Our History

One Earth Designs was initiated in 2007 by Scot Frank and Catlin Powers to help Himalayan nomads and agriculturalist adapt to a changing world in the way that they saw fit. Frank and Powers were particularly struck by the impact that climate change was having on the Himalayan region and its people.

Traditional livelihoods were rapidly disappearing as changing climates altered the delicate ecology of the high-altitude grasslands. Pest populations were migrating to higher altitudes and eating the grasses, leading to soil erosion and river siltation. The traditional wood and animal dung fuels were becoming more and more scarce as the land lost its ability to support high densities of trees and animals. Diminished herds meant diminished food and income for nomadic and semi-nomadic communities. Villagers reported that changing frost and precipitation cycles were ruining more and more crops. At the same time, women faced high rates of lung disease from indoor air pollution and diarrhea ran rampant through many communities.

While communities were motivated to address these problems, they often felt insecure in doing so because the rapid encroachment of industrialization had bombarded people with an image of western society that made them feel inferior. They knew both the positive and negative aspects of their own lifestyles but were exposed to only the positive advertisements of foreign technologies. Thus, whereas just a generation ago, they had felt rich surrounded by the products of their own labor and the excesses that they would sell in order to buy luxury trade goods, they suddenly felt monitarily and technologically impoverished. In the case of many communities, their resulting sense of self-doubt broke the century old tradition of innovation that had enabled them to survive in one of the harshest climates in the world.

Frank and Powers' motivation to revive the Himalayan spirit of sustainable innovation led to the creation of One Earth Designs to serve as a conduit through which communities can access science, engineering, and business support and other resources necessary to achieve their own balance between tradition, a healthy environment, and the way forward.