Buckminster Fuller Institute

??? Big news! Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective and Wire Group are launching a groundbreaking prototype to transform how we finance regenerative landscapes. They are teaming up to prototype Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs) that will fund large-scale landscape restoration across Europe. ??? Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective is an initiative co-created by Commonland, OpEPA - Organizacion para la Educacion y Proteccion Ambiental and Ashoka that aims to support 1 million changemakers to regenerate 1 million hectares of Europe's land and seas by 2030. ?? Details here: https://lnkd.in/gMqsqxV8 Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab supported the development of Bioregional Financing Facility design frameworks in 2023-24 (https://lnkd.in/g3Jn7hjG). We co-published the breakthrough book Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet in June 2024 (https://lnkd.in/gVYHci9D), co-authored by Samantha Power (The BioFi Project) and Leon Seefeld (Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective & Dark Matter Labs). Bioregional Financing Facilities continue to gain momentum around the world with this European initiative, The BioFi Project's Cultivator for projects in North America and South America (https://lnkd.in/g_ZZFY-3), and others emerging in Africa and Asia.

90th Day: Celebrating the Legacy of Buckminster Fuller on the 90th Day on the 90th Meridian To purchase tickets and see a detailed program of events: https://lnkd.in/gfEqUxCE The Fuller Dome, Center for Spirituality and Sustainability?is offering a schedule of special programs in collaboration with Buckminster Fuller Institute and the Estate of Buckminster Fuller. This five-day series of events begins on Thursday, March 27th and goes through March 31st, which is the 90th Day of the year. The Fuller Dome’s miniature-earth geodesic dome was designed by Buckminster Fuller to straddle the planet’s 90th longitudinal meridian as it passes through the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) campus. Fuller referred to this idea of a miniature-earth building as a Geoscope and his dome on the SIUE campus is the only built example of this concept. The Fuller Dome is recognizing the important legacy of Buckminster Fuller, who was an SIU professor from 1959 to 1975, with this engaging series of programs culminating on the 90th day of the year on the planet’s 90th meridian. This series of programs will feature an architectural tour of historic domes in the region, performances of the play “R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE”, the playing of Fuller’s World Peace Game, activation of Fuller’s World Resource Simulation Center concept plus dance, music, and poetry performances all within the miniature-earth Fuller Dome. Planning for these special programs began with a call from the Buckminster Fuller Institute to explore ways of reactivating Fuller’s legacy on university campuses. Through a series of meetings with Fuller scholars, colleagues, and enthusiasts, the Fuller Dome on the SIUE campus was chosen as the site to launch this new initiative for applying Fuller’s insights to contemporary challenges. Fuller Dome Director, Benjamin Lowder explains that “addressing the challenges facing the world today will require a holistic perspective. These programs offered within our dome’s miniature-earth, can help us to realize that we have the resources we need and only lack the will to make the world work through cooperation without disadvantage or environmental damage.” This is a first step in building a global network of bioregional hubs allowing for the participatory design of thriving, regenerative futures. A second hub is proposed for Fort Worden, Washington state (Richard Lukens, Larry Greene). This aligns with Fuller’s World Game, which helped participants learn to create cascading benefits working at local to planetary scales. These programs leveraging Fuller’s legacy in architecture, cartography and data visualization are intended to eventually go out to other campuses as a traveling tent version of Fuller’s miniature-earth Geoscope idea, and to help seed long-term engagement with Fuller’s concepts of comprehensive anticipatory design science.

Congratulations to Samantha Power and The BioFi Project team on the amazing progress! Great to see the Bioregional Financing Facilities book in Spanish.

Join the launch event February 26th! Planetary Civics Inquiry (https://lnkd.in/ge4DZ97m) is an alliance of researchers, educators, policymakers, designers, and practitioners committed to transforming the structures and processes that shape how we govern our entangled planet, founded by Dark Matter Labs, Politics for Tomorrow, RISD Center for Complexity, and RMIT University. Planetary Civics invites us to explore the entanglements of cities, bioregions, and planetary scale phenomena in a time of polycrisis. It connects us with living processes like watersheds, migratory species pathways, and the Himalayan glaciers as a source of inspiration for new forms of design and governance. Congratulations to our colleagues at Dark Matter Labs, and thank you for your leadership! Indy Johar, Raj Kalia, Leon Seefeld Buckminster Fuller Institute looks forward to engaging with this vitally important inquiry.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab (https://lnkd.in/gCGZfZDb) is pleased to announce our newest project initiative with Alejandro Calderon and the team at Mutual Empathy (https://lnkd.in/g6k2_wBw). Other partners include WWF Colombia, Gaia Amazonas Foundation, Dalberg, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, and ImpactCity The Hague. The initial focus will be on: ?? TEKLens (Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science for economic innovation and regeneration); and ?? Jaguara RBF (Outcomes Fund for the Regenerative Economy of Colombia as an Amazonian country). This project joins Cooling the Climate (an Amazon-wide restoration initiative) in the Lab and complements our informal engagement with other Amazon initiatives like Amazon Sacred Headwaters. Mutual Empathy is an impact venture studio designed to ideate and create Amazon-based enterprises. Mutual Empathy focuses on a venture building process leveraging ancestral and contemporary technologies. It also designs with a robust, innovative finance strategy targeting both traditional venture capital and pioneering results-based finance (RBF) mechanisms. ? Mutual Empathy believes that the integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and western science can provide the transformation we need to accelerate and meet our regeneration goals. It proposes that this integration of knowledge and visions of nature can support meeting the Planetary Boundaries framework through the form of a TEKLens. Mutual Empathy is building a novel implementation of the TEKLens within Results Based Financing (RBF) and other financing mechanisms, like Outcomes Funds and Impact Bonds, which are challenge based. Jaguara RBF is a Amazon Biome Outcomes Fund and Results-Based Financing mechanism to restore ecosystems, linking the roles of different stakeholders within bold themes. Funds under design include: ?? Amazon Flying Rivers (https://lnkd.in/grHUpprP) ?? Wildlife Conservation (Jaguar) ?? Regenerative Economy (Cultural and Nature-Based Tourism) ?? Traditional Indigenous Knowledge / Education The current extractive economy prioritizes speed, scale, or financial returns, and long term thinking is perceived as a barrier as it is related to the unpredictability or complexity of unplanned outcomes. However, complexity and long-term perspectives are the speciality of indigenous knowledge systems and TEK in particular, especially when it comes to nature-based investments. Worldwide, indigenous people have engaged in patient observation and reciprocity with living systems as part of their cultural activities for tens of thousands of years, holding knowledge of immense value to any long-term investments such as in nature and climate change. For more details: https://lnkd.in/g6k2_wBw

The Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab (https://lnkd.in/gmx3kEjX) is pleased to announce our newest project focused on climate stabilization through biocultural regeneration and regional water cycle restoration. Cooling the Climate: A Large-Scale Plan to Cool the Climate More details here: https://lnkd.in/gwe8EenD Cooling the Climate is an ambitious, large-scale initiative designed to restore and protect the Amazon Rainforest, the planet’s most critical land-based cooling and water regulation system as part of a plan to bring global temperatures down. By accelerating regeneration efforts and stabilizing both regional and global temperatures, the plan addresses climate change in an urgent and decisive way. Current deforestation and ecosystem degradation is pushing the Amazon toward an irreversible tipping point. Scientists warn that once deforestation exceeds 20%-25%, the rainforest will experience a die back, where it can no longer sustain itself. This will lead to widespread desertification and, within decades, the loss of the rainforest ecosystem. If the Amazon collapses, the loss of its water cycle will trigger devastating consequences for the region and planet. The rainforest’s ability to release vast amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere regulates temperatures and drives global rainfall patterns. But without this crucial water cycle, temperatures will rise significantly, leading to rapid desertification across the region and higher temperatures around the globe. The current spikes in global temperatures in 2023 and 2024 are in large part directly related to the record droughts in the Amazon region. Immediate action is essential to prevent these catastrophic consequences. Cooling the Climate responds to this crisis with a bold, science-driven strategy that leverages financial innovation, community-led restoration, and large-scale ecosystem protection to rapidly reverse the damage before it is too late. At the heart of the initiative is a groundbreaking digital-financial model that provides direct payments for ecosystem services to Indigenous and forest communities, ensuring the Amazon’s essential climate functions remain intact and get reinforced. Using an advanced digital financial architecture, the project empowers millions to protect and restore the rainforest while strengthening biodiversity, agricultural resilience, and water security. By linking conservation efforts with economic opportunity, this approach fosters a thriving bioeconomy and establishes a scalable model for global ecological restoration. As a transformative global call to action, Cooling the Climate aims to reverse climate change by restoring ecosystems and leveraging natural water cycles, with the Amazon as the starting point. Its pilot projects provide a clear, actionable roadmap toward a more stable and cooler planet, setting a precedent for restoration efforts worldwide. https://lnkd.in/gwe8EenD

90th Day: Celebrating the Legacy of Buckminster Fuller on the 90th Day on the 90th Meridian Join us! Buckminster Fuller Institute is pleased to be supporting The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability at the Southern Illinois Institute Edwardsville (near St. Louis) in presenting an incredible series of events celebrating Buckminster Fuller's legacy from March 27-31, 2025. The program will be held at the Fuller Dome, the best example of a "Geoscope", which was designed to provide an immersive, interactive earth that would enable its users to run scenarios, see long-term change and project future trends through simulation, strategy, and story. The program will include: ?? Performances of D.W. Jacobs' legendary one man play "R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE" ?? Launch of a contemporary version of Fuller's World Resource Simulation Center by Peter Meisen (https://lnkd.in/gBtZPE9r) ?? Production of Fuller's World Game with dozens of participants (https://lnkd.in/gTFbnBA4) ?? An architectural tour of the most important region in the world for domes connected to the legacy of Buckminster Fuller ???? A full-day symposium on themes related to Fuller's work ???? Artistic program including music, dance, and installations To support the project or buy tickets (available soon), please visit https://lnkd.in/gPV8wPwz.

Congratulations Michael Ben-Eli! Thank you for being a long-term friend of Buckminster Fuller Institute including your work to codify the framework and principles of Fuller's approach to Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science. Michael graduated from the Architectural Association in London and later received a Ph.D. from the Institute of Cybernetics at Brunel University, where he studied under Gordon Pask. He was a close associate of Buckminster Fuller, with whom he collaborated on projects involving research on advanced structural systems and exploration of issues related to the management of technology and world resources for the advantage of all. Prior to launching The Sustainability Laboratory, Michael pioneered applications of Systems Thinking and Cybernetics in management and organization. Over the years he worked on synthesizing strategy issues in many parts of the world and in diverse institutional settings, ranging from small high technology firms to multinational enterprises, manufacturing companies, financial institutions, health care and educational organizations, government agencies, NGOs, and international multilateral organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program, the Global Environment Facility, and others. In recent years, Michael has focused his work primarily on issues related to sustainability and sustainable development, and has been working to help inspire leaders in business, government, community, and youth accelerate a peaceful transition to a sustainable future. Michael is author of the widely acclaimed five core sustainability principles. He has been the driving force behind developing The Lab’s current flagship project, Project Wadi Attir, and is leading development of The Lab as a world-wide network of advanced research, development and education centers, based at different ecological zones.

Buckminster Fuller Institute Design Lab was delighted to support the development of Bioregional Financing Facility (BFF) design frameworks in 2023-24 (https://lnkd.in/g3Jn7hjG) and co-publish the breakthrough book Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet in June 2024 (https://lnkd.in/gVYHci9D). Great to see this wonderful collaboration between Clare Cooper and team at Bioregioning Tayside and Leon Seefeld of Dark Matter Labs and Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective. Bioregional Financing Facilities are gaining planetary traction with The BioFi Project, this project, and others under development. Related efforts include CoFundEco (Co-Create Funding Ecosystems for Regeneration, social system map here: https://lnkd.in/gyk8Etfe), FEST (Financial Ecosystems for Systemic Transformation), TransCap Initiative (Systemic Investing), r3.0 (Redesign for Resilience and Regeneration), Regenesis Institute for Regenerative Practice, Capital Institute (Regenerative Economics), 1000 Landscapes For 1 Billion People, Edge Finance, and Design School for Regenerating Earth (Bioregional Funding Ecosystems). And many more, some with a landscape lens, some with a sectoral lens, some working on the level of cultural narratives. All of these efforts are attempts to shift a fundamentally extractive global economic system towards a pluriverse of place-sourced regenerative possibilities. These possible economies are anchored in tens of thousands of years of experience from diverse indigenous communities but are also compatible with high population levels, dense cities, and massively connected supply webs. These are not new ideas, these are ancient ideas about relationality and reciprocity, now applied in unimaginably complex contexts. Buckminster Fuller called it the shift from "me" to "we", from scarcity to abundance. Indigenous scholar Dr. Lyla June Johnston argues humans are "architects of abundance". From the excellent interview between Clare Cooper & Leon Seefeld (https://lnkd.in/epZfhFaU): "In the uncertain and highly volatile times we live in, I find it difficult to imagine what is going to happen in 10 let alone 50 years. But I am actually quite hopeful about some accelerated developments happening in 2025 and 2026. The bioregional movement is gaining lots of traction and even the discussion around bioregional finance appears to make larger and larger waves. Thus, I think it is totally possible to have a first portfolio of pilot projects underway, that demonstrates bioregional value creation and is financed through a bespoke mechanism akin to BFFs ... Over a 5 to 10-year time horizon I hope we begin to see ecosystems returning to vitality as a consequence of altered finance allocation decisions and communities regrowing their trust and resilience in face of the coming hardship."

This week, the USDA Forest Service awarded a $50 million Forest Legacy grant to the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department of New Mexico.?This award will help fund a unique and exciting project in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Flower Hill Institute, and a coalition of Tribes. Through the purchase of the 50,039 acre Dawson Elk Valley Ranch, the partners are working on a plan for conservation and Tribal co-management that will expand a mosaic of conserved lands that extend from New Mexico through the Southern High Plains of Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Roger Fragua (Jemez Pueblo), Co-founder & Executive Director of Flower Hill Institute: “This is a truly historic moment. This project will create opportunities for participating Tribes to reconnect with each other, reconnect with ancestral land, and perhaps most importantly, strengthen the connections between themselves and microbes, pollinators, finned, winged and four legged beings. At the Flower Hill Institute, we are grateful to be partnering with The State Of New Mexico, the U.S. Forest Service, and The Nature Conservancy to ensure Tribally led collaborative management of this property. This is a progressive new model that can serve as a blueprint for future projects.” The Nature Conservancy press release is here: https://lnkd.in/gYwijnDD. The Dawson Elk Valley Ranch is the initial project of The Indigenous Rewilding Network (see https://lnkd.in/ejYzujy9), a consortium of Indigenous nations, NGOs, scientists, and individuals dedicated to rewilding at a continental scale. Buckminster Fuller Institute is honored to be supporting Flower Hill Institute in this vitally important initiative through the BFI Design Lab (https://lnkd.in/gmx3kEjX). IRN includes 4 interconnected components designed to support its mission: ?? Landback Opportunities: The Network will facilitate the development of intertribal entities to receive title, steward land acquired by the Network or its partners, and support Tribal ventures on the land. ?? Indigenous Rewilding Institute: Serving as a technical assistance hub for Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)-informed stewardship practices, the Institute will provide education, training, and direct services to the intertribal landback entities. ?? Indigenous Rewilding Fund: A regenerative blended finance vehicle that will capitalize land purchases, intertribal management entities, and economic ventures on returned lands. ?? Indigenous Land Trust: This entity will hold and enforce conservation easements on returned lands. Congratulations to Flower Hill Institute and the Indigenous Rewilding Network! We'd like to especially recognize Roger Fragua's tireless leadership on this project and Atherton Phleger's efforts to create effective legal vehicles for indigenous-led stewardship and rewilding.