinion yet to know for sure.
You can visit http://www.permacultureprinciples.com to find out more about the principles.