A few years ago, everyone was talking about the triple P, People, Planet and Profit. Those were the 3 pillars for sustainable development. Lately they have become less of the bingo words that often used. But that does not mean that this triple P is not still a crucial pillar of sustainable development. Without these 3 pillars, a regenerative design will also fail.
History
The three pillars people-planet-profit (called the Triple bottom line) seem to have been devised in 1989 by John Elkington. It is interesting to see that at first sight these seem to correspond reasonably well with the 3 basic principles of the permaculture movement as formulated by Bill Mollison in his book 'Permaculture A designers manual' from 1988: Care of People, Care of the Earth, and Setting Limits to Population and Consumption; later these were popularized as people care, earth care, fair share. Although both are about money, Fair share is a different approach than Profit.
These 3 pillars are therefore crucial for a good successful system. Because ideals (a fair world, a clean world, or saving the planet) are beautiful. And ideals are even necessary to really go for something, to fight for it. But in the end it only lasts if it continues to work, it has to work for/suit the owners (people), it has to work for the ecosystem in which the system is designed (planet) and it has to make money: if you earn a fair living with it, you can continue to put time into it and the system will therefore continue to produce (profit). These 3 pillars are therefore an important handle for a good holistic regenerative system design.
People
An important basic premise of the focus on people, is that often the landowner knows his land many times better than any random designer or policy maker. As a result, the right solution is often found through a close cooperation between the owner and the designer: a solution solution that is regenerative, but also works (local customization).
By focusing on the landowner, his knowledge is optimally used, but he is also given responsibility, which will give much better results than consensus-based subsidy schemes (one size fits all).
The regenerative system that is installed must never become a system in itself that is more important than the rest. If the system becomes bigger than the people, it seems to become a phenomenon in itself, from which the human dimension can disappear and where at some point the rule can be: to-big-to-fail.
Where the human dimension is precisely the starting point, involvement increases, people want to take responsibility for the installed system, to maintain the system. Where the human dimension is decisive, and the community is involved in the production of the food (see all kind of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) systems where customers can also harvest themselves), everyone suddenly becomes much more aware of where our food comes from, how much effort it takes to produce it, which increases appreciation for the food, but also the appreciation for the farmer.
In addition, people will eat much more of what is available in the season, instead of always eating the same food, no matter how many food kilometers the crop has travelled (see also this blogpost in Dutch about how much energy it takes to produce our food these days). And precisely when it comes to the production of food, and making a tasty meal together, the sense of community and the transfer of knowledge about the food produced grows. So take a look at what happened in the British town of Todmorden when the whole town became one big food forest, the story is told in a great way in the ted talk "incredible-edible".
This therefore involves a designed, extremely diverse ecosystem, in which the soil life is also completely healthy (see blogpost 4 in this series), so that, for example,
Profit
One of the reasons why aid programs do not always work, is that they are not based on a sound economic plan. An important reason that convinced me for agroforestry as an important pillar in river basin restoration, is that river basin restoration projects in relatively 'poor' areas often work less well or even not at all in the long term, if the economic pillar is too weak: if the subsidy for the project ends, the project also ends.
It is precisely with agroforestry that two important things can be achieved here:
Finally, it's not about profit maximization. Capitalist profit maximization is ruining this planet (see this good article about it in Vrij Nederland). It is precisely this focus on profit maximization that has led to slavery in the chocolate sector (tony chocolony was on the way to slave-free chocolate...), to enormous abuses in the clothing sector, in the flower sector, in the mobile phone factories, in the mining sector and many more. so on. Everywhere people and the planet are exploited so that a limited group makes a lot of profit. With a good regenerative design, profit maximization should therefore be abandoned and a conscious choice should be made for earning a good living, but otherwise fair share in the entire chain and even redistribution of profit so that the entire system benefits.
People, Planet, Profit
Regenerative agriculture is a great concept that can make a significant contribution to solving climate change problems. However, when designing a regenerative system, three pillars are of great importance: it must work for those involved, it must benefit the planet and it must also be able to earn a living, whereby profit maximization must be banned.
Only if the system does justice to all three pillars will the designed system have a long life, if not, the negative consequences will become too great over time and there is a good chance that the system will collapse like a house of cards.
History
The three pillars people-planet-profit (called the Triple bottom line) seem to have been devised in 1989 by John Elkington. It is interesting to see that at first sight these seem to correspond reasonably well with the 3 basic principles of the permaculture movement as formulated by Bill Mollison in his book 'Permaculture A designers manual' from 1988: Care of People, Care of the Earth, and Setting Limits to Population and Consumption; later these were popularized as people care, earth care, fair share. Although both are about money, Fair share is a different approach than Profit.
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| Op basis van: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-three-pillars-of-sustainability-Based-on-sustainable-development-from_fig1_280935357 |
These 3 pillars are therefore crucial for a good successful system. Because ideals (a fair world, a clean world, or saving the planet) are beautiful. And ideals are even necessary to really go for something, to fight for it. But in the end it only lasts if it continues to work, it has to work for/suit the owners (people), it has to work for the ecosystem in which the system is designed (planet) and it has to make money: if you earn a fair living with it, you can continue to put time into it and the system will therefore continue to produce (profit). These 3 pillars are therefore an important handle for a good holistic regenerative system design.
People
An important basic premise of the focus on people, is that often the landowner knows his land many times better than any random designer or policy maker. As a result, the right solution is often found through a close cooperation between the owner and the designer: a solution solution that is regenerative, but also works (local customization).By focusing on the landowner, his knowledge is optimally used, but he is also given responsibility, which will give much better results than consensus-based subsidy schemes (one size fits all).
The regenerative system that is installed must never become a system in itself that is more important than the rest. If the system becomes bigger than the people, it seems to become a phenomenon in itself, from which the human dimension can disappear and where at some point the rule can be: to-big-to-fail.
Where the human dimension is precisely the starting point, involvement increases, people want to take responsibility for the installed system, to maintain the system. Where the human dimension is decisive, and the community is involved in the production of the food (see all kind of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) systems where customers can also harvest themselves), everyone suddenly becomes much more aware of where our food comes from, how much effort it takes to produce it, which increases appreciation for the food, but also the appreciation for the farmer.
In addition, people will eat much more of what is available in the season, instead of always eating the same food, no matter how many food kilometers the crop has travelled (see also this blogpost in Dutch about how much energy it takes to produce our food these days). And precisely when it comes to the production of food, and making a tasty meal together, the sense of community and the transfer of knowledge about the food produced grows. So take a look at what happened in the British town of Todmorden when the whole town became one big food forest, the story is told in a great way in the ted talk "incredible-edible".
Planet
As the "our food" series (my Dutch blogpost series, with blogpost 13 as the summary) has shown, large-scale industrialized agriculture has a significant negative impact on the health of our planet. Covid-19, but also climate change and the loss of biodiversity show us that the malleability of society is limited. Humans are part of and cannot do without the larger ecosystem. The nature philosopher Matthijs Schouten has done very interesting research into how people worldwide relate to nature, ranging from 'dominant' (survival of the fittest) to 'being a complete part of' with everything in between - in this blogpost this is further explained. And since the industrial revolution the relationship to nature in the western world has become 'we dominate nature'. This is changing in the west to 'we work with nature' or even 'we are part of nature'. In the world of coastal engineering, this is reflected in the increasingly used concept of 'building with nature'. With regenerative systems it becomes 'growing with nature' and 'mimicking nature' - imitating nature. A good regenerative system repairs the damage caused by large-scale industrialized agriculture, because there is a surplus that is not harvested, you put more into the ecosystem than you take out.
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| Bron: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/sustainability-is-not-enough-we-need-regenerative-cultures-4abb3c78e68b |
This therefore involves a designed, extremely diverse ecosystem, in which the soil life is also completely healthy (see blogpost 4 in this series), so that, for example,
- water can infiltrate well due to a much better soil structure,
but erosion can also become strongly limited due to that better soil structure, - long term carbon sequestration is carried out largely by fungi;
- and the nutrient cycle is healthy,
- but nutrients are also made available from the minerals in the soil.
Profit
One of the reasons why aid programs do not always work, is that they are not based on a sound economic plan. An important reason that convinced me for agroforestry as an important pillar in river basin restoration, is that river basin restoration projects in relatively 'poor' areas often work less well or even not at all in the long term, if the economic pillar is too weak: if the subsidy for the project ends, the project also ends.It is precisely with agroforestry that two important things can be achieved here:
- both the landscape remains permanently vegetated in the long term, expands and recovers in the event of damage,
- while people can also earn a living from it.
So the system continues to work if the project stops.
Because in the end that's what it's all about: how does everyone earn their living? If you can't even earn get enough food produced with it, chances are you'll eventually stop doing what you are doing.
It is important to realize that with a well-designed polyculture per crop type there is less yield per hectare compared to a monoculture, while the total yield per hectare is higher.
However, this means that if you start producing for export, more logistical movements are required, due to different harvest times of the different crops, with all the associated costs. And everyone in the logistics chain also wants to earn a living, so there is less and less to earn for the producer. However, if you mainly produce for the local market or have customers pick up their food, or even have it picked or harvested, the cost will change significantly.
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| Source: https://www.sandiaseed.com/blogs/news/shorten-your-food-chain-infographic |
Finally, it's not about profit maximization. Capitalist profit maximization is ruining this planet (see this good article about it in Vrij Nederland). It is precisely this focus on profit maximization that has led to slavery in the chocolate sector (tony chocolony was on the way to slave-free chocolate...), to enormous abuses in the clothing sector, in the flower sector, in the mobile phone factories, in the mining sector and many more. so on. Everywhere people and the planet are exploited so that a limited group makes a lot of profit. With a good regenerative design, profit maximization should therefore be abandoned and a conscious choice should be made for earning a good living, but otherwise fair share in the entire chain and even redistribution of profit so that the entire system benefits.
People, Planet, Profit
Regenerative agriculture is a great concept that can make a significant contribution to solving climate change problems. However, when designing a regenerative system, three pillars are of great importance: it must work for those involved, it must benefit the planet and it must also be able to earn a living, whereby profit maximization must be banned.Only if the system does justice to all three pillars will the designed system have a long life, if not, the negative consequences will become too great over time and there is a good chance that the system will collapse like a house of cards.
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