Sustainable Organizing

Abstract

Based on the experience of, and evidence from, a 120-day action research case, the theory of sustainable organizing emerged. Building on the idea of sustainable culture, the authors propose that each of Holmgren’s 12 permaculture principles has direct application to human systems and that, when consistently applied, these 12 principles will lead to resilient organizations that provide opportunities for emergence. The authors draw from permaculture to look at the ways people organize themselves to rebound from change with resilience and the intention of achieving organizational sustainability. The authors define sustainable organizing as the conscious design of an organization in ways that mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, yielding an abundance of resources necessary for the sustainability of the mission of the organization without compromising the needs of future generations of stakeholders to continue that mission.