James Ehrlich is the Founder of ReGen Villages, a spin-off company based on his research from the Center for Design Research at Stanford University.
ReGen Villages is a new visionary model for the development of off-grid, integrated and resilient eco-villages that can power and feed self-reliant families around the world.
ReGen stands for regenerative, where the outputs of one system are the inputs of another. The concept has a holistic approach and combines a variety of innovative technologies, such as energy positive homes, renewable energy, energy storage, door-step high-yield organic food production, vertical farming aquaponics/aeroponics, water management and waste-to-resource systems.
With the integration of such technologies, ReGen Villages holds a potential in changing some of the challenges of a growing population, increasing urbanization, scarcity of resources, the growing global food crisis as well as reducing the global CO2 emission and reducing the burdens on municipal and national governments in dynamically changing planetary and economic times.
ReGen Villages has already started to build its pilot community in the Netherlands. The neighborhood of Almere, 25 minutes east of Amsterdam, will consist of 25 homes. The company is also planning projects in Sweden, Germany, Norway and Denmark, and considering sites in China, Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
