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The Unified Field Bank concentrates its investments to increase the amount of money available to build local community sustainable infrastructure in the following areas:
At right: Synergistic Relationships of Sustainability
© 2009 Unfied Field Corporation
In an agriculturally sustainable community, residents know where their food is grown. They know their farmers and are confident that their ability to consistently access delicious, high quality, organically grown food is safe and secure. Organic food production is sustainable because it promotes healthy people and healthy vital soil that becomes more productive over time. UFB agricultural projects will develop all the necessary components to create a vital and prosperous agricultural economy in rural and urban settings.
Sources of renewable energy are abundant in nature and available to us with a variety of ancient and modern technologies and applications. Why burn fuel to create energy when there is an overabundance of sources of energy that do not require clearing, mining, drilling, pumping, cultivation and processing into substances which are then burnt to produce mostly wasted heat?
UFB will focus on both centralized renewable energy development projects and incentive partnerships with property and business owners for decentralized production systems that will pay for themselves quickly.
Over the last 75 years, the biggest change in mainstream business-as-usual home materials and design is that most modern homes are built less sustainably than ever before, and are releasing more toxins into our living and breathing spaces that are harmful to us. We can do better.
Information and sources for safer, more sustainably produced materials and methods are here. Innovations in locally produced, non-toxic and natural materials, combined with energy saving design, saves money, and adds beauty and well being to our lives. Proactive financial support for a truly green built environment is needed now.
Intelligent, non-polluting water collection and preservation systems designed into our public infrastructure, transportation and building design will save enormous amounts of water that is now being wasted, especially in our cities. Rooftop and well-placed community gardens preserve rain and runoff water. Permeable roadways return needed water to be stored underground in our local aquifers. The application of proven beneficial microbes and magnetic technologies purify wastewater more efficiently. Education and enforcement of industrial clean water standards will add to the supply of clean, safe water available for everyone.
Waste is a measure of a community’s inefficiency. Why would we want to “waste” anything? Green waste comprises half the solid waste stream, and can be made into compost to help grow more local food and can be sold to farmers and gardeners at a considerable cost savings to them over commercial fertilizers. Recycling can be feedstock for a host of new local industries. Deconstruction and repurposing of demolition waste is giving birth to a new industry providing jobs for at risk youth and the underemployed. Resource recovery parks to house the recycling, composting, construction materials reprocessing and other reuse businesses are a cost effective way to recover valuable resources formerly known as trash.
A community actively engaged in creating its own sustainable future is willing to re-examine the way it thinks about transportation. Moving production of goods closer to point of use (eat and buy local), rethinking the ways we move around, living closer to where we spend most of our time, creating car-free zones, are all part of a set of solutions that can be customized to a community’s needs to reduce traffic, clean the air and help people stay healthier and more vital in the process.
People naturally communicate when their social and economic infrastructure is designed to enhance not minimize their interactions. Note a typical suburban development where people can live, work, come and go and almost never see their neighbors. Here again, the different aspects of sustainability are intimately interdependent.
As we make it easier for all of us to positively interact, whether at farmers markets or in car-free zones, parks, walking and bike trails, we will talk to each other more, and in doing that we will create our own networks and technical systems to serve our new appetite for locally supported communication.
Our educational systems need to have curricula that empower young people to create the better world they envision. The arts are an essential part of a holistic education for people of all ages. Adding to the existing structure with innovative funding, delivery technologies such as inspired interactive learning environments (games), and mentorship from the community can create educational experiences worthy of our children’s appetite and capacity for learning. All of us are asking some of the same questions:
1) How do we turn the challenge of our time into unprecedented opportunity?
2) How do we enjoy all our relationships including the one with ourselves?
A well community is physically, mentally and emotionally healthy, prosperous, socially just, educated, fit and artistically and culturally creative. Its people have fulfilling relationships and work. Its environment is beautiful and supportive of health, peace of mind and enlivening relationships. UFB is committed to wellness creation and delivery systems that bring together ancient wisdom, modern science and vibrant culture in support of the highest potential in each individual and the whole.
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