Cities across the US are competing to install 10,000+ rain gardens as part of community-wide campaigns — Seattle is looking for 12,000 near the Puget Sound; Kansas City, Mo is creating 10,000; and Sustainable Jersey City thinks 11,000 is about the right number for Jersey City.
What’s even more interesting is that these are being seen as community engagement and revitalization projects. Jersey City’s is indeed “crowd-sourced”: Continue reading
Posted in CRCS, New Jersey, News, Nonprofit Activities, Sustainability
The challenges we face in New Jersey as a result of climate change are significant, and so therefore are the opportunities. The experience of Superstorm Sandy showed us just how ill-prepared we are for the more frequent recurrence of extreme weather; and how important it is that we set an example for taking action to mitigate our own greenhouse gas emissions, as other states are doing around us. And there’s also no doubt about the urgency of it — as you can see from this remarkable video:
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Posted in Contribute, CRCS, Energy, Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, News, NJ Shore, NJPACE, Nonprofit Activities, Sustainability
Developing our crowdfunding campaign is giving us an extraordinary opportunity to explore using PACE to revitalize New Jersey communities. By itself, PACE is an innovative business model that creates jobs and economic development while providing the ultimate tool to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy projects on private properties. But leveraging PACE for community development is where the real payoff is, that is to say, for the benefit of the community as a whole.
Posted in Contribute, Energy, Money, New Jersey, News, NJPACE, Nonprofit Activities, Sustainability
There is increasing awareness of and interest in the role of complementary currencies in local communities and around the world. In Deep Economy (2007), Bill McKibben notes, “If you really want to make a local economy soar, the most important step might be to create a local currency.”[1] More than 4000 complementary currencies are in use around the world; as the name implies, their role is to supplement traditional currencies, not replace them. In a series of books, the Belgian economist and civil engineer Bernard Lietaer has studied and reported on many of these currencies and demonstrated their usefulness in a variety of contexts.[2] While nowhere near as involved in this area of research, the authors are responsible for the original concept and successful demonstration of a commercial credit exchange, in Ottawa, Canada, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[3] The present proposal grows out of this experience as well as drawing on the work of Lietaer and others, and is further explained in a companion piece called “A New Currency?” available here.
CRCS has published two papers relating to alternative or complementary currencies, which can be downloaded below.
[1] Bill McKibben: Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007), p. 162
[2] Lietaer, who many consider the “father” of the single European currency, has been involved in the development of alternative currencies for more than forty years. He is the author or co-author of The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity (2001), New Money for a New World (2011), and Money & Sustainability: the missing link (2012), a publication of the Club of Rome.
[3] Called Credex, the exchange involved more than 100 companies and operated successful as a pilot project during 1990-91.
Posted in Money, Sustainability
When we talk about regenerative community solutions, what we’re talking about are the outcomes of a significant transformation in the way we relate to the world — such that rather than degrading the regenerative capacity of nature, our enterprises naturally seek to enhance it. We can call such companies “social enterprises,” though in reality all companies should recognize that they are social enterprises, and start living up to their regenerative potential. As Harvard economist Michael Porter has argued, every company can and should create social value, because it’s good for business. And when enterprises are creating social value, it’s also good for communities.
Every community has a unique character, but it also shares some basic needs with every other human community: including the need to have a vision, mission, and purpose that matches the unique character of the place. Communities are living ecosystems. They may be thriving or they may be struggling, and this seriously impacts the health of their constituents. Repairing the damage that we have caused to certain communities — including many older urban communities — has proven a great deal more difficult to remedy than merely providing them with a more sustainable and resilient infrastructure, but the latter would clearly help, and be worthy of investment.
Posted in CRCS, Permaculture, Sustainability
We created the Center for Regenerative Community Solutions (CRCS) in order to support our nonprofit mission of community education and engagement that is essential for co-creating a more sustainable future. We are applying for 501c3 status, which if granted will be retroactive to our founding on January 9, 2013.
We welcome both monetary and in-kind contributions to this effort.
Posted in CRCS, NJ Shore, Sustainability
This article was originally published in the Dead River Journal on February 12, 2013 – see http://deadriverjournal.org/regenerating-nj-shore-communities):
Through our new nonprofit, the Center for Regenerative Community Solutions (CRCS), we have begun the work of rebuilding NJ’s shore communities in a more sustainable way. As part of the basis for this work, we’ve published the following article, originally posted January 12, 2013, and most recently revised February 11, 2012: RegeneratingNewJerseyShoreCommunitiesJan2013r
We’ve also been sharing the following message with a number of Shore-based and statewide nonprofits:
Posted in CRCS, Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, NJ Shore, Permaculture, Sustainability
This article was originally published on December 30, 2012 in the Dead River Journal (Seeking Sustainable Growth in the Wake of Sandy)
The Center for Regenerative Community Solutions and Regenerative Community Ventures, Inc. have recently circulated a position paper on “Laying a Foundation for Sustainable Growth in New Jersey in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy” with policy makers and community leaders in the state. Here is a final version, and several excerpts. The authors are co-founders of the Center for Leadership in Sustainability, the Sustainable Leadership Forum, and Acumen Technology Group, LLC. Jonathan Cloud is Senior Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Managing Partner, Acumen Technology Group, LLC. Victoria Zelin is Principal, Regenerative Community Ventures, Inc., a licensee of Unified Field Corporation.
Superstorm Sandy has dramatically altered NJ’s economy as well as its geography for years to come. While there may be a short-?term “bounce” from the money spent on reconstruction, the thinking about how that rebuilding should be carried out is already moving very quickly toward the view that it needs to be substantially more hurricane-? proof and disaster-?resistant, more resilient, and — in a word — more sustainable.
This paper sets out some considerations and recommendations for creating a foundation for sustainable growth in New Jersey, describes some of the initiatives we are taking through our new nonprofit organization, the Center for Regenerative Community Solutions, and makes specific suggestions for policies and programs for state and local government to support these and similar initiatives from other organizations.
Posted in CRCS, Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, NJ Shore, Sustainability
Regenerative Community Ventures, Inc., a licensee of Unified Field Corporation, engages communities in processes that lead to economic, environmental, social and cultural resilience. UFC has developed a “sustainable community partnership development model” that helps keep local dollars working locally through profitable projects that provide more sustainable ways of living and strengthen local economies.
What We Do
Posted in CRCS, Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, NJ Shore, Sustainability
For many on the East Coast, Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call, on several levels.
For one thing, it made it very clear just where we are most vulnerable: along the coasts, particularly, but also far inland in our electrical grid and in our distribution of food and fuel and the other necessities of life, such as hot water.
It also served to re-open, in the waning days of the Presidential campaign, the much-avoided discussion of climate change. Though there was some scientific debate as to whether the severity, or the unusual path, of the storm was attributable in any way to global warming, there was no doubt that the sea-level rise of about a foot in the last century was an exacerbating factor, especially in the flooding of New York’s subways and tunnels.
Posted in Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, NJ Shore, Sustainability
