Learning from Edo: How Traditional Japan's Approach to Sustainablity Can Help Show Us the Way Forward

Posted on Thu., Nov. 17, 2022

Azby Brown, author of Just Enough, Lessons from Japan for Sustainable Living, Architecture, and Design, examined what it is like to live in a fully sustainable society. At the start of the Edo period (1603-1868), Japan was faced with environmental collapse, but over the course of the succeeding decades, it managed to pull back from the brink and implement regenerative methodologies for farmland and forest, energy conservation, and universal upcycling and reuse. As we face similar challenges and search for ways to move forward, Edo-period Japan can serve as a prototype and model.

Introductions by Phillip Bloom, June and Simon K.C. Li Curator of the Chinese Garden & Director of the Center for East Asian Garden Studies, and Rober Hori, Gardens Cultural Curator & Programs Director.

Buy Just Enough, Lessons from Japan for Sustainable Living, Architecture, and Design.