Eric Fedus and I completed the BFI application and sent that out on the 30th. Then just a few days ago, Guy Olian of CleanerClimate.com. Cleaner Climate specializes in carbon credit/Clean Development Mechanism certification and development. I am considering how we might consider Cleaner Climate as a partner to develop a global network of EcoCenters promoting our work - seeing Global Climate Change as one key issue among several core ecological and social concerns.

1. Gary Liss just mentioned something about getting serious about Carbon Credits and an article that he copied to ZERI-US Discussion Group about Gaviotas and ZERI that was featured in Business Week.
2. I also recall something that Gunter Pauli (Director of ZERI) mentioned regarding an effort to develop a carbon credit program associated with Gaviotas. A Business 2.0 article gives an update on what Gunter is trying to do with Paolo Lugari (founder of Gaviotas) in Columbia. Gaviotas appears to already have CDM contracts for all its sequestration activities see Gaviotas Carbon Offsets
3. My colleague Melanie St James Exec Dir of Empowerment Works is developing a Village Direct Carbon Offsets program. The initial VCDO program is being piloted in the southern Sudan by local ecologist and community health expert, Dr. Suad Sulaiman. EW's primary implementing partner is the Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society (SECS).
4. I have several contacts in Nigeria who are pursing work in methane digestion in Nigeria who need to be supported and who also might have inputs into what local needs are and how the IF&WMS might address them.
5. Alexandre Takamatsu has worked with George Chan to develop IF&WMS in Brazil and possibly he has some experience there with the process of getting certified in greenhouse gas sequestration (CDMs)
6. Per Bondesen is now considering several IF&WMS related projects in East Timor and Indonesia.

IF&WMS Global Initiative
I have been considering how we might pool our resources to develop a global initiative along the lines of developing Integrated Farming and Waste Management Systems (IF&WMS) and other integrated systems to promote sustainable development and empower rural communities.

Outlining the Business Model
My thought would be to have focus of this social enterprise business model on Sequestering Carbon and Methane rather than providing products, because most of the communities targeted in this venture will need to invest their natural resource development and utilization on their own capacity. Thus while operating and taking advantage of the CDMs which are a free trade mechanism and byproduct of neoliberalism, the venture has the potential to develop an entire new regime to mitigate massive global imbalances in the utilization of global resources. And the resource for this effort will be the very externalities that are causing Global Climate Change - Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. So by designing systems to not only mitigate GHGs as climate neutral we should strive for being "climate negative".

Exploiting the Comparative Advantage of Southern Climates
The key to this is to design systems in harmony with the climate and realities of the South instead of the Northern climates. Southern climates have a major advantage that has not been fully utilized; a 12 month growing season We can harness this advantage by using Integrated Farming to maximize the rate of agricultural productivity to utilize waste biomass. Yet this is not so much an opportunity to export valuable biomass and human resources to affluent regions, as it is a chance to address urgent local needs for reliable food, water and energy supplies.

Using CDMs to Finance Holistic Approach to Sustainale Development
The core idea I think is to design a CDM program that enables a new development model to emerge that is holistic and multi-sector oriented. This includes the promotion and dissemination of Integrated Farming to local farmers to promote sustainable development while also seeking the implications of that model in addressing urgent health care and nutritional needs well as the linkages with education and the rediscovery of indigenous culture to build sustainable societies.