2026 Theme: Mollison & Holmgren's 12 Permaculture Principles
By @climateadam.bsky.social
TL;DR: In 2026, a year-long initiative will delve into permaculture's 12 design principles as developed by Mollison and Holmgren, applying them beyond agriculture.
- Learn permaculture’s 12 design principles.
- Apply sustainable design to many systems.
- Understand ethics: earth, people, fair share.
- Redesign systems for sustainability.
Why it matters: Permaculture principles offer a framework for designing resilient systems, crucial for addressing today's resource and sustainability challenges.
Do this next: Explore a new permaculture principle each month, starting with "Observe and Interact" in January.
Recommended for: Anyone interested in applying sustainable design principles across various personal, community, or professional contexts.
This announcement highlights a commitment to exploring permaculture as a major theme for 2026, specifically centering on the foundational work of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Permaculture, developed in Australia during the 1970s by Mollison and Holmgren, is a design methodology that applies sustainable principles to create resilient systems across agriculture, community development, and personal lifestyle choices. The 12 design principles form the core framework of permaculture philosophy and practice. These principles include: Observe and Interact, which emphasizes understanding environmental patterns before intervention; Catch and Store Energy, focusing on capturing and utilizing natural resources efficiently; Obtain a Yield, ensuring projects produce meaningful returns; Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback, enabling systems to adapt and improve; Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services, prioritizing biological solutions; Produce No Waste, minimizing resource loss; Design from Patterns to Details, working with natural and human patterns; Integrate Rather Than Segregate, creating synergistic relationships between elements; Use Small and Slow Solutions, favoring sustainable, maintainable approaches; Use and Value Diversity, building resilience through variety; Use Edges and Value the Margins, leveraging transition zones; and Creatively Use and Respond to Change, adapting to dynamic conditions. These principles are grounded in three foundational ethics: care for the earth, care for people, and fair share. By focusing on these 12 principles throughout 2026, the theme explores how permaculture thinking can be applied not only to gardening and agriculture but also to organizational design, personal decision-making, and broader social systems. The principles serve as universal thinking tools that, when used together, enable creative redesign of environments and behaviors in response to resource constraints and sustainability challenges.