While many banks nowadays attempt to associate themselves with a values-based lifestyle, the Permaculture Credit Union (PCU) puts those other greenback hoarders to shame. To be a member of the PCU, you've got to have sustainability [0] cred; its members are those dedicated to "care of the earth, care of people, and reinvestment of the surplus to benefit the earth and its inhabitants." In short, the PCU is a kind of grassroots, community-based loan fund that supports environmental sustainability.

Chartered in May 2000, PCU, based in New Mexico, has provided loans to its members for projects including building a yurt [1], constructing a growing dome [2], installing a water catchment system [3], and buying bicycles. PCU offers lower loan rates for projects or purchases, such as a hybrid car or renewable energy generation, that fulfill certain sustainability criteria. A loan to buy a hybrid, for instance, is discounted from the usual interest rate.

PCU currently has 300 loans that cumulatively total over $4 million, and it counts some 830 members. To join, you need to subscribe to the ethics of Permaculture [4], have completed a Permaculture recognized design course [5], or be a member of a Permaculture Institute [6] (the first criteria is lenient).

Since March 2003, Donald J. Sarich [7] has been the Permaculture Credit Union’s president/CEO; he offers his insights about the PCU's loan approval rate, helping to build a straw-bale home, and the defining characteristics of PCU members.

LIME: How would you describe the philosophy of permaculture in a few sentences?

SARICH: It's different things to different people. For me at the credit union, we're part of permaculture's invisible structure. Money is like the flow of water. It can erode landscapes or it can be very good for landscapes. So the way the money is being used, for us, is very important to our membership. That's the part of permaculture that we're impacting right now. Our loans are mostly directed to people who are doing things that are sustainable in practice. And when we go to invest our surplus money, our members want us to invest it into it other socially-responsible places.

LIME: How has the PCU been shaped by what the members want?

SARICH: This is our members' credit union, so we have to design it for them. When we're looking at our home mortgage products, we don't really get into the big first-home mortgage picture yet, because we're so small. But we look at sustainable home equity loans, and land loans are a big thing for us. A member might not build a house that's traditional. Some of our members will build a yurt on a piece of land. A yurt is considered personal property, so we structure our land loans in such a way that the members can have equity in their land, they can buy the yurt and then assemble it on their land. We tailored the loan to what our members want.

LIME: Are there any defining characteristics of your members?

SARICH: There's a huge passion there. Someone who discovers us has to find us. We don’t have this huge marketing arm that is spending all kinds of money to get new members.

It's very humbling to work for our membership; it's been the best credit union I've ever worked with. I'm not turning out home equity loans just to pay off credit card debt, I'm turning out land loans to help people be more self-sustaining--that's the reward of my job.

LIME: Has there been a particular loan that made a big impact on you philosophically?

SARICH: Every mortgage loan that I've done, there's always been something unique, and it's been a breath of fresh air in terms of how much you can learn from your members. I went out and helped a member build a straw-bale home, and I was out there putting the straw bale in place. It's a big community event where they invite different people, and you end up seeing that a quarter of them are your members, and you're putting up the mud plaster on the outside, and learning how to do that.

LIME: It must be impressive to see the members putting their philosophy into action.

SARICH: I never was in [an] off-the-grid [8] home before I took the job [at PCU]. I never even knew what an off-the-grid home was. I've been able to go to Tucson to visit some of my members and be in a community where they've built five homes, and they're all off-the-grid. It amazes you, the amount of research that goes in. That amount of research and care makes me more willing to make the loan—people are putting a lot of time into the homes that they're designing or what they want to do. They have as much invested as me as the lender.

LIME: Did you ever take out a loan from the PCU?

SARICH: I have a hybrid car loan. I bought a Honda Insight.

LIME: What percentage of loans are accepted?

SARICH: That's the funny thing. Our regulators are always asking me: "Do you deny any loans around here?" We do, but it just depends. I think the approval rating is in the high 90s. We always try to look at the loans and always try to work with the members. But the final criteria is, "What is a safe and sound practice?"