RBP Rating System

(Rating from Snopes.com)

To be useful, this site proposes maintaining a flexible and updated rating of patterns useful to Permaculture designers.

The challenge is creating a rating system which is highly useful, subject to community scrutiny, and rigorous, while remaining necessarily subjective. 

In the end, a pure assessment of the research on a certain pattern or tool might not be the best way of evaluating its impact in a design or system. For example, some tools may be proven effective at increasing productivity, yet be too ecologically or financially costly to broadly recommend in most situations. This could be said of most irrigation systems, which certainly improve growth and yield, but which a wide number of studies have had trouble proving to reliably increase profitability. Meanwhile, assessments of irrigation agriculture do demonstrate its negative impact to soil and aquifer sustainability. And yet, there may be good reason to include some form of irrigation system in a well-designed, research-based Permaculture design. 

Ratings should also be subject to community feedback and peer review. It is our aim as a project to move continuously in that direction over time. 

The current rating system (Updated 3/2018)

Patterns receiving a green "GO" rating have a strong research-based efficacy demonstrating their utility, sustainability and financial viability. They may have a long history of proven indigenous use and a literature documenting their utility and value. Or they may be well-documented elements of ecosystems which can reliably be adapted to productive systems. They are generally recommended across a wide range of situations and can reliably be included in most designs without a great deal of additional assessment. 

Subjects reeiving a red "Caution" rating may have research or analysis indicating negative outcomes, a lack of financial viability, safety concerns, or a very narrow range of utility or no scientific basis. This does NOT mean such a pattern does not have its place, only that the place should be chosen carefully, and that a "research-based" approach should have a very good reason for including such a pattern. 

A yellow "Yield to common sense" rating means a subject either has encouraging research, or very specific aplication. There are conditions on when it should be applied and how, and a research-based approach should carefully evaluate the application of such patterns. 

And finally, there are experimental subjects which have no or poor research backing, or possibly negative findings, or a history of poor financial viability, but that are so promising that they may strongly be recommended for inclusion in designs for sites with research-oriented goals. However, it must be said that including them simply because they are interesting, and may raise the profile of a site, is NOT the same as actually doing research. An experimental pattern only has value if it used to conduct experimentation, track data and publish findings. Otherwise, including such patterns does not add value to anyone, and should not be considered a research-based approach.