Online Permaculture Design Certificate course

Marmalade tree, mandarine tree in our Permaculture garden

Online Permaculture Design Certificate course, self paced. By donation, pay what you can afford!

We have recorded our residential Permaculture Design Certificate course delivery and made it available online. You can start and finish this course in your own time. To receive a Permaculture Design Certificate, you will need to complete 90% of the course and submit a successful Permaculture Design at the end of the course.

The Online Permaculture Design Certificate is a 72 hour theoretical course based on Bill Mollison’s Designers Manual. It teaches how we can use today’s tools and technology to create a more sustainable and equitable world for all species. Permaculture is more than just gardening, it is a design system for a truly sustainable and self sufficient lifestyle. The course is run by the PermEco Inc., taught by Tom Kendall and your certificate is recognised and highly regarded world wide.

Tom Kendall is a permaculture farmer with over 40 years farming experience. He is co-founder of the PRI Sunshine Coast Inc (now PermEco Inc.) and PRI Luganville, Vanuatu and teaches Permaculture courses on his Permaculture Demonstration Site Kendall Permaculture Farm. Tom has co-taught PDC courses with Geoff Lawton and has taught Permaculture courses in Australia and overseas. He has been a Permaculture Research Institute accredited teacher for 5 years and part of our environmental advisory team and Geoff Lawton’s Permaculture Consultants team, doing regular consultations for local and international land owners and NGOs. For complete bio click here.

Please note: Our courses are non-denominational; we do not include any spiritual practices and welcome people from all cultural, spiritual and religious backgrounds. The course material is science and observation based.

Click here to read student feedback.

We deliver the theoretical Online Permaculture Design Certificate course with lots of visual examples of implementations on our farm. Tom will answer any questions that may have come up via live streams in the course. Questions can be submitted to us via a simple form at the end of each lesson, and will be answered during the live stream once there is enough interest. The live stream will be saved in the “Old Q & A sessions” course, if you cannot see it live on the day you can watch it there, live stream dates and times will be displayed in the left hand side bar once a date has been set.

We recommend you try to finish the course in 12 weeks or less. This will enable you to keep the momentum, it will require you to study 5-6 hours per week. You are able to finish the course quicker if you can. As the course is self paced and we understand that life sometimes takes over, you are able to take as long as you like, but we recommend you allocate a certain amount of hours each week so you establish a rhythm and will finish the course. You have 12 months to finish the course, after which you will need to register again.

You will need to complete 90% of the course plus submit an assignment in order to get your certificate. The assignment details will be shown to you in Day 9. The assignment will be assessed by Tom, and if there are no problems with the design you will be sent your Permaculture Design Certificate.

You will be invited to join the online course group on our social network section of the website. The group will keep you updated with messages and news during the course, please check the group regularly. We will also have a forum for the online permaculture design certificate group which will function as a question and answer forum, where students and facilitators can answer participants’ questions.

We feel that it is urgent for this information to go into the world. We will add more material in time as it becomes available. You will be able to re-visit the course as graduates, to ensure you will be able to absorb the information and find any new information. Tom and Zaia are also available to our graduates for any questions or assistance with graduates’ projects. Questions can be asked through the social group or the forum for the PDC course.

This course is offered by donation (pay what you can afford). We function solely by donation, and we can only continue to do so if everyone who can contribute does. For an indication as to the value of this course, most online certificate PDC courses cost between $800 and $1,000. If you are in a position to pay it forward, please do. By paying more, you will be assisting us to educate those in less fortunate situations, as we sponsor people in poorer countries so that they can spread this knowledge within their communities. We understand that in these challenging times a lot of people may be unable to pay it forward, and we are grateful for whatever support you are able to give us.

IMPORTANT: As we have had communication issues in the past, please ensure you allow your email app to receive emails from zaia [at] permeco.org!

If you would like to do the Permaculture Design Certificate course please fill in your details below. Once you have registered you will need to wait for your registration to be approved. Registrations are approved manually in order for us to ensure no bots or trolls register, and to enter your details into our database for enrolment. This process may take up to a week. Upon registering for the course below you will be taken to a payment page to make a donation. You can change the pre-filled amount to suit your financial circumstances. If you wish to make further payments, please go to our DONATE page to organise regular donations or to donate at any time.

Please note that bookings are processed on Mondays. Thank you for your patience.

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Course feedback

“I would recommend Tom Kendall’s PDC to anyone looking to learn or become part of the Permaculture Community. I really enjoyed the course. It was also an excellent opportunity to learn from someone who has always worked with the land and who has spent a long time developing that relationship into what it is now. I learned a great deal about the agricultural systems from a practical and solutions based perspective. And yes, they are lovely people too.
It means a lot to me that they offered the course as pay-as-you-can and as self catered. I am in the position where I can only find sporadic work and rather than waste my time feeling stuck I was able to learn and find new opportunities with this course. The sense of community it gives was also really important to me and I am great full to them for being generous with their time. It is something that will give more value as time goes on and I hope to return this fully when I’m able. ”
Marni, PDC 02/2020

“ Unlike all the other students I had no previous knowledge in permaculture and it far exceeded my expectations. I was happy to see the ethics related to this topic were one of your criteria. I would highly recommend this course and have done so already multiple times and will continue to refer people to you in all my travels
To be able to do the course by donation has meant to me that I’ve been able to upskill myself for an affordable amount in a time of current unemployment.
It also meant I could please my curiosity on this topic and dip my toes in the water with the little knowledge I had in this field where as a full price course would have not lead me down this path. I thank you both so kindly for your contribution in getting this knowledge out there in our current global situation.”
Todd Dent, PDC 02/2020

More student feedback