GreenEarth Development is where Matt and Carys bring together their complimentary skills from the building and engineering worlds. They live with their two daughters is an off-grid home built by Matt in a beautiful piece of paradise near Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast.
Carys is an chartered water and wastewater engineer, with an interest and experience in international community development and sustainable living.
During her 14 years in the engineering sector, she gained valuable experience in managing and leading teams of people, stakeholder liaison, project management as well as technical skills in water and wastewater engineering.
In the community development sector, Carys developed skills in organisational development, partnership management, strategic leadership, monitoring and evaluation, and programme management.
Wearing many hats, Matt bounces between community development projects, sustainable building, emergency compost toilets and general project management.
Over the years Matt has travelled and worked in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Tonga. He has managed projects related to community resilience and tsunami recovery and provided advice and mentoring for water and sanitation projects.
Matt takes a keen interest in bringing the benefits of composting toilets to the mainstream. He worked with the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey University to undertake research on the use of composting toilets in emergencies. He has worked with Civil Defence Wellington to bring compost toilets to the attention of local authorities as a preferred emergency response solution.
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