Glad you like Geoff - he's a legend in permy circles, and for good reason. Check David Holmgren, Bill Mollison (the two co-founders of permaculture)... and you'll doubtless find lots of other people's work to investigate from there.

Permaculture pushes the idea of building systems that don't need a constant input of external resources... more difficult to design, but maintenance is naturally cheaper / easier, and more resilient.