From oil dependence to local resilience

Business opportunities in the Transition Towns movement

I have never been a commercial entrepreneur, just a social one, but when I read Rob Hopkins book and think more and more about the coming crisis, I see business opportunities everywhere, especially for cooperatives. Anyone want to contribute their ideas? Mine are:

New dairy coops (why should we locally be tied to the global price of milk and butter and cheese?). Huge scope for butter, cheese etc.
Natural fertilisers. e.g comfrey water, seaweed etc etc
Handmowers
Carts, drays, carriages and coaches
Local transport businesses using the latter or acceptable biofuel.
Animals for animal power
Grain, pulses growing

Tags: business, cooperatives, ecobusiness

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by maureen cox on June 3, 2008 at 0:18

battery powered mowers charges by solar, amaranth and salvia growing (for flour), wood-gas powered vehicles (gas producers as in WW2), spinning & weaving, shoe-making and repair, clothes repair and alteration, solar hot water and power with back-up generator powered by wood-gas, locally and home produced beef, pork, poultry, rabbits, locally slaughtered, all sorts of produce for farmers markets, collecting vegetable matter for composting and selling compost to city dwellers for their balcony gardens, training people to grow food and live sustainably, the list could be almost endless.

yours in sustainability,

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Deirdre Kent on June 3, 2008 at 8:50

You are amazing! Can we see your photo?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by maureen cox on June 3, 2008 at 16:59

I must admit Dierdre that 'I' am an imposter. I am Geoff, Maureen's husband. You have caught me out. Mo, my darling wife, who actually is amazing can't use a computer. It's about the only thing she can't do. She is a Potter, craft person extrodinaire, seamstress, cook, house painter, gardener, mother of two fabulous boys, and my wife (aren't I lucky). I've tried to put a photo up three times but can't get it to upload. By the way I tried the bulk uploader for videos and it took three hours to upload about 3 minutes of video. Is it a gremlin? the individual thingy does it in a few minutes.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Natalie on June 4, 2008 at 20:22

Lots of good ideas there... (just wonder what we need all those lawnmowers for - I thought we're all planting edible gardens.... But if we do have lawns - how about a "share a goat" scheme... makes milk, too ;-)

Anyhow - here's a list from Lester R.Brown's book "Eco-Economy" - good read by the way:
Wind meteorogist
Family planning midwives
Foresters
Hydrologists
Recycling engineers (design consumer appliances that can be disassembled and completely recycled... I'd call it a new generation of product designer)
Aquacultural vetenarians (for all those fish farms)
Ecological economists (because basic principles of ecology must be incorporated into economic planning)
Geothermal geologists
Environmental architects
Bicycle mechanics
Wind turbine engineers

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Geoff Cox on June 5, 2008 at 17:51

The possibilities are endless, we just all need to think in a different way - I have already started and hope to start making wood-gas producers for vehicles which use NO petrol or Diesel. Will start with a stationary engine for enerating power. Trying to get together a group of enthusiasts in Nthland to help and benefit too. Do you know anyone ?

I like the idea of goats. Goats are great, I love their eyes ! I'm trying to convince my wife that we should get some pigs and ducks.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Helen Dew on June 6, 2008 at 23:16

I suppose we currently import bike (and car) tyres and other necessary parts required to keep our various means of transpsort maintained. Seems to me that we urgently need to produce the essentials in NZ. Otherwise, we'll be increasingly subject to rising prices and possibly long delays, or even find that some things become unavailable. In which case even eco-friendly bikes or cars could be out of action - not to mention agricultural machinery.

The same goes for many other essentials. I suspect that very few parts etc are produced in NZ.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Geoff Cox on June 7, 2008 at 8:57

One problem would be raw materials I suspect. We need therefore to consider alternatives. I believe that most materials these days for 'rubber' tyres are derived from fossell fuels. Perhaps we need to be stock-pilng old tyres with a view to re-using materials or in fact using those tyres on horse/donkey/oxen/goat drawn vehicles...or is this just silly. I know for example that such vehicles are still used in many parts of the world, so maybe we should get back to them at least for short journeys. Seriously though tyres are a resource that we need to be thinking about !

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Geoff Cox on June 7, 2008 at 18:52

Yes Vaughan, quite right. We're ding stuff in Kaiwaka to revive these lost skills, e.g. a sewing and craft group, which will include spinning and weaving soon we hope. A favourite of my wife's is shoemaking, a skill we have virtually lost. As a kid we always repaired our own boots and shoes on a last with tacks, glue, leather and rubber soles. It wasn't much fun though to have to play Rugby in a pair of boots with tacks sticking out of the sole (inside). Couldn't have been too bad though as I have very good feet still at 69 so ce`- la -vie, or such WAS life.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Geoff Cox on June 7, 2008 at 18:57

Another very good business opportunity for someone with a few bob to invest is distilling vegetable turpintine from pine sap. This is an old well established process in countries like Portugal where you see tapped trees everywhere, (like rubber trees) and we do have plenty of pine trees don't we unless they cut them all down for dairy farms. Vegetable turps sells in Carters for the rediculous price of $15 a litre. Anyone interested ?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Miguel Yasuyuki Hirota on June 7, 2008 at 19:46

It seems to me that New Zealand's biggest wealth is the seas surrounding your territory. Don't forget that you have the 7th largest Economic Exclusive Zone in the world(4,083,744 km²)!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone#Rankings_by_area

There's a very interesting article about the algae biodiesel.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/04/algae-farm-to-p.html

This article says that "an area the size of Maryland could produce enough algae biofuel to satisfy the entire fuel requirements of the United States." The surface of Maryland is only 32,133 km² (less than 1/3 of the North Island), so probably you can become just as economically well of as those in Dubai on top of promoting sustainable lifestyles by cultuvating algae.

And last but not least, there's a project under way in Honduras to promote biodiesel using a complementary currency system.

http://www.strohalm.net/en/gotaverde.html

Tools are there, and it's up to us whether we can make an appropriate use of these tools or not...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Geoff Cox on June 7, 2008 at 22:10

Our group are beginning to look at ways of revitalising the rail line from Auckland to the North and will also think about water transport on the Kaipara. Another initiative I have an interest in is producing a prototype of a 'gas-producer' for wood-gas fuel for vehicles and stationary engines (elec. generators as standby) - anyone interested ?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by James Edwards on June 30, 2008 at 17:30

Personally I don't think that the world has yet to hit "Peak Oil", because the Oil Producing countries have recognised that a repeat of the Oil Glut subsequent to the Oil Crisis in the 1970s and early 1980s is a distinct possiblity and just as damaging for them as the high oil price related inflation is for oil consuming nations. Its likely because consumption growth is slowing even in China, and consumption is falling in the United States due to the recession there and compounding the issue in the near future the U.S. Federal Reserve potentially will raise interest rates to counteract inflation.

Not that I’m completely discounting the possiblility of Peak Oil, but I don’t believe it has yet arrived.

That shouldn’t of course mean that we don’t take steps immediately to prepare for it.

Regardless, since the 1970s people have begun to recognise how dysfunctional the current industrial economic paradigm is, with its demand for ceaseless growth, inequality, and waste of human potential.

As E.F. Schumacher, said in the 1970s, the appropriate technology and local production paradigm is virtuous and relevant in its own right, because its far more resilient to outside crisises and is more efficent as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_CRfAemptE
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2006/09/ef-schumacher-vs-liberal-tech...

I'm currently working at a new (and small) policy institute in Christchurch as a Research Assistant
and I'm got grand vision for it.

I'd like for it to become a policy development institute for business and a sustainable business incubator that would incorporate principles from the Biomimicry, Cradle to Cradle, Toyota Production System, Natural Capitalism, Alan Savory's Holistic Management,Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxian, and E.F. Schumacher's Appropriate and Intermediate Technology models and frameworks of sustainability with the intent of faciliation of the adoption and integration of those values into their operations.