Building the Green Infrastructure

Envisioning New Approaches
Written By Ronald Logan

This article was written in 2009. To download a PDF version of this article, click here.

The profusion of initiatives based on green cultural values can be conceptualized as the emergent building of a green infrastructure. This infrastructure can be depicted as a three-dimensional grid in which the diverse green initiatives can be positioned on a grid having the following three axes:

Axis 1: Sectors of Development of Green Values Initiatives

• forestry: social forestry/eco-forestry, restoration forestry, sustainable forest products

• food: local food production, sustainable agriculture, food preservation

• human development: personal development, spirituality, group process, conflict resolution

• built environment: eco-building, natural building, community housing, eco-villages

• urban planning: permaculture site development, suburban conversion, urban redesign 

• energy: renewable energy, energy conservation, zero point energy

• water: rainwater harvesting, water quality, water conservation, greywater systems

• transportation: human powered vehicles, public mass transit, bike transport

• technology: alternative fuels, appropriate technology, materials recycling

• health: nutrition, well-being, energy therapies, herbal medicine, preventive medicine

• culture: local/bioregional culture, ritual, participatory culture

• environment: environmental restoration, land conservancy

• family: parenting, partnering, collective living, household sustainable lifestyle

• community: neighborhoods, rural networks, cooperative communities

• economy: local economy, sustainable development, cooperatives, alternative currency

Axis 2:  Levels of Engagement in Promoting a New Culture

• personal

• family / household

• extended family / intentional community / spiritual community / peer network

• neighborhood / ethnic community / rural network

• city / town

• county / watersheds

• bioregion

• nation / multination unions

• planet

Axis 3:  Arenas of Engagement in New Culture Initiatives

• theory: conceptualizing new values, design principles, and social vision

• policy: developing and promoting new public policy

• models: practical efforts to build new models

• education: educational initiatives to increase public awareness

• design: sustainably designing and managing resources [eg, permaculture]

• lifestyle: developing, teaching, and implementing sustainable lifestyle practices

• activism: social movements that resist oppression, exploitation and ecological destruction

So, for example, there might be a cell in this three-dimensional green infrastructure filled by initiatives to promote renewable solar energy (Axis 1), at the county level (Axis 2), through enacting legislation that creates tax incentives (Axis 3).

The concept of building a green infrastructure can give people and groups working in their particular green culture space better recognition that their efforts are not undertaken in isolation, but are part of multidimensional, integrated efforts to create a new culture based on new values.


To download a PDF version of this article, click here.

Ronald Logan

Ronald Logan is the Executive Director of the PROUT Institute, where he is engaged in the Institute’s training programs and in implementing its local development projects. He is the principal author of PROUT: A New Paradigm of Development and is a frequent contributor to the PROUT Journal. In 1993, he co-authored the Plan for the Economic Development of Khabarovsk Krai on the Basis of PROUT, a project undertaken at the invitation of the Vice-Governor of Khabarovsk Krai in Far East Russia. He has helped draft several policy papers for the Global PROUT Policy Parliament and developed the Institute’s Community Transformations Training program. His new book, “A New Interpretation of Revolution”, is scheduled for publication in 2018. Currently he is teaching an online 6 session course called “PROUT: A New Social Philosophy for a new Era“. He is also the founder and program director of the spiritual center Dharmalaya, which has as its mission “to promote dharma holistically in personal, social and ecological spheres of life.”

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