Permaculture principle 2: Catch and store energy

Permaculture principle two is catch and store energy — here’s how it can be used as a practical thinking tool to guide more ethical marketing and business decision-making.

This is Part 3 of a 13-part series: How to Use the 12 Permaculture Principles in Business and Marketing. If you’re new to the principles, start here. Or, you can view the full series here.

What ‘catch and store energy’ means

While the permaculture principles were originally developed to guide the design of farms and gardens, they’re actually universally applicable. Let’s look at the traditional definition, then reimagine what ‘observe and interact’ means for ethical business and marketing.

Land-based definition

Harvest resources such as homegrown veggies, rainwater and solar energy when seasonally abundant, and store them well for later use during times of scarcity.

Marketing definition

Stockpile ideas, trust and financial buffers within longer-term structures and systems that can support your business and marketing during leaner times.

Proverb

Make hay while the sun shines — reminding us to take advantage of opportunities as they arise, as they may only be available for a limited time.

Translating this principle to marketing

The second permaculture principle is essentially about saving for a rainy day — and I’m not only talking about money here (although financial buffers definitely help create sustainable businesses).

‘Energy’ in marketing comes in many forms, all of which you can ‘capture and store’ as long-term assets for your business.

When we remember to save some of today’s abundance for future needs, our marketing and businesses become more stable.

Without this, we become dependent on constant effort and ideal conditions just to survive — a pattern that’s fragile in both ecosystems and businesses. Because circumstances can change, and resources that are abundant today may become scarce tomorrow.

We also need to be cautious about over-reliance on debt.

“This principle stresses the importance of not running a business on a constant high-speed cash throughput with little or no capital reserves. It highlights the perilous lack of resilience in the just-in-time supply approach,” Rob Hopkins writes.

So, ‘catch and store energy’ encourages us to shift away from right-now thinking and perpetual hustle toward long-term asset building that continues to work over time.

This supports sustainability, meaning you’re less likely to panic and throw your values out the window for a quick buck to cover a leaner season.

A key focus is storing energy in forms that degrade slowly, meaning they require minimal ongoing input to remain valuable.

For example, consider the ‘human energy’ I bring to my own small business.

Like most energy sources, it comes in pulses — sometimes I’m all fired up and feel near-unstoppable, other times I’m bone tired and need mountains of rest. So, I can ‘capture and store’ a bit of high-energy-me into a really well-designed and clear website, a space I build when I have the capacity.

That stored energy then works for my business 24/7, regardless of how I’m feeling, helping people see and understand my services without needing me to be constantly “on” like social platforms.

The upshot of all this is resilience, which feels ever-more important in these turbulent times.

How to apply ‘catch and store energy’ in marketing

To apply permaculture principle two, consider the different forms of marketing ‘energy’ — including skills, money, relationships and structures — that you could ‘capture and store’ as long-term assets for your business. For example:

Human energy

• Your knowledge, expertise, skills and lived experience
• Kindness, care and generosity with other people (stored as trust, goodwill, reputation)
• Community and local networks you’re part of
• Word-of-mouth and advocacy
• Your community’s willingness to learn, participate or buy from you
• Customer case studies, testimonials and social proof

Financial energy

• Savings and financial buffers
• Ethical investments and co-operatives

Systems and structural energy

• Your ideas and insights, articulated in reusable frameworks
• A well-designed and maintained website
• Evergreen content (blogs, videos, workshops, resources)
• Email addresses stored in a central place
• Marketing funnels and pathways (as long as they’re ethical, not pushy)
• Automations (email sequences, booking systems, onboarding)
• Clear processes, workflows, templates and checklists

What permaculture thinkers say about this principle

“Structures and processes form the foundations of a business. Just like we trellis tomatoes and beans to enable growth, airflow and sunlight — we can set up a business with systems that enable longevity and hold us up when we need something to lean on.” — Lucy Richards

“Energy is flowing through our systems all the time — in sunlight, wind, water, money, the harvest and a million other forms — but this energy often only comes in pulses; therefore, it’s important that we learn to store it so that we can use it when we need it.” — Kirsten Bradley, The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook

“In a time of rapid change and short-term thinking, we need to rebuild the aspect of our culture that emphasises caring for the future.” — David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability

“The goal of permaculture is not only to recycle and therefore increase energy, but also to catch, store and use everything before it has degraded to its lowest energy use and so is lost to us forever.” — Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture

Other closely connected principles

The 12 permaculture principles work best as a set of interconnected design prompts.

Each offers a different lens, and the combination creates depth, balance and a tempering effect — the holistic approach at the heart of systems thinking.

For example, ‘catch and store energy’ is closely related to:

• Principle 6, ‘produce no waste’, which encourages us to reframe “waste” as a resource not properly utilised; therefore, a form of energy that could be reused or stored.
• Principle 9, ‘use small and slow solutions’, because storing energy, such as financial buffers or customer goodwill, is often a gradual, incremental process.

Ready for the next principle? Explore permaculture principle 3, ‘obtain a yield’, or browse the full series here.

And a quick side note: this series is adapted from a lesson from inside my Permaculture Marketing course, in case you’d like to go deeper.