Innovation

Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It integrates land, resources, people and the environment through mutually beneficial synergies: imitating the no waste, closed loop systems seen in diverse natural systems. Shades of Green aligns closely with four of the UN goals for sustainable development: clean water and sanitation, responsible production and consumption, climate action and life on land.

Goal #6 - Clean Water and Sanitation: Shades of Green offers solutions of water cycle restoration that captures rainwater while building the soil’s capacity to infiltrate water and then distribute when needed, such as in times of dry weather and droughts to be of use in the landscape. Elements of a permaculture system for water systems include, but are not limited to, catchments, basins, rain gardens, cisterns, ponds, portable and non portable rainwater for indoor use. This effort reduces the need to deplete our sources of freshwater.

Goal #12 - Responsible Consumption: Elements of a permaculture system for food production stem from the belief that a landscape built with this method requires less input but is designed to provide food. Shades of Green offers many solutions to plant edible landscapes which include food forests, vegetable gardens, herb gardens, annual vegetable production as well as composting. Through their re-framing maintenance approach, it is sustainable to make small steps to respond to the ever changing world, than to try and keep nature in a static and unchanging state. (shadesofgreenpermaculture.com)

Goal #13 - Climate Action: The innovation of Shades of Green Permaculture helps to slow down climate change by assisting their clients with the sustainable ability to provide services naturally such as food and clean water which is necessary for human existence. Humans will suffer when some ecosystems can no longer provide the services of food and clean water. Creating a sustainable way to grow food for consumption as well as a way to store and reuse rainwater assists the earth in many ways.

Goal #15 - Life on Land: With their plant ecology, Shades of Green plant ecosystems include not just planting plants for landscaping purposes. “The foundation of all their planting designs is to create biodiversity.” (shadesof greenpermaculture.com). This is achieved by turning landscapes dependent on chemical dependence to organic management.

Inspiration

Founder Brandy Hall’s interest in permaculture started without her even knowing what it was and stemmed from a need to innovate after watching her mom and stepdad suffer severe reactions to unregulated pesticides/herbicides in the nursery industry. Although at age 9 she wasn’t fully aware of the reasons her mom reacted so negatively to the smell of chemicals, Hall said “It became very clear early on that the way we do things is toxic and there has to be another way and so I think that a deeper inquiry was guiding my study and things I was interested in.” As she traveled, she became humbled by the access to fresh, clean water and fresh food in the tropics. For her, “being drawn to farms and the way people were living so close to nature” further motivated her efforts to innovate and make a change.

Overall impact

Shades of Green’s approach to building sustainable ecosystems is to focus on water cycle restoration, plant ecology, and re-framing maintenance. Water cycle restoration aims to capture water, build the soil’s capacity to infiltrate water, and distribute the water where it is useful in the landscape. This reduces the need to deplete sources of freshwater. Plant ecology focuses on building seed banks of native and useful species; develop lost pollinator and song bird habitat; transition chemical dependent, poisonous landscapes to thriving organic ones; and generate plant communities that cycle nutrients without the need for chemical fertilizer. These types of systems lend themselves to solving problems such as the decline of bees which are needed to keep our food sources thriving. Re-framing maintenance reduces the need to constantly care for landscaped areas and focuses on sustainability, taking incremental steps in response to the ever changing nature of the living world—learning the nuances and critters and texture of a site—instead of struggling to keep nature in a static and unchanging state. Natalie Jarudi, the Business Development Director at Shades of Green Permaculture describes the company’s impact as “bringing back ecosystems and with that soil health and ecosystem integrity and resilience. Each region of the world has evolved for thousands of years to support exactly that ecosystem. Shades of Green incorporates human use into thriving ecosystems which support pollinator and songbird habitat.” This is something that inspires her.

Business benefit

In following the philosophy of Bill Mollison, known as the father of permaculture, Hall not only offers services through her permaculture business, but she also uses her platform to educate her clients on the need and the importance of creating these sustainable and living landscapes. This approach helps to shed light not only on the company but on the innovative permaculture movement as a whole. One of the biggest takeaways from permaculture which was understood by the indigenous for thousands of years is that “to adopt or mimic natural systems is necessary as we are trying to meet our human needs,” she explained.

Shades of Green Permaculture focuses on designing and building permaculture landscape for the variety of their clients’ needs. Their mainstream revenue comes from consulting, designing and building elements of permaculture systems such as water systems, sustainable landscaping, ecosystem restoration and animal systems. They also provide care taking services for the landscape and herbal consultations.

Social and environmental benefit

Although most permaculture experiments have been limited to personal consumption, there are lots of opportunities to scale for commercial purposes. An increase in permaculture from current levels to a 50% reduction by 2050 could result in a reduction of 23.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, from both sequestration and reduced emissions. This is equivalent to 65% of the world’s carbon emissions in 2053. This is an excellent example of how permaculture can assist in strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards. Shades of Green’s aim to strengthen our connection to the natural world by creating functional and regenerative landscapes that provide the foundation for ecological stability and resilience, achieves the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources. Shades of Green’s approach to plant ecology is taking significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, protects and prevent the extinction of threatened species.

Interview

Natalie Jarudi, Business Development Director