Permaculture Design Course Become a certified permaculture designer, the ecovillage way

Get your Permaculture Design Certificate with the Global Ecovillage Network!

This special Permaculture Design Course explores Ecovillages as examples and sources of expertise for permaculture design in action.

After our first successful GEN PDC you can now register for our next cohort starting on the 7th of May!

Learn Permaculture and Ecovillage Design online with experts and founders of the Permaculture and Ecovillage movements with this unique Permaculture Design Course.

From how to create a permaculture food garden to using the principles of permaculture in community design and beyond, this permaculture design course is designed to give you the tools, connections and capacity to skillfully bring permaculture into your life.

As a student, you get access to:

1. Live classes and workshops with amazing teachers, including Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren
2. A vibrant online learning community with changemakers from around the world, where you can interact, plan, collaborate and share your progress, insights and inspirations
3. Recordings of all live classes to watch or repeat at your leisure
4. Live Q&As and support to design your own permaculture project with lead facilitator André Soares, founder of Ecocentro IPEC and Planet Schooling
5. Handouts, exercises and course texts that are yours for life
6. Access to our short intro course to GEN and Ecovillages included in the price

Earn your Permaculture Design Certificate online

The course is certified by Ecocentro Ipec, Brazil and Ecoversity Academy, Australia as well as GEN, meaning you will be a certified Permaculture designer at the end.

To gain your certificate, you will need to complete 72 hours of coursework, which is standard for a PDC.

Permaculture, or permanent-culture as it was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Australia in the 1970s, is an applied systems thinking method using nature and conscious ecological design as a framework for building resilient systems. Permaculture teaches us to observe nature’s patterns to design regenerative systems that work with one another to create solutions.

This online course draws on expertise from around the world, and features some of the leading educators, innovators and practitioners in the field.

Your Committment

This course involves the 72 hours of active learning required for you to gain your Permaculture Design Certificate. Expect to spend a total of approximately 6 hours per week, divided into 2 hours of interactive live video classes, 1 hour live Q&A, and 3 – 4 hours of self-paced study to integrate and apply what you learn.

All live classes will be recorded and available for you to watch for the full duration of the course. To qualify for the certificate, we ask you to attend at least 80% of live sessions, complete online lessons, and delivery of a workbook and final project design.

Times

You will be studying with passionate people from around the world – a deeply enriching experience that also makes scheduling challenging. To support as many people as possible to participate fully, we will create a diversity of opportunities to take part in live sessions as well as ways to catch up or work asynchronously.

There will be live classes, and live Q&As at different times so that you can find a combination that works for you – attend the live class, or watch a recording and come to the live Q&A – the Q&A is open to everyone, whether you attended the live class or watched the recording.

Scheduling for a truly global audience is difficult, and we hope this setup will make it possible for many people to attend. There will also be ample opportunity to discuss with participants and facilitators in the online community and throughout developing your project design.

Costs and Scholarships

The cost of this course is £1,245.

You can check the approximate value in your currency here. You can pay by card, or via paypal or direct bank transfer – either the full price upfront, or in installments.

We offer scholarships for people from the Global South, from a non-majority background and/or from crisis areas. These will be allocated according to country of residence/origin, gender balance, diversity of ethnic background and cultural heritage, how you plan to apply what you learn, and meaningful role and service in your community. To make our scholarships possible we work with individuals and companies interested in supporting the regenerative movement. We also offer a ‘sponsor another student’ payment option during course registration, for those who want to give more in order to make it possible for someone else to attend.

If you are interested to apply for a scholarship, you are welcome to fill out this form, and we’ll get back to you!

Facilitators and Guest Teachers

A world-class team of pioneering Permaculture educators, practitioners and researchers will accompany you on your course, and answer your questions along the way.

André Soares – Lead Facilitator

Permaculture Design & Natural Building Expert

Since co-founding Ecocentro IPEC in Brazil in 1999, André Soares has understood the need for permaculture design to be both functional, culturally relevant and artistic. This has resulted in the Ecocentro IPEC demonstrating various natural building techniques/models that are low cost, energy efficient, use local materials and are beautiful.

André has been responsible for more than 8500 sqm of natural buildings and many replicable technologies developed with the interaction of communities that represent solutions for social transformation. He has taught permaculture education in Australia, USA, Portugal, SpainHaiti, Argentina, and Brazil. His work with composting toilets has been seen at Boom Festival, Global Eclipse Gathering, Burning Man Festival and Strawberry Fields Festival.

Lucy Legan – Guest Teacher

Permaculture Educator & Author of Planet Schooling

Lucy Legan is co-founder of Ecocentro IPEC in Brazil, the most comprehensive reference centre of sustainability in Latin America, demonstrating scalable social technologies models. She has been teaching sustainable education for over 20 years. Lucy has played an integral role in environmental education in Brazil, a best-selling author of educational books on sustainability literacy, and seed saving. She is a public speaker and long- time ecologist.

Lucy is passionate about encouraging individuals to take environmental actions that will make a difference. Her quirky edible gardens have been tasted at Boom Festival in Portugal, Global Eclipse Gathering in the USA, Rainbow Serpent Festival and Strawberry Fields Festival in Australia. She is both an M. Ed and a Diplomat in Permaculture since 2005.

Taisa Mattos

GEN Educator Coordinator, Ecovillage Researcher and Author, Certified Gaia Education Trainer

Taisa is an experienced Gaia Education certified trainer. She has coordinated and taught Ecovillage Design Education Programmes since 2009, having contributed to 26 programmes so far, all over Brazil also in Portugal, Argentina, and Mozambique. Currently serving as Education and Research Coordinator at the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), Taisa works as an international trainer and consultant in the fields of sustainability, social innovations, and community life.

Ecovillage researcher and Board member of the International Communal Studies Association (ICSA), Taisa is the author of the book Ecovillages: building a regenerative culture.  She holds a masters degree in Communities and Social Ecology and is also a Professor at the Post-Graduate Program on Pedagogy of Cooperation and Social Methodologies in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (UNIP/Projeto Cooperação). 

Leader author of the GEN Regenerative Urban Communities Manual and Project Coordinator of the Ecovillage Transition in Action, an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project on collaboration between community-led initiatives and local authorities for regional sustainability. Taisa has contributed to transition initiatives both in urban and rural areas, being the co-founder of Terra Una Ecovillage (Brazil, which she left in 2013) and other small urban communities in Rio. She has been actively engaged with the Ecovillage Movement since 2004.

More exciting guest speakers will be listed here closer to the course start!
Stay tuned!