Toolkit for Sustainable Cooperation

An initial overview of the proposed structure of a knowledge base of expertise aiming, through collective effort, at:

• Material and labour savings
• Increased autonomy
• Better integrated communities

The result of the collection of this knowledge is a proposed web platform, the contents of are is to be managed through a GitHub-like structure and published in static form over IPFS. The content will be managed by an open community, similar to the way Open Source initiatives are managed. Wherever possible, concrete examples within existing communities should referred to.

The overall goal will be to provide accessible resources for new and existing communities to inprove their overall functioning in areas such as:

• Economy
• Ecology, agro- and agriculture
• Footprint
• Community processes

Domain expertise

In relation to these domains, a knowledge base of content (and/or functioning algorithms), will be provided together with a publicly available network of experts relating to these particular fields.

Ecology, agro- and agriculture

Overview of highly efficient, regenerative, methods of agriculture, forrestry, agroforrestry and general stewardship of natural resources.

Energy

Generation, storage, distribution, accounting and/or marketing of renewable energy sources as well as effective and efficient methods of reducing consumption.

Architecture

Overviews of resources on low-impact and/or natural methods of construction, including mathematical models (calculators) such as to reduce heating demands and maximize energy harvesting potential. References to different concepts from landscape architecture to aid in local cooperation and circular economy.

Community organization, processes and legal structures

Document effictive means of organizing collective efforts as well as practical means of remediating conflicts. Provide concrete examples of organizational and/or legal structures that have been found to work in particular domains. List tools and methodologies that aid in decision making processes and deliberation.

Economy / Finance

Provide business models and mathematical models (calculators) to ease the structuring and funding of local cooperation within communities in financially sustainable ways. This includes approaches for (crowd)funding, (smart)contracts, local money (LETS) and, potentially, blockchain technology.

Connectivity

Provide resources on creating collaboratively managed communication infrastructures, including (wireless) internet connectivity, community-managed IT ('cloud') services, mobile connectivity, social networking and private communication. The focus here should be community-operated and -owned hardware and decentralized free (libre) networking platforms yielding privacy-enhanced, cheap, communication facilities (such as internet connectivity, email and cloud storage).

Regional expertise

The primary aim of this project is to provide a quick overview of existing resources. Therefore, the initial focus will be global, adding regional specialization only gradually, when applicable.

Existing resources

Where available, links to (externally managed) existing resources will be preferred over one-off replication of existing free (as in libre) information. Valuable existing resources with regards to this are: Open Source Ecology Wiki P2P Foundation Wiki Appropedia D-CENT The Open Building Institute