■ Permaculture
Permaculture (a combination of the terms "permanent" and "agriculture" or "culture") is a design system that allows people to create sustainable human environments by using the inherent productivity in natural ecosystems through arrangement of the elements for mutual support and effect.
Advocate Bill Mollison became involved with Permaculture in 1974 when he was involved with sustainable agricultural systems based on species-rich crops. However, as more people became involved, the scope of activity widened beyond agriculture production and currently it has come to encompass all areas of society including producer-consumer distribution systems, new economics (e.g. financial systems and cooperative-like enterprises), residential structures and cyclic community development. Permaculture,originating in Australia, is spreading throughout the world.
■Zero Emissions
The United Nations University*s Zero Emissions Research Initiative（UNU/ZERI） aims to eliminate waste emissions from individual plants by arranging industries to use the waste products from other plants. By creating these clusters that use the waste products from one industry and use them as resources for another industry, the impact on the environment is lessened and industrial efficiency is increased. To realize this dream, the current system of industrial construction will need to be rethought and new and revolutionary technology will need to be developed. Zero Emissions has been receiving much attention as the future of Industy. Presently, the Zero Emissions Research Initiative is involved in clustering beer breweries with fish farms; from palm oil business, particle board manufacturing; from seaweed, biochemical products.
■ Proposal "Connecting the Kitchen to the Field" (Rainbow Plan)
This proposal from Nagai City, Yamagata Prefecture, aims to create a local cycle that reclaims organic waste from local business and households, composts it into fertilizer that is supplied to local farms which, in turn uses the compost to grow produce that is ultimately sold back to the local businesses and homes. This ambitious proposal has the support of 4,500 local homes and farms, and will recycle organic resources, improve the natural environment, create a healthier lifestyle, and increases both economic and non-economic profit for the people involved as well as providing a working example for the sustainable, mutual existence of nature and humanity. Beginning in 1988 as part of the movement to involve citizens in community development, this proposal will be initiated as a model in the winter of 1996 with the support of farmers, consumers, distributors and government.
■ Miyako Ecology Park
In Miyako, Okinawa, a information factory park centering around a lesser impac
t pulp factory (scheduled to open in 1998) and a non-waste society are being v
isualized. The pulp factor will employ the PA method which produces no toxic w
astes and will use bagasse (sugar cane) as source material. The wastes from th
e pulp plan will be mixed with other organic waste to be used as fertilizer, f
eed and as a source of biogas and reused in agriculture. Along with the produc
tion facilities, a park is planned to introduce environmental technologies suc
h as the PA method and also to act as a source of information for developing a
sustainable society. PA methodology is a revolutionary process that creates p
aper from non-wood sources and has attracted attention world-wide.