Permaculture in higher education institutes (on-line)

Moving Beyond Sustainability at Institutes of Higher Education: The Potential of a Permaculture Initiative at Texas State University-San Marcos

Tritsch, Katherine (2013), undergraduate thesis.

Discusses the current short comings of environmental sustainability in institutions of higher education and suggests permaculture as a way forward. The second part of the paper sets out a design for a permaculture initiative in a university.

The potential of permaculutre in Malawi (on-line)

The Potential of Permaculture

Abigail Conrad, Oral Paper Presentation, Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting, Merida, Mexico, 2010

Permaculture is a potential solution for the food insecurity and the economic problems faced by smallholder farmers in Central Malawi. This paper discusses the author's ethnographic research, the agricultural practices of smallholder farmers, and their dependence on maize, proposing permaculture as an alternative agricultural strategy.

Biochar production that heats domestic water (journal)

Capturing Heat from a Batch Biochar Production System for Use in Greenhouses and Hoop Houses

Wayne S. Teel, Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology A 2 (2012) 1332-1343

Describes a project to develop a small-scale biochar making burner that would also provide heat for a greenhouse and domestic water heating. The project was eventually successful, with an efficient burner producing good quality biochar and a fair amount of heat.

Permaculture design for Aral Sea watershed

Permaculture Restoration of the Aral Sea Watershed

Andrew Jones (2012), Permaculture Restoration of the Aral Sea Watershed, in  Edelstein, Cerny & Gadaev (ed.) Disaster by Design: The Aral Sea and its Lessons for Sustainability (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 20), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.391-409
 

Sets out a design for a truly mammoth permaculutre project, the restoration of the highly-degraded Aral Sea watershed. Includes consideration of water, forestry, vegetation and human needs which would completely restore the shattered eco-system. If implemented, this would surely be the largest permaculture project in the world to date.

Half of all food grown is wasted (report)

Global Food, Waste Not Want Not

Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2012)
 
Today, we produce about four billion metric tonnes of food per annum. Yet due to poor practices in harvesting, storage and transportation, as well as market and consumer wastage, it is estimated that 30–50% (or 1.2–2 billion tonnes) of all food produced never reaches a human stomach. Furthermore, this figure does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste. This level of wastage is a tragedy that cannot continue if we are to succeed in the challenge of sustainably meeting our future food demands.

Survey of Community Energy in the UK (report)

Community Energy in the UK

Seyfang G, Park JJ, Smith A (2012)

Presents new evidence from the first UK-wide survey of community energy projects and assesses the policy needs of the community energy movement. Concludes that community energy groups are highly diverse and deeply rooted in civil society, quite different from large energy companies. Policy support therefore needs to be long term and consistent if this new approach to energy provision is to succeed.

Permaculturalists have a lower eco-footprint (#journal)

Relative benefits of technology and occupant behaviour in moving towards a more energy efficient, sustainable housing paradigm

Pilkington B, Roach R, Perkins J (2011)Energy Policy, v.39, nr.9, pp.4962-4970

Based on two small research projects, the authors argue that occupant behaviour is as important as technology in determining the energy used by a household. Householders who were trained in how to maximise the energy-saving benefits of their houses generally used considerably less energy than those who did not, while permaculture practitioners had an environmental footprint considerably lower than those who lived in purpose built eco-homes. Thus housing policy, which focuses solely on technology, may be missing an important factor in energy efficiency.