News and Articles
Distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative growth
Distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative growth is a key aspect in Economic Design for Sustainability. Join our Economic Design E-Learning course to explore further.
By Dr Daniel Christian Wahl
We have known for a long time that judging an economy’s progress and success in quantitative (financial) terms — measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product — leads to dangerous distortions and misplaced priorities. In 1972, Limits to Growth warned of the potentially devastat…
Achieving the Global Goals: Gaia Education runs successful SDG training for multipliers in Mallorca
Gaia Education collaborated with the University of the Balearic Islands to offer the SDGs Training for Multipliers on the island of Mallorca.
By Dr. Daniel Christian Wahl |
Since the Sustainable Development Goals were ratified by the United Nations in September 2015, the focus has been to invite national governments agencies, civil society organisations, cities, businesses, universities and local community groups to adopt the SDGs and to take an active role in their nationa…
Circular Economy 101: Designing Regeneration into the System
Excerpt from the Economic Design course
By Daniel Christian Wahl | 20 February 2017
“The circular economy refers to an industrial economy that is restorative by intention; aims to rely on renewable energy; minimises, tracks and eliminates the use of toxic chemicals; and eradicates waste through careful design. The term goes beyond the mechanics of production and consumption of goods and services […] (examples include rebuilding capital including social and natural, and the shif…
Ecovillage Brazil – on the Path to the Sustainability of Being
Ilana, a Gaia Education Design for Sustainability graduate from Rio de Janeiro 2014, presents the film:
“We visited 10 ecovillages in Brazil to investigate the values informing the development of these laboratories of sustainable living. One of the lines of enquiry was how ecovillages can contribute to the paradigm shift of our civilizational model. Our film addresses a vision of integral sustainability, in its economic, ecological, social and worldview dimensions. Topics explored inclu…
The golden thread that connects the three dimensions of sustainability
An introduction to Holistic Worldviews.
By Daniel Wahl
Design can most broadly be defined as the expression of intentionality through interactions and relationships. At the downstream end of this process our cultural artifacts, institutions, patterns of production, and consumption express intentionality materially. Upstream, in the immaterial dimension, the “meta-design” of our conscious awareness, value systems, worldviews, and aspirations defines the intentionality behind mat…
Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change
by Dr Daniel Christian Wahl | 21 December 2016
Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change: Supporting Community-led, Place-Sensitive, Whole Systems Design Solutions
The needed leadership for a transformative response to climate change might well be provided by the Commonwealth – the most diverse collaborative network of nations after the United Nations itself. It includes more than a third of humanity on half of the world’s land masses, with its 52 member states spread across all c…
Race is on to Reverse Climate Change
by May East | 6 December 2016
The 21st century is in the throes of unprecedented levels of human mobility. More people than ever before live in a country other than the one in which they were born. In 2015, their number surpassed 244 million, growing at a faster rate than the world’s population.
The recent New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, adopted during the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, highlighted the critical linkages between migration, environment a…
Maurizio Spinello: The Story
In a village of just 11 inhabitant’s Maurizio Spinello was labelled ‘crazy’ when in 1999 he decided to open a bakery. From the 1960’s, the village of Santa Rita had become a ghost town as people slowly migrated outwards to find work elsewhere, but this did not deter Maurizio who, with a bank loan set up his micro-bakery and who’s gourmet bread is now considered the ‘best in Sicily’ and sought after throughout Italy.
His first approach was to sell to a chain of supermarkets and…
Sicilia Integra: Restoring the Local Communities
Sicilia Integra is a beautiful reflection of how a project which seems to have a very direct set of objectives, actually weaves an intricate tapestry of interconnectedness. A project that set out to ease the integration of migrants into a new life is also contributing to the restoration of local communities and supporting restorative and organic agriculture. Now, with the soon to be launched Grani di Gaia, the project participants will also be responsible for the creation of new economic opp…
Letting the World Know About our Excellent Work!
by Daniel Christian Wahl
As many of you know, I recently published ‘Designing Regenerative Cultures’, a book that took me more than a decade to write and which I always aimed to be “a work that works”. This alchemical touchstone idea holds the intention that the book would leave the reader somehow transformed after reading it. I am not sure whether I achieved this high aim, but the reviews that have been coming in from different corners of the world and from many of my most important me…