Dr. h.c. Anja Carron advises governments, funders and communities on how to make a territory’s ecosystems, cultures, and Indigenous and women’s knowledge visible, valued and economically relevant, without separating that value from the people and places that sustain it.
Explore the Index Start a conversationGlobal economic output has expanded dramatically since 2000. Yet deprivation remains widespread, progress has slowed, and ecological overshoot has deepened.
According to the Fourth National Handloom Census 2019 to 2020, roughly 92% of Assam’s 1.28 million weavers are women. In Morocco’s argan belt, Ghana’s shea landscapes, Brazil’s babassu forests and Galicia’s estuaries, women’s knowledge already sustains important regional value chains. What these territories often lack is not value. It is the institutions to keep that value at home.
AI adds a new layer to this question. A territory may supply ecological data, biological knowledge and cultural knowledge while ownership of the models, decisions and economic value remains elsewhere. Resilient territorial development therefore treats data sovereignty, human capability and knowledge systems as territorial resources alongside physical value chains.
Brazil’s National Bioeconomy Strategy has made this a matter of state policy. Yet a shared way of assessing territorial readiness is still missing. The work described on this page responds to that gap.
A seven-stage development pathway for translating a territory’s living and cultural wealth into durable, locally owned prosperity.
Map ecological assets, biodiversity and regenerative potential.
Document, protect and value women’s knowledge, while preserving ownership and control over its use.
Translate biodiversity into bio-based materials and products within ecological limits and fair benefit-sharing structures.
Anchor value in living heritage, territorial identity and narrative.
Strengthen women- and youth-led enterprises, cooperatives and producer organisations.
Structure governance and finance so communities, institutions and capital work together and value remains rooted in the territory.
Measure restoration, resilience and planetary contribution.
GDP counts output. Biodiversity indices count species. The Biocultural Capital Index assesses what neither can see: whether a territory can protect, govern and translate its living and cultural wealth into inclusive prosperity. Eight dimensions, with women’s position measured through ownership, governance and retained value, not headcounts.
Health, diversity and regenerative capacity of the landscape.
Living heritage, crafts, practices and territorial narratives.
Knowledge held by women, including their ownership, agency and control over how it is documented and used.
Social cohesion, governance quality, adaptive capacity.
Whether the next generation stays, participates and leads.
Value chains beyond extraction or monoculture.
Coherence of the territory’s self-understanding, identity and external positioning.
Net effect on climate, biodiversity and human health.
We are seeking an anchor funding partner, pilot territories and selected implementation partners for the first phase. Enquire about the Founding Pilot Programme.
Connecting Indigenous and traditional knowledge, innovation and global industries, with community consent, knowledge ownership and benefit-sharing built into the governance structure. The Method develops a territory; the Index assesses its readiness; the Cluster connects it to markets and capital.
A pancontinental bio-industrial ecosystem for fragrance & flavours, AYUSH and tea, connecting Europe with Northeast India, Bhutan and other Asian countries. Validation, standards and traceability enable biodiversity and traditional botanical knowledge to reach global markets, while ownership stays with the communities that hold the knowledge. Leading from Europe, Dr. Carron acted as system architect and strategic developer of the ecosystem, and as keynote speaker and representative of this new model in India and abroad.
European Union · Blue Valley Cluster launch, Guwahati, Assam
Territorial clusters designed for Brazil’s bioeconomy moment: place-based, aligned with the APL framework and the National Bioeconomy Strategy, orchestrating local value chains around Indigenous and women’s knowledge, with ecosystem health and social legitimacy as hard constraints rather than externalities.
The starting point is diagnosis. Dr. Carron reads a territory, a sector or an institution, finds the gaps that hold it back, and positions it for the bioeconomy. From that reading she designs the ecosystem and the partnership architecture that make value flow and stay: the connections between institutions, communities, knowledge, capital and markets, and the governance that holds them on equal terms. The instruments carry the work; the judgement behind them is the practice.
Reading and positioning a territory, sector or institution for the bioeconomy, and setting the strategy that follows from it.
Governments · Regions · InstitutionsDesigning the architecture that links production, knowledge, research, standards and market into one working system, on the model proven in the Blue Valley Cluster.
Governments · IndustryStructuring the private, public, people and planet partnership and the governance that keeps the four interests level as the ecosystem evolves.
Funders · Public bodies · IndustryAssessing a territory with the Biocultural Capital Index and preparing it for funding, so capital meets a place that is ready to hold it.
Development banks · Foundations · InvestorsDesigning the learning ecosystem that keeps a region’s knowledge in use, and licensing the Biocultural Territory Method to local partners.
Governments · Universities · AgenciesBoard-level advice, and keynote representation of the territorial bioeconomy model in India and abroad.
Boards · Forums · Expert groupsEvery engagement is directed by Dr. Carron. The initiatives below are the platforms through which specific work is delivered, and each can also be approached directly for a particular purpose: research and knowledge partnerships, non-profit collaboration and CSR, the bridge between European and African partners, or youth capability. A partnership may draw on one, several or none of them.
An independent strategic advisory platform working with leaders, funders and institutions on circular, regenerative and planetary-health economies, with a focus on Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Door for: advisory, CSR & corporate partnership, the Africa bridgeAn independent non-profit for education, research and global citizenship, recognised by UNESCO as a German Best Practice. It runs the school and youth programmes, the Circular Intelligence Framework and the international exchange that feed capability into the wider work.
Door for: research, non-profit collaboration, educationA learning and mentoring initiative that deepens practical experience and builds confidence among young people preparing for careers in the circular and regenerative economy, extending from Asia into Africa.
Door for: youth capability, Asia into AfricaDr. h.c. Anja Carron is a Principal and Strategic Advisor working across territorial and cross-border ecosystem development, socio-bioeconomy and partnership architecture. She works at the meeting point of territories, knowledge, institutions and capital.
An international lawyer by training, with a professional background in capital markets (IPOs in Hong Kong, Frankfurt and London, and one of the first women to direct a German asset management company), she brings over twenty-five years across capital markets, education and international development to the design of institutions through which territories build lasting prosperity from biological and cultural wealth. That grounding in finance is what lets her structure investment, judge a territory’s readiness for capital, and hold her own with the institutions that allocate it.
Her work also examines how AI changes territorial power: who owns data and knowledge, who benefits from digital value creation, and how human capability and ecological limits are protected.
Territorial strategies, readiness assessment, the Founding Pilot Programme.
Host one of the first Index assessments and shape the instrument.
Responsible and traceable biocultural value chains, territorial clusters and partnership architecture, built with the communities on the ground.
Keynotes and expert contributions on territorial bioeconomy, planetary health, AI and human capability.
Enquiries: contact@anjacarron.global