Are you curious about our upcoming Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC) but not sure yet if it is the right course for you?
This special Permaculture Design Course references Ecovillages for examples and expertise of holistic permaculture design in action. Get your Permaculture Design Certificate with the Global Ecovillage Network!
Earn Your Permaculture Design Certificate
72 hours of study time, Saturdays & Thursdays, starting 4 June until the 27th of August
Live classes plus video recordings
Available for multiple timezones
Taught by expert instructors with featured guests
Interactive Online Groups, plus Videos and Resources
Scholarship and Sponsorship opportunities are available
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 bring permaculture into your life skillfully.
Register now!
As a student, you get access to:
- Live classes and workshops with amazing teachers
- A vibrant online learning community with changemakers from around the world, where you can interact, plan, collaborate and share your progress, insights and inspirations
- Recordings of all live classes to watch or repeat at your leisure
- Live Q&As and support to design your own permaculture project with lead facilitators André Soares and Lucy Legan, founders of Ecocentro IPEC and Planet Schooling
- Handouts, exercises and course texts that are yours for life
- Access to our short intro course to GEN and Ecovillages included in the price
Enjoy a Permaculture Design Course packed with:
- Expert instruction with insightful guest speakers.
- Engagement opportunities with groups and experts.
- Live classes with recordings, plus bonus materials.
- Ecovillages as examples of permaculture design.
- Follow-up resources to visit or create ecovillages.
Earn your Permaculture Design Certificate online
The course is certified by Ecocentro Ipec, Brazil and Global Ecoversity, Australia, and GEN, meaning you will be a certified Permaculture designer at the end.
You will need to complete 72 hours of coursework, the standard for a PDC to gain your certificate and present a final design project in an area of your choice.
Permaculture, or permanent culture, coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Australia in the 1970s, is an applied systems thinking method using nature and conscious ecological design to build resilient systems. Permaculture teaches us to observe nature’s patterns to design regenerative systems that work together to create solutions.
This online course draws on expertise from around the world and features some of the leading educators, innovators, and practitioners.
Permaculture Design Course covers:
- Introduction to Permaculture and Ecovillages
- How to live with the Principles of Permaculture
- How to Start a Permaculture project
- Understanding climate and patterns in nature
- Design for human comfort and regeneration
- How to use Permaculture design to value water
- How to make soil and create food gardens
- How to build Permaculture food forests, country or city
- Bioconstruction and energy: How to design and build natural homes with appropriate technology
- Strategies for bioregional development
- Design to prepare for disasters
- Design an integrated Permaculture System
Your Committment
This course involves the 72 hours of active learning required to gain your Permaculture Design Certificate. Expect to spend approximately 7 hours per week, divided into 2 hours of interactive live video classes, 2 hours of live Q&A, and 3 – to 4 hours of self-paced study to integrate and apply what you learn. All live sessions will be recorded and available for you to watch for the entire duration of the course. We ask you to complete online lessons and deliver a final project design to qualify for the certificate.
Times
You will be studying with passionate people worldwide – a profoundly 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 participate in live sessions and ways to catch up or work asynchronously.
Starting on 4 June, there will be live classes every Saturday from 10 AM to 12 PM UTC (find your local time here) and live support & review session every Thursday from 7 – 9 PM UTC (find your local time here) 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 genuinely global audience is complex, 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 regular cost of this course is £1,245. You can check the approximate value in your currency here. You can pay by card, via PayPal or by direct bank transfer.
We also offer the option to pay the course fee in installments.
We offer discounts and scholarships for people from the Global South, from non-majority backgrounds or in 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. We work with individuals and companies interested in supporting the regenerative movement to make our scholarships possible. 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.
We offer a range of discounts:
- For those who have completed an PDC and want to update their knowledge or interact with these facilitators 50% off
- Participants from the Global South 50% off
- For groups of 5 participants, get one spot free
- Youth under 25 years 25% off
- GEN Ambassadors 20% off
If you are interested in applying 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. You will join leading voices and elders in the global Permaculture movement.
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 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 established permaculture projects and taught permaculture education in Australia, the USA, Portugal, Spain, Haiti, Argentina, Brazil and other countries. He was responsible for more than 8500 sqm of natural buildings in Ecocentro Ipec and many nature-based technological solutions developed with the interaction of communities that represent alternatives for social transformation and environmental regeneration. His work with regenerative design has been seen at Boom Festival (Portugal), Global Eclipse Gathering, Burning Man (USA) and Strawberry Fields Festival (Australia).
Lucy Legan – Lead Facilitator
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. In addition, 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 has been both an M. Ed and a Diplomat in Permaculture since 2005.
Confirmed Guests – (others coming)
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 and 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 sustainability, social innovations, and community life.
David Holmgren – Guest Teacher
Permaculture Co-originator, Author and Design Expert
David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator of permaculture. In 1978, he and Bill Mollison published Permaculture One, starting the global permaculture movement.
Since then, David has developed three properties, consulted and supervised urban and rural projects, written eight more books, and presented lectures, workshops and courses in Australia and worldwide. His writings span diverse subjects and issues over those three decades whilst always illuminating aspects of permaculture thinking and living.
As well to immersion in the practical side of permaculture, David is passionate about the philosophical and conceptual foundations for sustainability, which is the focus of his Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002/2017). His Future Scenarios work has recognised him as a significant thinker about the ‘Energy Descent’ future. RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future (2018) is his 592-page manual showing how people can downshift and retrofit their homes, gardens and selves for resilience in an uncertain future.
Robyn Francis – Guest Teacher
Permaculture designer, educator, presenter, innovator and founder of Permaculture College Australia
Having worked in Permaculture since 1983 throughout Australia and overseas, Robyn was founding director Permaculture International Ltd (PIL) in 1987, designer and creator of Djanbung Gardens, Australia’s leading permaculture centre, and was member of the National Reference Group which developed the Accredited Permaculture Training™ (APT) for Permaculture International.
Robyn has dedicated the past 25 years to empowering people to be effective agents of change. Her students include some of permaculture’s leading teachers and activists.
Roberto Perez – Guest Teacher
Environmental Education & Biodiversity Program Director, the Foundation for Nature & Humanity
Born in Havana in 1970, Roberto Perez is the Environmental Education & Biodiversity Conservation Program Director of the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity, the oldest environmental organisation in Cuba. A graduate of the University of Havana with a degree in Biological Sciences, he later did post-graduate specialisation in community-based natural resources management in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Roberto has been part of the Cuban Permaculture movement since its introduction in the country in 1993 after the so-called “Special Period”, caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union when Cuba lost access to oil, fertilisers, pesticides, and virtually all trading partners that the small island nation depended on to survive, facing economic collapse overnight. He is one of the primary interviewees in the extremely popular, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, produced in 2005. Roberto has travelled extensively, presenting Cuba’s approach to sustainable living in the face of declining petroleum and other non-renewable resources.
More exciting guest speakers will be screened here soon!
See the *sample lesson* on Frequently Asked Questions. If your question is not answered there, you can reach out to [email protected] for further enquiries.
