What Ways are YOU Investing in a Better World?

In Growing FREE, we present the THISTLE plan for financial freedom, and the I in THISTLE is for INVESTING.

The truth is, in 40 years around this lifestyle, I’ve never seen anybody truly create a stable Permaculture lifestyle by making work (income streams) for themselves. Everyone, and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE who I’ve seen be successful at it has gotten there through smart long-term investments. And a good Permaculture investment can beat the S&P 500 easily!

Bill Mollison wold often say “You can read 1000 books on gardening, PERMACULTURE is about how you spend your money, and where you bank it.”

And the most powerful kinds of investments we can make are in “transformative assets,” those that are regenerative, can cash flow for us, AND appreciate well over time.

A good Permaculture site is the ultimate example. It can create some cash flow to help us stay afloat in the early years selling plants and produce. But the real value happens as all our investments appreciate. If we’ve chosen rare, locally valuable plants and livestock, these will procreate and grow in value well exponentially. If we’ve chosen the collection well, our intellectual capital will become very valuable. The land and structures can appreciate with our sweat equity. Our businesses can become quite valuable for resale as well. And other productive assets, if we’ve chosen them well, can appreciate over time as we collect them.

Growing FREE is filled with examples of such “transformative assets” we’ve seen lead to real economic FREEdom. These include Permaculture Community Kitchens, clothing businesses, plant investments, old machinery, rare animal breeds, entertainment venues, and many other things.

Good Permaculture investments are as numerous as the people doing Permaculture, and their individual interests!

But what I tell people is what Bill Mollison used to say: that until you know what you’re investing in, you haven’t started your Permaculture design yet.

So what are you investing in?

I hope lots of you read Mike's post above. As he emphasized, making long term investments is essential to designing a (financially) stable permaculture lifestyle. If you only read one of the posts or comments we've shared here in the Permies forums this week while discussing our book Growing FREE, let it be this one. Understanding and applying this regenerative wealth concept is your key to breaking FREE....

Let me see if I can answer this one.
Over the last 15 years I have been investing time, my labour and money creating a coppice woodland to ensure future fuel security for our property. This is starting to come on stream now and provide much of our fuel needs. Not an income stream, but a cost avoidance.
I'm just starting a project at the moment. This year was the first year that my Aronia berries have really cropped well and I'm afraid I've got quite over-excited! These are immensely health giving berries and potentially could be a high value crop for me, despite my marginal growing conditions. So I'm infilling areas in my tree field with Aronia (and hopefully some other support plants). In five years I hope these will be producing 10 times the amount of Aronia we would use ourselves and provide income for us with the surplus.

Anyone explored the potential for a regenerative "land bank" community investment model, in line with the principles in Mike's post here?

I see a real need and fairly simple mechanism for reinforcing beneficial asset/wealth creation and redistribution that provides an onramp for people with skills and motivation beyond their financial means.

Imagine a local or regional investment pool that's set up as a kind of hybrid between a REIT (real estate investment trust) and a CLT (community land trust) with a mission to finance owner-led regenerative development on well suited below-market or 'distressed' properties. The fund provides a tailored short term rehab loan to a vetted buyer, with the property as collateral.

The buyer undertakes efforts to improve and enhance long term regenerative value under a well defined contextual framework, with funding tranches tied to agreed milestones over 1-3 years (similar to construction loans). At the end of the initial loan term, buyer has options to a) convert to a long term loan or traditional mortgage, b) market and sell the property for a tidy return on investment or c) negotiate a buyout with the fund to recoup sunk cost and move on.

This system could enable lots of people to apply relevant skills to meaningful self-directed work that isn't otherwise easy to start or monetize, and create synergies with local peers on similar paths to actually shift the 'market' for property towards permaculture informed design and deliverables.

Make enough sense to dive into more detail?! Seen or heard of anything along these lines...? Could this be a rare win-win-win money game??

For me, permaculture isn’t about the money game. But to each their own, I suppose. Money games and getting ahead are just not me. I escaped the societal rat race, cashing in my assets to purchase the best piece of land I could in the most favorable location I could. From there I’ve lived the life of a "Gurt" — simple, self supporting,  non-competitive, permie oriented. I suppose outsiders consider us poor folk, but my hubby and I are far happier with this serene lifestyle. The last quarter century has been the best of our lives. Over the 20 years we built our simple house and made our simple farm. And live a simple life.

Would more money coming in be welcomed? Of course, because we foresee that the American medical system will eventually wipe us out as we acquire old age ailments. Money helps buy medical care. But then again, if we had a steady income, it would only mean more cash would eventually be going to the medical corporations, not into our own pockets.  The American medical system sucks the money out of people. I’ve seen plenty of folks lose their life savings, assets, and even houses over a medical bills.

To each their own. Yes. But if I had it to do over again, I would spend a couple of decades working to amass as much money as I could from the modern system, then buy my escape property in the best location I could, and build my life as a "Gurt". It’s been a good life for us.

Hi Su! Not clear if you were responding directly to my post or more generally on the subject of investing in/for/through permaculture, but I'll offer a reply to elaborate on where I was going above, which might well be misinterpreted. Money stuff is often a touchy subject...

While I agree that permie ethos and paradigm isn't "about" the money game, in most cases today it can't be avoided and may in fact (as I'm trying to suggest above) prove to be one more useful tool that can increase options and 'yields' in a non-destructive, positive sum fashion. In fact as I read your response, it seems apparent that your current lifestyle/circumstance is a direct result of a degree of success at or submission to a money game, played *on other people's terms* for a significant period of your life, in order to afford you the chance to 'cash out' and pursue your vision in your own way - while presumably still keeping a foot in the profiteering pie shop via some form of invested savings/securities? That sounds like a life path that is 100% contingent on a variety of non-optimal money games; i.e. something with room to improve on, with good design

I know there are a lot of people especially earlier in the journey seeking alternatives, and particularly a way to convert energy, ideas, experience, talent, passion etc into tangible assets and leverage to approach the kinds of long term security and sustenance that legal land tenure may offer. Essentially, trying to get to the point you're at with a degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency on a stable land base, perhaps shared with others, and to do so without sacrificing excessively to degenerative economic mechanisms and pursuits on the way ("the rat race"). What I'm proposing is a way for such practitioners to invest themselves primarily through sweat equity and cooperative placemaking (aka 'regenerative development') to build capacity and capital (multiple capitals, if you like!) in a way that's flexible and secure enough to avoid a lot of risk and painful misadventure that often comes with the turf for those boldly attempting to cut loose on their own.

That, I think would be a really remarkable and potent pattern to unleash into this arena, with the potential to amplify and spread permaculture application and wisdom further and faster than most any other vector to date. It's the path I've been on personally for a handful of years now, with solid progress and one or two significant hurdles which prompt me to raise the subject here and attempt some collaborative resolution. I suspect I'm not the first to identify the challenge/opportunity...but I think my approach could be rather novel and effective? Worth some speculation and trials at least! Welcome all perspective, anecdotes, insight or critique.

Ben, I fully agree that having money is necessary for an easy transition to a permaculture life. But I had gotten the impression that the focus was on using some permaculture oriented scheme in order to make one’s fortune…..taking advantage of the latest trends.

Where my thoughts were based upon ——- I volunteer for a local service non-profit where  work along with others to produce good food for our community. Thus I often have young people with me wanting to learn how to garden/farm. Invariably, their thoughts are to either make a fast buck with the least amount of effort on their part, or to make a bunch of cash (their personal fortune). They see permaculture as being the latest fad to be exploited. Just another get rich quick scheme.

Personally I dislike seeing these young people just focusing on get rich quick schemes. They tend to not care about a long term lifestyle, other than to be wealthy. They start out with good intentions but quality and ethics quickly go down the tube. Permaculture just becomes a scheme.

Our area already has one of these scheming people set up doing business. They use all the right buzzwords. They published a permaculture oriented book full of glossy pictures. I read the book and found it to be a slanted version of permaculture. It was simply an advertisement for her permaculture consulting business and training classes. Her methods to gain clients uses what I deem to be unethical tactics. Yes, she’s simply  using the latest fad to make money. I do not see her living a permaculture lifestyle.

Hi Su,

My approach has been similar to yours.   I have been back and forth into the “system” a couple of times.  Money does have its place.   But, it is good to be able to live where I want under the conditions I want.

Su Ba wrote:Ben, I fully agree that having money is necessary for an easy transition to a permaculture life. But I had gotten the impression that the focus was on using some permaculture oriented scheme in order to make one’s fortune…..taking advantage of the latest trends.
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Personally I dislike seeing these young people just focusing on get rich quick schemes. They tend to not care about a long term lifestyle, other than to be wealthy. They start out with good intentions but quality and ethics quickly go down the tube. Permaculture just becomes a scheme.

I hear your concern there and observe similar trends in lots of 'alternative' spaces and movements, the influencer-grifter pattern that's so prevalent in societies that elevate status above accountability and appearance over substance. Permaculture itself often gets reduced to glamour shots and lifestyle makeovers. That's a larger design challenge to tackle...but in some ways what I'm suggesting here can help.

1) yes, it's about more people being well compensated for genuinely good, verifiable and durable enhancements to human habitat
2) it's about building, curating, and spreading locally attuned knowledge and appreciation/value for the above outcomes
3) it's about pooling resources to allow more people to take on bigger projects, with peer support and a safety net
4) it's about accruing genuine confidence, respect, and power to seed and spread visions for systemic change

...and yes, it's got to be resistant to the inevitable arrival of opportunistic and scheming parasites who want a quick hit of liquidity! Several mechanisms can be put in place to quash that. That's why I'm thinking in terms of a structure that combines features of an investment vehicle (REIT) with oversight and steering from a long term stewardship and integrity standpoint in the CLT. Lots of details to examine and test there, but in essence, people who access funding for their own property development work really must stand on their own feet and walk the talk - or they 'lose the farm' as it were. But it's not simply sink or swim, there's lots of positive reinforcement through a wider community to keep things moving when obstacles arise, if the person maintains trust and accountability.

Well, I won't blab and hand wave more here if I'm veering off the gist of the thread or others' perspective, but I do think the topic is worth exploring! And ALSO looking at what hasn't worked or failed to germinate elsewhere people have teased open this no doubt recalcitrant subject.