We are pleased to announce Open World Villages AB is launching a new, dynamic social network bringing together village innovators, people interested in living in sustainable villages, investors, products, marketing opportunities and more. It’s free to sign up and we would love to see you there so come on over!

Click here.

Open World Villages AB is about creating Living Sustainable and Resilient Communities. We provide project management and design, investor liaison and support services for individuals and groups interested in sustainable lifestyles; products and services include on-site workshops, working holidays, skills training, and help to connect networks of existing and potential villagers.

---

This World is A Very Beautiful Place . . .

Vital functions for life on earth are seriously threatened.

The air we breathe comes from nature’s ability to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen. This is one of the many functions of trees.

With gathering momentum over the past century, humanity has managed to reduce the forest cover on earth by more than half. This is affecting all life on the planet.

Nature is telling us that there are no borders; it’s an Open World. So we can work without borders, together, for a sustainable and resilient future. At Open World Foundation we plant trees, with your help we can plant lots of trees.

Under a tree people can sit, protected from the elements, in the shade.
Under a tree we can pick the fruit of that tree and satisfy our hunger.
Under a tree we can meet with friends and talk.

Open World Villages are places for people to meet, talk, enjoy healthy food, live close to nature, and rediscover what a quality lifestyle is all about. And yes, you can plant lots of trees too . . .

You are welcome to invest in village projects, live in one of our projects or if you would like to start your own, we offer  help with finance and project support.

We are now a global social network!

We are pleased to announce Open World Villages AB is launching a new, dynamic social network bringing together village innovators, people interested in living in sustainable villages, investors, products, marketing opportunities and more. It’s free to sign up and we would love to see you there so come on over!

Click here.

What do we mean by investment in sustainability?

Sustainable investment is for investors who believe economic growth is close to being curtailed by lack of raw materials, energy shortfalls, restriction on greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of a sustained economic downturn .

The challenges that face many business operations will come from:

• Rising prices or supply shortfalls of fossil fuels in their supply chains
• Increasing pressure to eliminate greenhouse gasses from their supply chains
• Lack of access to capital

Transforming operations towards sustainability, then, means creating resilience by:

• Reducing reliance on fossil fuels in the supply chain
• Reducing greenhouse gasses in the supply chain
• Ensuring energy security from renewable sources.
• Increasing stability of money supply even when economic downturn persists
• Concentrating on supplying necessities that will always be in demand even in hard times: chains supplying food and shelter, including woodland and arable land.
• Increasing social capital: when financial capital fails, communities helping each other solves problems otherwise left to markets in times of booming activity.

How do sustainable investments benefit investors?
If business operations are likely to shrink generally, sustainable investments can provide the investor with things they need that they would otherwise buy. Again, food and shelter are such returns.
Sustainable investments will continue to produce dividend from sustainable food and energy production at a reasonable price whilst operations with a percentage of fossil fuel dependency in its supply lines will meet rising prices. Sustainable operations become more and more competitive as fuel prices rise.

What are the specific returns to investors from Open World Villages?
As open world villages support community development and provide food and housing in a sustainable way, they will increase in value compared to living arrangements dependant on fossil fuel. If you expect massive fossil fuel hikes or shortages, then you can expect higher dividends from investing in Open World Villages and for their value to increase many-fold.
The share –swap scheme. All shareholders are invited to participate in the services for dividends plan: shareholders are. Depending on the size of their investment, may be entitled to up to 50% discount on purchase of homes in an Open world Village.
Share sales. Open world villages start off as letters of intent to purchase land, and mature as highly efficient living arrangements for many families. Your shares have the ability to increase in value as villages mature. And as shareholders get massive discounts, should you not wish to swap shares for homes you will be able to sell your shares to potential homebuyers.

Certain restrictions apply. Please contact us for details

Sustainable Intentional Villages webcast

Sustainable Intentional Village

View another webinar from Stephen Hinton

The culture of Open World Villages and the Industrial Capitalist city compared

Eco village culture to and industrial economy city culture r1

View more presentations from Stephen Hinton

Architect shows broad picture of how we can decarbonise and village-ise

Rebalancing Rural-Urban Disparity by Tay Kheng Soon from Qi GLOBAL on Vimeo.

Story from the future: how Open World Villages could set up and facilitate the formation of seven villages

A while back I uses imagestreaming to come up with a way to fast start an eco-unit and intentional community. The work took me about 6 months and there are a lot of details that I will not share at this time.

However, I put it all into a “newsletter from the future“. Please take a look and comment on how you think it could work in reality.

Swedish TV shows news item from our Eco-village, a possible open world village

An eco-unit is a type of eco village that aims to have its food produced close by and to recycle nutrients.  I am part of a group that has been workng to set an eco-unit up in Sweden.

Swedish TV were curious about us and came for a visit, making a 2 minute item for the local news program. I was pleasantly surprised how they managed to grasp the essence of what we are trying to do.
Our eco-unit
http://dotsub.com/media/a26039e2-eca2-4d2d-adb5-f8f75837f31d/e/m

Forget B2B and B2C now it’s V2V

NOTE This is just an idea for discussion: please use the comment form below to share your views.

The Open World Village concept allows for another kind of business as:

•Villages offer human scale living: bureaucracy is kept low and community cohesion kept high

•Villagers are not consumers: they are part owners of the village that provides shelter and food.

•Villagers run village companies that produce things villagers around the world need.

•Villagers happily promote each others businesses: they understand it is in everyone’s interest to have functioning supplies.

This is how it could work in the early stages: you join the Villager scheme which gives you access to all the products produced in Open World Villages.

You get coupons for the products given to you by product promoters, or ambassadors. You use the coupon to buy the product from the village store, on-line or physically. As you are a villager you get the best terms. And as you are a member of the system you stand to get a dividend on all your purchases if the organisation makes a profit.

Perhaps you yourself decide to become and Ambassador. Then you get the product cheaper and a commission on all sales. the coupon you give to purchasers contains your own unique number on it and will be processed by the system to work out your commission.

The product you purchase has been brought to the country by a village company that acts as a distributor. You get your commission from them.

Some of the key points about the system:

• The products you buy are made by real people in real villages, sustainable and with a genuine story behind them.
• You are not a consumer but a part owner producer-consumer. You share in the profits.
• As  a villager you get a useful job: promoting sustainable products.
• The system creates jobs in small-scale. sustainable enterprises and marketing and distribution.
• You sell things people need.

We can, but we can also live in eco-villages

Project Portfolio: Open World Café & Open World Village Tech Centre Mallorca

Photo: Christer Söderberg, Organic Farmer’s Market, Mallorca Dec 2010

Nestled between a technology park and University, an Open World Café will serve organic coffee and food and offer a training and seminar room. Next door will be organic garden plots and a Open World Village Tech Center demonstrating village scale sustainable technology.

The center will attract visitors and inform and educate in new sustainable life style and technology. The Open World Foundation, to which the café belongs, plans to establish a series of eco-villages and eco-village like settlements on the island. The cafe will act as an information point for these projects. The cafe aims to be a force in promoting Mallorca as a center for sustainable development and eco-tourism.

Read the investment brochure here   PortfolioTECHCENTER Mallorca