Biovilla's Regenerative Circuit

What if the our professional careers could regenerate the ecosystem?

Working on sustainability is no longer enough. We live in a global context with increasingly higher CO2 emissions, huge Biodiversity loss and waste and pollution threatening public health.

In Biovilla we are working hard to achieve a thriving regeneration of our ecological, social and economic landscape with a living, autochthonous and edible agroforest, a strong and resilient local learning community and a thriving, real and sustained economy that serves as a model for creating social value worldwide.

In a context we were structurally and globally shaken by Covid-19, we envision the opportunity to create an online platform, putting all our social technology together with inclusive digital technologies. 

The Regenerative Circuit will leverage our educational experience, aiming to impact more people with knowledge, empowerment and regenerative practices that effectively and actively contribute to the entire ecosystem as a whole.

Both Loss of Biodiversity is the environmental problem that inspires us to act towards regeneration and the social problem of unemployment, leads us to contribute even more to the transformation of our territory. Combining each other, we have a wider, more complete and more relevant impact. 

Scientists, doctors and behavioural specialists claim that many of the imbalances that we currently experience (professionals, health, social, environmental) are the result of the loss of connection between Man and Nature.

In Portugal, we have a lack of decent jobs based on sustainable business models and few support for discriminated populations in the creation and generation of their own businesses. A strategic and concrete vision of development that is framed territorially with a focus on the regeneration of our social and ecological ecosystems, is most needed, specially associated with the global crisis caused by the pandemic that is leading us to unprecedented levels of unemployment.

Nationally, Bank of Portugal has forecast that the unemployment rate will rise from 6.5% in 2019 to 10.1%  this year due to the effects of covid-19. Worldwide, a study of the International Labor Organization, anticipates that the crisis might cause unemployment for more than 25 million people.

A digital and inclusive platform developed to support the Regenerative Employment Incubator methodology, created by Biovilla, as a solution for creating self-employment or increase income, based on an immersion in the day-to-day practices on the regenerative business of biovilla.

Participants will have access to all digital didactic support content, audiovisual materials, classes, seminars and online mentoring. 

The Regenerative Circuit is developed to take advantage of the entire structure of social business with 25 educational points already created at Biovilla, put at the service of the community to generate employment while regenerating the territory's ecosystem.

By imersing in biovilla's methodology for developing social businesses, participants will leverage their learning experience aiming the creation of own jobs. 

This Circuit will have an interactive format, with the creation of an audiovisual script, virtual reality and multi-language (also for disabled people) of all regenerative practices implemented in Biovilla, but also information on the fauna and flora of the Arrábida Natural Park, one of the largest Biodiversity hubs in the country. It aims at informing, training and educating unemployed people to build their own regenerative practices and business skills for self-employment while inspiring for the respect for local fauna and flora.

The target population is Long Term Unemployed and Youth Unemployed in the Palmela and Setúbal regions. It is also intended to all types of employment in non-decent, discriminatory and destructive, both socially and environmentally from all regions of the country who identify with the regenerative practices and want to develop their careers professionally.

More than training sessions with virtual and online support, we are proposing an experience of integral learning of the technical concepts of regeneration of human and environmental ecosystems in a place where all this really happens, physically at Biovilla and leveraged by the complete online platform. 

Learning in practice in a prolonged and continuous way the 4 main themes: organic production; seeds and forest; nature tourism and healthy food processes. By being trained in, and being accompanied by mentors throughout the process, participants will be able to build their business or increase their income in a consistent and consolidated way while discovering their professional purpose and delivering regeneration to the world.

Covid-19 crisis significantly changed our lives - some believe that the societal system as we knew it, ended. This accelerated our urge to go online and inspire even more people with our mission, Education for Sustainability and Regeneration. 

We designed an interactive and fully inclusive platform where we share all our knowledge on sustainability and regenerative practices, as a result of Biovilla's 10 years of experience. Offering a virtual reality experience, with which participants will be able to build their business or increase their income in a consistent way while discovering their professional purpose and delivering regeneration to the world.

Having a technological base through the development of a digital, interactive and inclusive platform, allows us to innovate in our core business - Education for Sustainability and Regeneration - providing a deep learning experience and accessible to all types of public.

The business areas provided as a training base for the participants, are set up so that their own income can be derived from them. The objective is for the unemployed fall in love with one of the 4 main areas in order to create their job position and building career in an regenerative theme. They are:

• Seeds and forest: As the wild fires in Portugal persist, the need for native seeds to reforest the country is enormous. One of our greatest assets is the tons of seeds we have in our 55 hectares. Participants will learn how to manage forests in a regenerative way. 
• Organic production: The consumption of organic products grows in double digits in Portugal, so giving a full understanding of our agroforestry practices, will consolidate our production while training our participants who fall in love with the garden as much as we do. 

• Food Transformation: We have a certified kitchen with hygiene standards and an industrial scale dehydrator that we will make everyone understand how to develop their business using and equipment if needed. 
• Nature Tourism: Tourism is one of the main source of growth of the GDP. Developing this area will allow participants to understand how to bring income and inspiration within this sector.

In Biovilla we are working hard to achieve a thriving regeneration of our ecological, social and economic landscape with a living, autochthonous and edible agroforestry, a strong and resilient local learning community and a thriving, real and sustained economy that serves as a model for creating social value worldwide.

What makes our solution stand out is the fact that we leverage our core technology (social technology) through digital technologies - online platform that uses resources such as virtual reality, 360 images, augmented reality, sign language, among others - to give access to people with disabilities (blind, deaf and with reduced mobility), and include them within the universe of participants our Regenerative Circuit for self-employment.

We will have an interactive format and audiovisual script for 25 strategic themes, in which our implemented regenerative practices are explained in detail - permaculture, agroforestry, healthy cooking, composting, renewable energies, water reuse, among many others.

The purpose of binging all this knowledge available online, enhances the replication and scalability worldwide both because its didactic content and also for the technology itself, as it enables to overcome the barrier of physical presence.

Biovilla Regeneration Circuit's is an rollout of our physical structure for a digital application that aims also at raising awareness for conscious production and consumption patterns that respect human beings, the natural environment and cultural traditions.

We are developing a social technology with a program that is easily replicable anywhere in the country (or even in the world) in any project that contains one of the four areas covered by the circuit.

It is a complete program that, in addition to solving various social problems, will in particular bring a sense of purpose and regeneration wherever it develops.

We believe that the transformative factor in the participants' lives is still immeasurable because it goes far beyond technical skills, but can and will be leveraged by this digital platform we are proposing. Above all, it will add human and environmental values to the population of beneficiaries, their families and their regions. Thus, we believe that the multiplier effect of the passion it will generate will speak for itself and for the ecosystems touched and regenerated by the participants after attending to the Regenerative Circuit. All participants and impacted local communities will see the strength that a Regenerative Job can have in a local community.

We present the theory of change with the beginning of the environmental problem that inspires us to act in favor of regeneration (Loss of Biodiversity) and the social problem that leads us to contribute even more to the transformation of our territory (Unemployment). Combining each other, we have a bigger, more complete and more relevant impact.

We believe that by mentoring participants to discover their purpose in life, and enabling them technically and emotionally to do so within the theme of regeneration, we will be contributing with social impact:

1) Internal regeneration of the individual with self motivation, vision of the future and professional career;

2) External regeneration with the creation of jobs and projects that actively contribute to increasing the levels of sustainability and social and environmental regeneration of ecosystems.

In particular, we know that we will promote the following outputs and outcomes:

# 100 educational regeneration activities

They lead to the creation of a culture of regeneration, reinforcing environmental values while providing cultural integration and increasing environmental awareness where the emotional connection to nature develops the active citizenship of the participants.

# 4 direct jobs created

The 4 themes of our online training have a technician hire per theme. They are created in the context of increasing entrepreneurship skills, bringing more job opportunities and consequently more income with the opening of personal and professional horizons for the participants, thus generating more employment, for example, from the biovilla activity itself.

# 150 trained unemployed and with increased earnings

They start by having access to conscious information, discovering their life purpose and / or forms of social, environmental and economic contribution. We are thus educating for regeneration, developing a feeling of belonging in each one.

In the long term, our theory of change aims at triggering a Positive Human Impact on Society and the forest, achieving the full regeneration of our social, ecological and economic landscape in Portugal and worldwide.

At Biovilla we receive annually:

• hundreds of national and international volunteers who spend periods from one week to one year discovering our regenerative practices;
• dozens of official interns from Universities . We offer a professional opportunity to students who prefer to choose, for their professional careers, more  sustainable and conscious learning paths.
• students preparing master's and doctoral thesis in our project, providing research opportunities on the themes that interest them.
• hundreds of guests who choose us for their nature retreat.
• hundreds of visitors (single, couples, families, groups, schools, companies, ong and other) who come to us to find out how they can be more sustainable in their daily lives.
• Since 2011 we impacted more than 3000 participants in our trainings on topics Introduction to Permaculture, Permaculture Design Course, Bioconstruction, Agroforestry, Seeds among many others.

The experience of informing and inspiring people from different areas and passions with what we do on a daily basis is something very strong and common in our organizational culture.

Our annual Kpi's are:

# 100 educational regeneration activities 

# 150 trained unemployed and with increased earnings. 

We wish with the project we are applying to this program, to professionalize with a digital platform what we already do to leverage the impact we already generate. Being able to set up a formal structure that supports 10x more individuals than we already support, is the reason why we are applying.

The objective of creating the circuit is to take advantage of the entire structure already created at Biovilla to put it at the service of the local community to generate employment while regenerating the ecosystem of the Arrábida Natural Park in the concrete region of Palmela and Setúbal beginning next year.

For the next five, all of our actions this will allow for the DISSEMINATION of everything we create in the context of this program.

Biovilla is a national reference in the Objective for Sustainable Development 12 - Conscious production and consumption, this know-how we have acquired over the last 10 years is also our professional objective and only with a project of this scope will we be able to do. We therefore wish to contribute to the resolution of: 

1) lack of alternative supply of decent jobs based on sustainable business models;

2) lack of support for discriminated populations in the creation and generation of their own businesses;

3) lack of a strategic and concrete vision of development that is framed territorially and with a focus on the regeneration of our social and ecological ecosystems.

Biovilla - Cooperative for Sustainable Development is a Social Innovation project that combines a strong strand of Education for Sustainability, a nature tourism component and an investment in the regeneration of our ecological and social landscape, in an integrated and multidisciplinary logic that we believe to be a distinctive, innovative and the impacting factor of our Mission: to bring sustainability to people's daily lives.

Founded in February 2010, Biovilla aims to create in Portugal a space dedicated to Sustainability having in Nature Tourism, Education for sustainability and in organic agricultural production its three pillars of activity.

Bárbara Leão: 70% dedication.

As current director, she will be the main trainer of the training stage in social entrepreneurship.

Filipe Alves: 30% dedication.

He will be one of the main trainers in the economic, permaculture, and social entrepreneurship. 

Inês Besugo: 30% dedication.

It will be one of the main trainers in the environmental, permaculture, and social aspects. It will also exercise mentoring and monitoring functions for all participants. 

4 other full-time experts to be hired.

All we know how to do at Biovilla is to live what we believe. We are an ideal showroom for learning and training "Hands on Earth and Heart to the Top" to inspire and show that it is possible to create jobs and projects that build a better world for everyone.

Bárbara Leão de Carvalho, PhD

Co-founder of Biovilla, social entrepreneur, bachelors and master in management by NOVA SBE with more than 10 years of academic and professional experience in sustainable consumer behavior, having a doctorate in marketing for conscious consumption culminating her study in the development of “The Good Business Model ”, a methodology for creating and improving conscious businesses that is being implemented in 8 national business incubators and accelerators, impacting more than 200 entrepreneurs in Portugal and Brazil in 2019. Coach, and mentor of social innovation projects, dedicates her life to the transformation of the national sustainable and regenerative ecosystem.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbaraleaodecarvalho/

Filipe Moreira Alves

Graduated in Economics (2006) and has a Master's in Economics and Public Policy (2015), both at ISCTE-IUL. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the PhD Program in Policies for Sustainable Development and Climate Change (2016-2020). Filipe has worked as a researcher at CCIAM / CE3C since 2012, participating in European action research projects such as BASE, SIRCLE and GO TO DIVERS. Co-founder of several associations and cooperatives, including Biovilla, Coopérnico, ECOLUTION and Conexão Lusófona. His research areas range from social entrepreneurship, ecological economics, complementary currencies and participatory action research.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/filipe-alves-a59b0510/

We do have total support form Palmela and Setúbal Municipalities, partners that will enable us to identifying disadvantaged members of these communities and providing 150 unemployed with access to our Learning Regenerative Circuit . In addition to this group of direct beneficiaries, the program also aims to activate untapped local human resources, namely the senior population as mentors for the exchange of knowledge and experiences (agricultural and culinary) that enrich the development of new local based regenerative initiatives activated also by the respective boards of directors.

Finally, we will also work with local stakeholders - NNIES (Nest of New Business Initiatives in Setúbal), IPS (Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal), ADREPES (Association for the Rural Development of the Setúbal Peninsula), among others - in the construction and development of new business solutions that promote an appropriate use of our resources (human and ecological) in line with a strategy for the regeneration of our District.

In fact, the project creation process came about in a collective initiative with the Palmela Municipality where the local community was invited to present Biovilla by asking the question: “How can Biovilla contribute to our municipality? “Having in the response of the 50 participants of this session, much of the concept of our social tecnology.

Due to the time Municipalities take to letters of support, we can’t send them in this application in due time, but we can make proof of it later in the process.

Each of the business areas provided as a training base for the participants, are set up so that their own income can be derived from them. Thus, the objective is for the employees allocated to each of the areas to maintain their jobs even after the end of this program. They are:

1) Seeds and forest: One of the human resources will be allocated to the full development of this area, generating an estimated profit of about € 10,000;

2) Organic production: The consumption of organic products grows in double digits in Portugal, so having a full time resource in this area will consolidate our production while training our participants who fall in love with the garden as much as we do. This area expects to bill about € 10,000 in the first 2 years;

3) Food Transformation: We have at Biovilla a kitchen certified with hygiene standards and an industrial scale dehydrator that we will make available to anyone who wanted to develop their business using our equipment. Thus, we will do the transformation of our food as well as with the rent of space at collaborative prices to the whole local community.

4) Nature Tourism: Is our main source of revenue at this time, so developing this area will allow us to continue to grow in sales and in the inspiration of our guests throughout the year.

See monthly and annual income projection by area here:

https://drive.google.com/open?...