Why This Project is Relevant Now:

As many CoLab projects prepare to transition out of the funded phase, there is a vital need for inspirational business models to help teams imagine themselves as self-sustainable ventures. We want to create a resource that demystifies business models and makes them accessible and replicable for the CoLab community and beyond.

Understanding Business Models:

A business model is the ‘magic sauce’ of any organisation. It outlines how an organization creates, delivers, stores, and captures value. It encompasses the offering, market position, team, systems, and impact. It is NOT traditional ethical business planning; but rather digs deeper into the design and innovation aspects of what makes a business or project viable. For instance, a garden service that collects waste, turns it into compost, and sells it back to clients exemplifies a circular, wate-to-value business model. This project aims to uncover and document examples like this that are relevant to the digital and remote needs of CoLab ventures.

Case studies:

Identify and document at least 7 successful permaculture business models, with a focus on digital and network projects, by July 2025. We will start our research from within the CoLab and expand outwards to other business model innovators. We will conduct interviews with each project owner/team and they will be featured as case studies in our report.

Key Features:

Using a co-design session and an analysis of the results we will dig into the underlying designs and principles, especially looking for similarities and corresponding features which can be distilled. Complete by August 2025

Design Activities:

We will attempt to ‘reverse engineer’ the design process with prompts and thinking exercises to help aspiring micro-enterprise creators apply the concepts.

Formulation of Permaculture Business Model Archetypes:

We will attempt to classify and develop a fun, visual archetype for each of the business models we uncover eg. the “Earthworm – creates value from waste”. These will be represented in the report and add a fun, easy to understand way of sense-making for teams. BONUS round: If we have enough capacity we will create a poster from these archetypes for easy visual learning.

Outputs:

Report with case studies, permaculture business archetypes, key features of each archetype, and design activities to help micro-enterprise teams create and refine their business models.
Database and contact details of successful permaculture project owners who consent to offer mentorship/advice to aspiring microenterprise creators
Bonus output = Poster of business model archetypes.

Expected Outputs

To create a living document that will explore how permaculture can be used to design effective, fun, and creative business models that create financially-viable ecosocial solutions
• Begin forming permaculture model “archetypes” (Fun nature-based references which symbolize the ways in which the business model acts in the ecosystem) which could be used by permaculture teachers teaching social permaculture or permaculture for enterprise design.
• To create a database of permaculture micro-enterprise mentors who are interested in offering mentorship, guidance, and advice for the next generation

Intended Outcomes

To inspire individuals who are interested in creating permaculture-designed businesses & organisations with new ways of thinking rooted in established and successful design systems
To bring together and celebrate successful permaculture entrepreneurs in one space so their journeys and experiences can inspire and educate upcoming aspiring entrepreneurs
To strengthen the work of the Colab, especially the #permaculture-microenterprise channel, In supporting new businesses and organizations

To nourish the permaculture business community and provide new avenues for connection, mentorship, co-learning and support

Objectives

2. Review different approaches taken to the above list and evaluate pros/cons (by end April)

3. Define needs of a new glossary system based on learnings, include the consideration of a community contributed maintenance model (by end May)

4. Design new glossary system (by end of June)

5. Begin collecting terms and definitions from networks, in part from volunteers, in part by aggregating data already collected with permissions (July to end of September)

6. Build new glossary system (July to end of September)

7. Publish and promote glossary across networks in CoLab Slack, website, newsletter & ask others to share and start using it (September)

8. Strategy for continued stewardship (September)