The way the Western world has treated the planet and its inhabitants is marking its demise. We pillage the planet’s finite resources for materials to make our lives more convenient. Meanwhile, we ship the deluge of toxic waste to those we deem less fortunate. The entire world, both off and online, has been scraped, twisted and formed for the comfort of the West. As a result, the planet has been pushed past breaking point. As we scale up our so-called technological advancements, global inequality soars, swathes of Earth are becoming uninhabitable and species are dying out at an alarming rate. Our system simply isn’t working.
How can we ensure a green digital future?
Growing e-waste, carbon emissions from AI, data centre water usage—is rampant digitalisation compatible with a healthy planet? Our latest project explores how digital tools and services can be developed with sustainability in mind.
But, it hasn’t always been like this. Nor does it have to be. In the path to getting here, we’ve circumnavigated essential wisdom. As an environmental journalist, I’ve always been fascinated by how Indigenous communities have, for thousands of years, been the successful caretakers of the environment and protectors of lands. We have overlooked their knowledge in favour of the Western model of industry, growth, consumption, and destruction, for which we are now all paying the price.
But the concept of harmony with nature has found unlikely, modern devotees. Researchers, engineers and developers have come together to propose new ways of reimagining our world. These propositions sideline Western conceptions of development. Instead, a movement, still in its infancy, has been quietly emerging. Thinkers are combining the age-old concept of permaculture with digitisation to create permacomputing: a blueprint for a safer, more harmonious relationship between humankind, technology, and the world around us.
I recently delved into this world, expecting to find impenetrable theory and impossible idealism. Instead, I found the simple solution already well-entrenched in the pages of RESET.
A new way of conceptualising development
Permaculture relies on designing human habitats and agricultural systems to be self-sufficient, energy-efficient and inherently wasteless, following natural patterns. Although the term only came about in the 1970s, it was originally—and still is—an indigenous science of working in reciprocity with the land and cycles of nature. A great example of a permaculture principle is composting. Composting involves turning kitchen scraps and garden cuttings, otherwise considered waste, into nutrient-rich soil to feed plants. This ensures what’s already there is used, and that nothing unnecessary, such as chemical fertiliser, is needed. The first use of compost likely took place not long after the start of cultivation, and it’s been used throughout history for millennia since.
Researchers and artists Joana Varon and Lucia Egaña Rojas recently used the metaphor in their collaborative 2024 essay Compost engineers and sus saberes lentos: a manifest for regenerative technologies. True intelligence, they argue, must be redefined to focus on regenerating life and ecosystems. They put forward the term “compost engineers”. These advocate for such alternative kinds of intelligence, as opposed to the forms we currently centre and promote. Just as compost turns waste into life, the authors suggest we should “break down” the dominant, patriarchal, Western ideas shaping AI and technology at large. This requires feeding this technological “waste” with more global, human and earth-centred values and perspectives to “grow” technologies that regenerate what has been lost, rather than fueling more trash, extraction and oppression.
Types of Permacomputing
| Frugal Computing | Salvage Computing | Collapse Computing |
| Utilising computational resources as finite, to be utilised only when necessary, and as effectively as possible. | Utilising only already available computational resources, to be limited by that which is already produced. | Utilising what has survived the collapse of industrial production or network infrastructure. |
People are already embracing permacomputing
Permacomputing is no utopian idea. People are already putting the concept into action. The People’s Permacomputing Project’s initial goal, for example, was to survive societal collapse. Later, it shifted its focus to constructing computers that will last a long time, rather than fall into obsolescence after just a few years. The People’s Permacomputer, as they call it, practically engages with problems of the present like the size, complexity and inaccessibility of the modern computing stack. They deliberately limit the project’s scope to around or just over 100 lines of code to ensure the technology is fundamentally durable, affordable and accessible, as “If the oppressed cannot access technology, then it’s not revolutionary.”
But you don’t need to be an engineer, nor a political revolutionary, to grasp the concept of permacomputing. In fact, the more research I did, the more I realised that RESET has written about many projects that fall under the concept. We’ve written about online platforms bringing repair cafés and workshops together, initiatives to repair devices, as well as Google-free mobile phones, open hardware laptops, fungal circuit boards and edible electronics.
To understand more about the practicality and relevance of permacomputing, I reached out to permacomputing expert Devine Lu Linvega of artist collective Hundred Rabbits Crew. Hundred Rabbits document low-tech solutions in the hope of building a more resilient future and write extensively about permacomputing on their low-code site.
He explained that, in essence, “Permacomputing encourages the maximisation of hardware lifespan, minimisation of energy usage and focuses on the use of already available computational resources”. Like compost, this process utilises and maximises what is already available—scraps, peelings, and dirt. Instead of discarding thoughtlessly, we glean maximum use and minimise waste. Put simply, “Permacomputing is an attempt at finding the appropriate technology for a task, to use only as little as needed.”
Can we ‘grow’ a green digital future by using less?
Of course, with limited computing power comes trade-offs. According to Lu Linvega, “Which functionalities to prioritise depends largely on the task”. How much of the task actually requires computation? Are additional, unrelated components burdening the operator or impacting the intended use case? For example, “A server collecting your biometric data shouldn’t stop you from using your exercise bike. That would be a failure in permacomputing.”
Lu Linvega notes that while “The People’s Permacomputing Project is a bit optimistic regarding the potency that each line of code carries,” permacomputing principles often require sacrificing efficiency. “Usually tradeoffs are scalability, localisation, accessibility and so on.”
Rather than developing new computers that can run on simple codes, perhaps reuse and regeneration is, therefore, a more effective form of permacomputing. Lu Linvega agrees: “[Permacomputing devices are] usually not something you buy new”, he says. They tend to be devices people threw away that were put back into use.”
Devices, like Fairphone, which are designed to be long-lasting and repairable, or Syllucid‘s sustainable and modular USB cables, are good candidates. “The best are the ones that are easy to open, made of parts that are modular and standard. No custom screws, no glue, no vendor-locked operating systems, etc.” A commitment to lasting design in software and systems underpins permacomputing. “Instead of planned obsolescence, permacomputing practices planned longevity.”
Beyond hardware and software, the permacomputer concept inherently extends to social, educational and political action. This broad scope includes diverse efforts from all across modern society. When asked what permacomputing projects most inspire him, Lu Linvega throws the net wide:
“I am most attracted by website maintainers who support older browsers without javascript, folks who implement Linux and BSD support on obsolete devices and teach their relatives how to get off Apple and Microsoft’s silos, programmers who translate manuals in their own languages and maintain documentation for obsolete devices—but also people fighting back against the encroaching of AI and cloud services, folks who sabotage LLMs with poison data, websites that traps AIs in honeypots, students relearning to live without smartphones, people who drop off of Spotify and start to directly support artists they love. I love seeing it all.”
The technology we need, not the technology we desire
I think if we can agree that technology is only worthwhile as long as it benefits society. The fact is that almost all of the hard and software we use is far more powerful than we need. This excess is damaging our planet beyond repair, not to mention affecting our society in a host of negative ways. Our current digital infrastructure directly mirrors the destructive Western cycle of industry, growth, consumption, and destruction, built as it is on the premise of perpetual consumption and escalating computational power.
The examples I’ve shown of permacomputing in action—from compost engineers to frugal developers—prove that this new philosophy is already among us. Yet, they are still niche, small pockets of resilience in a vast system of waste. This is not about sacrificing technology, but redefining it. The work of compost engineers, repair advocates and frugal developers is about recognising that less can, in fact, be more. But, if we are to truly realise a future where technology is regenerative rather than degenerative for the whole, we must scale these initiatives. We need to value Indigenous knowledge and nurture what we already have already have—be it an old computer or a kitchen scrap. Only then can permacomputing offer a blueprint for a genuinely sustainable future.
