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Welcome To ZERI

Zero Emissions Research & Initiatives (ZERI) is a global network of creative minds seeking solutions to world challenges. The common vision shared by the members of the ZERI family is to view waste as resource and seek solutions using nature's design principles as inspiration.

A REVIEW AT A TIME OF ECONOMIC DISTRESS

It has never been more clear that the present economic model is not capable of responding to the basic needs of all. ZERI always maintained a positive look at the future. Armed with a series of new scientific hypotheses, driven by a series of entrepreneurial opportunities, and based on years pioneering cutting edge projects time has come to offer a fresh look at reality.

Whenever the economy suffers governments tend to focus on the need to rescue the underperformers or/and the reckless operators. Surprisingly, only few pay close attention to the businesses of the future. ZERI is convinced that part of its long term mission to dramatically improve our capacity to respond to basic needs for all, time has come to highlight the industries that will represent the future.

The worldwide network of vigorous operators and high performers, creative minds seeking solutions, from all ages and all cultures assemble fascinating insights in the sectors that will be part of the solution to the present crisis. If you are interested to know which industries will become pillars of the economy and who will be the pioneers, tune in to the ZERI website where we will start releasing our insights as of December 15, 2008.

Future Vision of ZERI: 2005-2014

ZERI has spent 10 years in the field developing projects that demonstrate how we can do so much more with what nature provides, meeting the basic needs of all species in co-evolution with nature. After much trial and error and the influence of many scientists, entrepreneurs, and educators, ZERI offers a hopeful vision for the next 10 years.

Science: Learn more about the science behind ZERI including important insights into the 5 Kingdoms of Nature and the 5 Design Principles.

Projects: See the future of ZERI in action including the Gaviotas reforestation project in Colombia and Living Labs.

Education: Find out more about ZERI's groundbreaking educational initiatives including the Masters Program at the University of Torino, Italy and a comprehensive curriculum implemented in Brazil.

BOOK GUNTER PAULI FOR CONFERENCE

VIDEOS GUNTER PAULI

Technologies Inspired by Whales

Technologies Inspired by Penguins

Technologies Inspired by Nautilius

The Power of System Design

The Logic of System Design

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Chido Govero, never knew her father and witnessed her mother die from AIDS. At the age of seven she become the head of a small family nucleus, with her younger brother and blind grandmother. Her uncle and cousin abused her, “the price girls have to pay to have a shelter at a family’s plot of land”, she asserts is rather the rule than the exception. At the age of 12 she learned how to farm mushrooms with a ZERI Foundation scholarship, converting leaves, dead tree branches, water hyacinth, coffee pulp and corncobs into a substrate. Chido is believed to have “green” fingers, farming more mushrooms on less substrate than anyone else. She is on a crusade under the ZERI program “Orphan Teaches Orphans” convinced that the only way girls can escape abuse is when they know how to provide for their own food security. By April 2009 Chido has trained her first dozen assistants and she is determined to reach out and network throughout Africa to create millions of jobs and to stamp hunger out of the continent with what is locally available.

What's New?

New Video

GUNTER PAULI LIFT FRANCE 2009 INTERVIEW

THE SPECIALTY COFFEE CHRONICLE
"Mushrooms and Coffee"

The ZERI Foundation’s innovative pulp-to-protein project receives SCaa’s 2009 Sustainability award, while the program benefits farmers’ livelihoods and the environment. By Aaron Kiel

Please read HERE

"Equator Coffees" and Chido's Blend

The women-owned and managed wholesaler "Equator Coffees" listened to the story of Chido at the SCAA Award Ceremony in Atlanta: "How an orphan trains orphans converting pulp to protein". When Chido visited the team in San Rafael, California, the idea emerged to promote coffee from Africa, empowering more girls to learn how to achieve food security while promoting the export of a cash crop. And so "Chido's Blend" was created. For more information on how to buy this please click here

Creating Green Jobs in the USA

After receiving the Sustainability Award from the Specialty Coffee Association of America in Atlanta, the ZERI team did not waste a day to put their pragmatic approach into practice. Experts from Colombia (Carmenza Jaramillo) and Zimbabwe (Chido Govero) assisted student-entrepreneurs to create their own jobs in Oakland, California. On April 21, Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez started bagging coffee waste from Berkeley and Oakland and seeded these bags with mushroom spawn offered free of charge by Paul Stamets. Paul Katzeff from Thanksgiving Coffee (Mendocino, California) has been a key advisor to the process.

Then on April 22nd, Chido and Carmenza joined a group of unemployed in Marin City, located between Mill Valley and Sausalito, organized by youth coach Michael Evans. Marin City is especially hard hit by the worldwide economic crisis with over one third of the people unemployed. However, this initiative is to create jobs now while at the same time provide citizens with healthy food and reducing waste to the landfills.

After assessing the situation on Slide Ranch in Marin County on April 20, Chido also made plans to start seeding mushrooms there. That will allow the tourists coming to Muir Woods (one million per year) to obtain local protein from these mushrooms, which will generate local jobs. It has been estimated that converting coffee and tea waste to mushrooms represents at least 50,000 jobs in the USA.

The ZERI Foundation, which is a new arrival in the US (located in the San Francisco Bay Area) offers its know-how on how to generate green inner-city jobs to any entrepreneur in America. If you are keen on implementing in your city what is happening in California write to info@zeri.org. If you would like to learn how to identify these opportunities in your region and make them happen, join the ZERI certification training program (see attached) by writing to training@zeri.org

The ZERI “green job machine” awarded prize in the US
"Coffee to mushrooms healthy for the consumer, healthy for the planet, and healthy for the communities"

If you like to have a visual presentation with few words then take 4 minutes to watch

WATCH THE VIDEO

Gunter Pauli’s Article

“Conflict Resolution in a System: Ways and means to respond to everyone’s needs and someday achieve everyone’s dreams”

DOWNLOAD HERE

GUNTER PAULI ON THE NEXT ECONOMY

On September 20, 2008 Craig and Damon Foster invited Gunter to the coastline of Cape Town to share before sunrise his view on the solutions from Africa for Africa. By the time the sun rose above the mountains, a dozen whales had gathered less than 300 feet from the beach. Listing to what Gunter was talking about. The full one hour video will be released in April 2009.

MORE ABOUT ZERI

The ZERI Foundation serves as an antenna in the world economy identifying the high growth industries of the next decade. When there is a crisis, many businesses suffer, but some thrive. Which are the ones that are the job providers of the future? Which are the technologies that will change the business models? With contacts on four continents, with over 50 projects that have demonstrated over the past 15 years where the opportunities are, ZERI offers insights to government on which sectors to attract, to companies which market niches to focus on, and to communities how to secure the continued build-up of social capital.

COMPILATION OF THE LIFE ACHIEVEMENTS OF PROFESSOR GEORGE CHAN

The ZERI Foundation is producing a compilation of the life achievements of Prof. George Chan who has pioneered the integrated biosystems.

He designed the ZERI projects in Namibia (beer brewery), Fiji (Montfort Boys Town), TECPAR (Brazil) and Gavilanes Farm (Colombia). He has been an inspiration and trained over one hundred ZERI practitioners. A video on his work in Brazil has been posted on the web by Eric Fedus, and is based on the pioneering work by Alexandre Akira Takamatsu. For a first hand insight on these projects please click on the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fFIg5WLnm0

A description of the project

http://green.onevillage.tv/?p=163

About the life of George Chan

http://green.onevillage.tv/?p=164

B iotechnologies of the Future

How a focused science and technology strategy could lead to the creation of millions of jobs while dramatically recovering quality of life in co-evolution with nature

BY GUNTER PAULI