With a heightened sensitivity towards the future of the environment, you may notice that many political, social, and economic decisions are driven by prioritizing and emphasizing sustainable living in attempts to be more friendly to the environment.
Many community leaders today are thinking about energy efficiency and how their community can be more sustainable.
Sustainability has a standard of its own. However, that does not mean that there is a linear or monolithic solution to achieve suitability. The journey to sustainability is unique for different communities, though sustainable communities do share a few common characteristics.
But what makes a sustainable community?
A sustainable community uses its resources to meet current needs while ensuring that adequate resources are available for future generations. It aims for a better quality of life for all its residents while maintaining nature’s beauty and ability to function over time by minimizing waste, preventing pollution, promoting efficiency, and developing local resources to revitalize the local economy.
In here, decision-making stems from a rich civic life and communal communication among community members. Sustainable communities resemble a living system in which human, natural and economic elements are interdependent and draw strength from each other.
To put it succinctly, sustainable development must satisfy the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.
Here are some traits and examples of a community that exhibits sustainable living.
1. A 15-minute neighborhood
A 15-minute neighborhood has all your needs within a trip that should not take you more than 15 minutes to go to.
Ideally, this kind of community has a school, corporate centers, groceries, health services, less roads, less vehicles, and a whole lot of open spaces.
With global issues worsening like climate change and population booms, urban planners are looking to build more 15-minute neighborhoods, with an emphasis on affordable housing, reusable energy, convenient healthcare, and open spaces dedicated for community activities.
For Gb&d Magazine, Renee Schoonbeek previously wrote that “our cities must adapt to change—climate change, behavioral change, and change in community needs—and make room for flexibility in urban planning, urban design, programming, and management of urban space.”
With everything close by, you will not have to deal with the hassle of public transportation nor unnecessarily lengthened drives due to traffic. Moreover, you will probably prefer to walk than to use a vehicle, which is the healthier option while decreasing overall carbon footprint.
2. Walking over driving
Like in the 15-minute neighborhood, this planned community in Canada wants you to ditch the car and get on your own two feet to reach your destinations.
Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, is planning to establish its first carbon-neutral community, Zibi.
To achieve this, this community will have electric car charging stations all around, an incentive to walk, and repurposed building materials. This community will span 34 acres and involves collaboration with the Alonquin Nation and the Canadian government.
Focusing on the incentive walk, Ottawa has an undisclosed plan that gives community members certain incentives to walk instead of drive when running errands like grocery shopping or pharmacy runs.
The team planning Zibi said that this community will have a riverfront area and once again, large acres of green spaces. Community members can bring visitors to their green spaces and engage in a variety of enjoying activites like picnics and American football.
This community is said to house over 5,000 people and provide around 6,000 jobs.
3. Permaculture and cohousing
This are two new terms in sustainable development.
One, permaculture is a sustainable method of edible landscaping that minimizes energy and water usage. On the other hand, cohousing is the sharing of common resources by a group of people.
In New Zealand, Earthsong, an environmentally minded community has embraced the two aforementioned terms to form its own green and sustainable community.
In Earthsong, its residents own their own homes. However, they still share common land and a common house.
In the common house, residents can socialize with each other, and use amenities such as the library, laundry, and craft rooms.
Priviate homes in the neighborhood are made of rammed earth, which is a form of natural building material adept at keeping houses cool in summer and warm in winter. In addition, homes have integrated solar panels, and their roofs collect rainwater.
4. Radical environmental sustainability
If you think some environmental advocacies are hard to adhere to, some radical environmentalists have grouped together, and have polarized their beliefs to become more extreme environmentalists.
The Dancing Rabbit ecovillage is a developing 280-acre community in northeastern Missouri with extreme ecological goals that can make even the most active environmentalist look normal.
The town's founders hope to attract around 500 to 1,000 residents to create a diverse community capable of being self-sustaining.
If you are curious of their radical environmentalism, the following list is Dancing Rabbit’s community guidelines:
1. No vehicles are to be used or stored in the village.
2. Fossil fuels for cars, refrigeration, heating and cooling homes, as well heating domestic water aren't allowed.
3. All gardening must be organic.
4. All power must come from renewable resources.
5. No lumber from outside the local area is allowed unless it is recycled or salvaged.
6. Organic waste and recyclable materials are to be reincorporated into usable products through composting methods.
The guidelines do seem hardcore but obedience and adherence to these guidelines can set the town up towards sustainability.
5. Using already available resources
Continuous production is detrimental to the environment. In lieu of producing materials to meet public needs, it is best to make use of the resources that are readily available to satisfy people’s needs right now.
Stokkøya, a Norwegian island with a population of less than 400, has big plans for a sustainable community resort. The resort currently consists of 30 cottages as well as restaurants and artistic spaces.
“We try our best to adjust our buildings to nature, not the opposite. Less dynamite and more nature-adaptive architecture,” Roar Svenning, the resort’s higher up, said in a previous interview with Gb&d.
Bygdekanten, which means “on the edge of the village” in Norwegian, the project aims to use modern architecture in a seaside location for a community that wants to have both sustainability and modernity in their homes.
All projects in and around the resort implement reused materials as much as possible, according to Ingrid Langklopp, the business developer who oversees the cottages, small hotel, restaurant, bar, art and music spaces, and more.
For Bygdebox, a large triangular building near the waterfront, crew members used leftover and dilapidated materials from other projects or from defunct buildings. The multi-purpose area used green glass from a demolished government building, facade panels from an old local bank, and leftover doors and windows from other projects.
From this project, it is not impossible to turn old and used into something beautiful and contemporary.
For the future generations
With sustainable living given high importance among individuals and environmental groups, these people look for ways to satisfy their needs without harming Mother Earth because the more the environment suffers, the more the future generations suffer.
Here in the Philippines, by prioritizing sustainable development, the local economy can be salvaged, infrastructures can look better, and the whole country will look cleaner—all while preserving all these for the future Filipinos.
By Cholo Hermoso
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