Mutualistic Design: Creating a Permaculture Planet

Topic title: Mutualistic Design: Creating a Permaculture Planet

Presented by Braden Trauth, Assistant Professor Industrial Design at University of Cincinnati, DAAP

SCMG Educational Forum Series
When: Monday, February 2, 2026 @ 7-9 pm.
Where: Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church - Geier Room, 103 Wm Howard Taft Road, Cincinnati OH 45291

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Braden will speak about his work experience and research in sustainable design with a focus on Sustainable Industrial Design, which is founded in Permaculture and the ecological theory of the keystone species – a theory he pioneered in his Master's Thesis. Braden has done extensive research in Permaculture Design, Regenerative Farming, and Agroecology, Ecological Energy Theory, natural and sustainable building, and sustainable Industrial Design. With his colleagues, he created the World's first Regenerative Farming certification approved by the USPTO called Permaganic Authenticated, which he is still scaling up. He co-founded the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute in 2008, and he has lectured on Permaculture to the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture and national Agriculture Universities in Haiti.

Braden continues to research design practices and processes that can help further sustainable/ mutualistic product design and the renewable and non-renewable resources, manufacturing, use and environments, repair and disposal that products are created from and exist within.