Jan Hartman

International Resilience and Sustainability Partnership (inRES)

The International Resilience and Sustainability Partnership (inRES AISBL) is an international non-profit organisation. Over the past two centuries humanity has transformed life on earth radically: world population grew seven-fold while human longevity doubled; humanity was able to leapfrog technological and economic development and is now globalised and hyperconnected. However these achievements though came at a high price, with many disconnected from ourselves, from local social structures and from the environment. We lost touch and forgot that our economies and communities were integrated with the natural environment, the very place where we live and grow. If we continue living in the way gradually developed over the last 200 years, we will put an existential threat to human civilisation. At inRES, we aim to test large-scale living space solutions that are integrated in our social and environmental ecosystems. We are convinced that for humanity to develop, we need to collectively build our capacities as individuals, as a community and as a biosphere to deal with the changes we caused. Our primary geographical focus is Africa. We plan to utilise science and technology, tribal wisdom and local skills to develop self-sufficient habitats that provide energy, food and water and reconnect humanity to environment, society and self. It is our belief that global sustainability can indeed be achieved by building resilient local habitats that can then be scaled. To address the current environmental challenges, we need to stimulate a shift towards a transformation in the way we live and build. inRES provides leadership in experimentation, local community engagement and institutional changes as the answer to our global environmental challenges.