I want to tell you about how huge 2007 and 2008 were. How huge 2009 is shaping up to be.

In 2007, I wrote a manual on grey-water re-use for a green plumbing company, a franchising manual for a herbal distribution network, web-site content for businesses as diverse as toilet hire, restaurant guides, immigration to Australia and building companies. I researched the facts for litigation over alleged failure of a major installation of elevators, set up a global carbon credit exchange for forestry companies, advised on the drafts of an investment newsletter, and developed a sustainable packaging range made out of waste from the processing of silk and coconuts. Finally, I project-managed the fit-out of the new warehouse for our textile business: Our unique and stylish warehouse features low-wattage lights, re-used and re-cycled shop fittings, simple waste reduction technologies and 100% recycling of paper and packaging. In any spare time I had, I worked with my wife maintaining our 7 acre organic farm outside Warrnambool.

In 2008 I've developed the "7 eucalyptus leaf" sustainable garment grading label in concert with other eco-textile businesses; advised a Brazilian carbon-credit organisation, translated a website on life insurance from German to English, written business plans for Welsh social workers and Australian garment manufacturers, developed policies for a Danish software development firm, prepared a bail-out plan for a fashion festival and a corporate structure for an international soccer media firm, all whilst building the Beautiful Silks, Trade Carbon Direct and Elephant Concepts brands. I've written health and safety plans, business plans, investment guides and even a tour guide; the work done in India, in October 2008, housing and training poor unemployed rural women deserves not just a page but a book of its own (in my spare time, I'm writing one!).

In 2001, I was a hard-arsed city-dweller who could not tell a heron from a bowl of goldfish, nor a pair of fencing pliers from a bunch of carrots. I’d been a lawyer for 10 years, written a heap of conference papers, and active in the environmental movement for over 25 years. I was just about to submit my 100 000 word Ph.D. thesis.

Then my wife and I moved to the country, and turned our words into actions. We turned a bare block into an organic vegetable garden with three recycled houses on it. We neutralised our carbon footprints by planting over 3500 trees. Ours is the first commercial premises in Victoria to have composting toilets and grey-water systems in place. We re-use 100% of our water and source all of our firewood from on-site plantings.

At the same time, we built an environmentally aware importing business - we import natural fibres, and undyed garments of natural fibre. We’ve now relocated this business in Melbourne, and divide our time between city and country. In this business my duties range from website design to database administration, business planning to company secretarial duties and foreign currency trading to contract administration. I've developed the Beautiful Silks Business Mentoring Program for young designers and artists. I've developed a separate business consultancy on the side.

Until our move to the city in mid 2007, I directed a program for hosting young Israelis on Australian farms at the conclusion of their compulsory army service. I was also company secretary of a stage building company based in Melbourne’s inner north, and company secretary of a major software company with 30 employees nationwide.

Download my resume.

Download work samples: economic research.

Download work samples: product safety research.

Download work samples: franchising.

In our Melbourne textile bussiness, my wife and I sell natural products, and we sell them in natural or recyclable packaging. We are moving to packing in silk, paper, calico or cotton and have achieved our aim of being 90% new-plastic-free (apart from post-office products) by weight of new materials used. We were the first in the industry to move to using post-industrial plastic waste for large items. Our fabric bags are now for sale to the general public.

Our vehicles are fueled with alternative fuels (and some are bicycles - look for our cute bicycle trailers and electric motorised delivery bikes). Even our mobile phones are fuelled by green-power, of the wind-up dynamo kind.

We trade fairly. We’ve developed a sustainable packaging range of string bags which we make in co-operation with a women's co-operative in rural Mandya, about 30 km from Mysore in Karnakata State, South India, operated by the Vikasana Institute of Rural Development. Now we're developing a tourism program for them, where we aim to provide 100 families with homes over the next 3 years, fully paid for out of the program's income. In so doing, we aim to provide a living wage to the poorest of the world's poor.

The block, and the business, started with my Ph.D thesis. It was about how students and law schools are national resources capable of being marshalled in an effective utilisation which could improve access to justice, whilst at the same time delivering education in a way which permitted cost savings. It talked about how many undercapitalised small business people have no access to the means of seeking information about their rights, let alone using any of the rights granted in legislation.

It was going to provide education to students and legal assistance to those who needed it by using the greatest untapped legal resource of our place and time: law students, in no-win, no-fee type litigation - litigation which if successful would fund the very clinics in which it was carried out in a sort of perpetual motion machine, whilst educating students in real life situations.

Such a simple idea, surprised no one had put the two together before. But then again, so was most of our recycling, our farming, and the project work I’d done for my clients.

Now I have practical proof of a different kind of my thesis: our land, and our businesses, have been built on the conceptual analysis tools I developed whilst researching my Ph.D. I put a few simple ideas together laterally, seven years of effort, and... there they are. That's why I was so proud that instead of having a regular university award me my degree, it was awarded by the training division of Vikasana Institute, the organisation which actually used the work and thinking in my thesis.

Download relevant portions of the thesis. - click here for part B. - click here for part C. Email me if you want the whole thesis!

My clients would say to me that there’s so much to learn that you can’t conveniently get out of a book…. Stuff that isn’t written down in one place and in some cases anywhere. And they’d pay me to find it, analyse it, and then write it down concisely.

Using the research skills I honed whilst writing my thesis, I was able to turn away from fighting court battles and concentrate on fast, accurate pieces of complex research and analysis, especially where lateral solutions are sought. Sometimes it means being able to fit square plugs into round holes, which is the sort of answers I am often asked to provide when doing town planning work or seeking import permits for unusual goods - we’re the only people in Australia with a permit to import silk cocoons. Sometimes it means being able to write a concise description of what you see and make recommendations so that it will fit into a round hole; so businesses are tweaked a bit so that their practices fit into the sort of framework upon which a franchise system can be built.

Having acted either for or against companies which went broke usually because they either didn’t have a business plan and budget or didn’t follow it, I developed an extensive set of business planning notes. I can apply the same methods to helping you decide on your path to “down-shifting”.

Reducing global warming produces a special challenge for small businesses. Solutions must be both economically viable and ecologically valid. It’s one thing to imagine that something might be possible, and a very different thing to research it and make it possible and economically feasible at the same time. I’ve met that challenge in my business and I hope to help you meet it in yours.

Performance guarantee: I don't take on more work than I can handle. Your work will be done within one hour per day tolerance of stated time-frame or I'll cut my fee in half.

If it's late by more than 50%, that is one day for each two promised days, and I can't show a very good reason such as serious illness or injury, fire, flood, terrorism, theft or power outage, then it's free.

Casual rate $120 per hour or $850 per 8 hour day.
Contract rate (minimum 20 days in 3 months and strict 7 day terms apply) $660 per 8 hour day. All prices include GST.

"Standby work" at 30% off casual rate.