Bioregional is an entrepreneurial charity that works with partners around the world to demonstrate that sustainable living can be easy, attractive, and affordable. Bioregional focuses on homes, construction, retail, and city-region and community eco-systems. The problem is our collective human Ecological Footprint. Wealthier nations and individuals are consuming more than the planet can replenish annually and producing more carbon emissions than the planet can absorb. Bioregional put it like this. If everyone lived like we do in the USA we would need five planets to support us. Bioregional’s vision is for One Planet Living where everyone lives happy, healthy lives within the natural limits of the planet, leaving space for wildlife and wilderness. How can you design your development to reduce its ecological footprint, ensure social responsibility, and foster a relationship with the local community? Where do the carbon impacts arise in your construction project and how can you minimize them? How do you create a credible, successful eco-product range? Bioregional helps with these questions and much more. Bioregional scales this work in two ways: Firstly, by telling the stories of these real-life examples and advocacy work to bring about system-change in policy and industry practices. Also by offering its One Planet Living framework and training to enable communities, companies, developers, and local authorities to develop practical, appropriate solutions for sustainable living.
Human habitats are unsustainable because we do not appreciate what would be possible by making consumption more efficient.
Efficient use of renewable resources makes it possible to live a good life while consuming less.
BioRegional has pioneered One Planet Living in housing developments and provided tools to individual homeowners.
Tens of thousands of people are living more efficiently as a result.
Bioregional’s goal is One Planet Living. Bioregional aims to change policy and practice to achieve zero carbon and the SDGs by 2030. By focusing on homes, buildings, city planning, and retail products and services in wealthier over-consuming nations, Bioregional seeks to influence developing nations.
Demonstration, Policy Advocacy, and Replication Bioregional makes it planning tools available openly on the Web, advocates for policies that mandate or give advantage to sustainable development, and works as consultants on influential demonstration projects.
CEO & Co-founder, Bioregional Development Group
Founder, OnePlanet and Co-founder, Bioregional, Bioregional Development Group
Pooran Desai and Sue Riddlestone, a husband and wife team, founded Bioregional in 1994. Pooran studied neuroscience at Oxford University, but had a passion for applying the lessons of natural systems and complexity theory to solving environmental problems. Sue trained as a nurse but, motivated by our negative impact on the natural world, wanted to introduce and sell lower impact products and services. They concluded that over-consumption was a fundamental cause of environmental problems and that sustainable alternatives were necessary. They shared the vision that the key to sustainable living relied on making more efficient use of local renewable and waste resources – in effect, creating an economy with a more circular flow of resources and a ‘metabolism’ similar to that of a local ecosystem. Based on this common belief, they founded Bioregional. For his services to sustainable development, Pooran was awarded an Order of the British Empire by the Queen of England and made an Honorary Fellow at the Royal Institute of British Architects. Sue is a Schwab Awardee, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards winner, a former London Sustainable Development Commissioner, and was awarded an Order of the British Empire by the Queen for her work on sustainable business and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Sue is the current CEO, and Pooran remains the International Director of One Planet Communities.
