 One
Planet Communities in DC: Program Overview
Imagine being one of the first households in America to
live at a truly sustainable level, in a comfortable, healthy
home that makes it easy to save money on utility and water
bills. Imagine walking your child along bicycle-friendly,
child-safe streets, past community vegetable gardens and wildlife
habitat to her solar-powered school. Imagine the convenience
of the nearby urban center bustling with cafes and shops selling
local and fair-trade goods.
The goal is simple. Create DC neighborhoods that strengthen
community, provide a healthier quality of life, and restore
nature with an 80% ecological footprint reduction - the first
One Planet Communities in the Eastern United States.
The plan is ambitious. BioRegional helps developers
create Sustainability Action Plans that set ambitious 2020
targets for stretching beyond the highest green building standards
for materials, water, renewable energy and indoor air quality;
promote green schools and child-safe roads; provide quality
affordable housing and green-collar jobs; require restaurants
and shops to offer local, organic, and fair trade products;
provide cleaner transportation options; and make it easier
to adopt healthy, green lifestyles.
Our goal is to have residents moving in to Phase 1 of the
first One Planet Community in DC sometime around 2011.
BioRegional, an
environmental non-profit organization, coordinates the One
Planet network of advanced sustainable communities.
Official One Planet Communities
Background
Globally we are consuming resources at a faster rate than
the planet can replenish them, causing problems such as disappearing
forests, declining fisheries and climate change. If everyone
in the world lived as Americans do we would need 5.3 planets
to support us. People in other parts of the world are consuming
natural resources and polluting the environment at different
levels. For example, the average Canadian lifestyle requires
the equivalent of four planets, and Europe the equivalent
of three planets.
The challenge that faces us all, therefore, is: how can people
everywhere enjoy a high quality of life, within the carrying
capacity of one planet?
For people living in developed countries, this means finding
ways to reduce their impact or ecological footprint. In the
United States an 80% reduction in consumption of fossil fuels
and virgin materials is needed to achieve a sustainable and
globally equitable level. But with our busy, complex lives,
how can we change?
If One Planet living is to become the norm around the world,
it must be affordable and attractive to a diverse range of
people and cultures. It must address key human needs including
housing, clothing, food, healthcare, education, energy, transport
and leisure. One Planet living must also be easy - few people
actually want to live unsustainably. However, it is often
too easy to make decisions that have damaging, unsustainable
consequences, and too difficult to choose more sustainable
options. To live at a one planet level, we need to be able
to change the 'defaults' of our daily lifestyle decisions
to ones which are sustainable.
Vision & Aims
The vision of One Planet Communities is:
A world in which people everywhere can lead happy, healthy
lives within their fair share of the Earth's resources.
The aims are to:
Build a worldwide network of One Planet Communities to demonstrate
One Planet living in action
Establish One Planet Centres in each community as a focus
for education and training
Promote the One Planet program and its guiding principles
to bring about change among governments, businesses and individuals
Each community will be exemplary and replicable; achieving
sustainable use of energy, water and waste and major reductions
in emissions of greenhouse gases. Each will be of an inspiring
scale and will include schools, offices, transport networks
and health and leisure facilities, enabling residents to live
easily within their fair share of the Earth's resources while
improving their health, quality of life, and ultimately happiness.
The Ten One Planet Principles below provide a framework for
achieving our aims. More information on the ten
guiding principles can be found here.
| ONE PLANET PRINCIPLE |
AIM |
| Zero
Carbon |
Minimizing demand from heating, cooling,
lighting and appliances and supplying energy from 100%
renewable, clean sources, eliminating carbon emissions
in building use by 2020. |
| Zero
Waste |
Striving to create a resource-efficient
society, to reduce, reclaim, recycle, compost and use
technology to increasingly divert waste from landfill,
reaching 98% diversion by 2020. |
| Sustainable
Transport |
Provision of integrated transport strategies
which encourage convenient alternatives to fossil fuel-based
travel, resulting in significant reductions in residents'
transport emissions. |
| Local
and Sustainable Materials |
Making maximum use of local, healthy, natural,
reclaimed and recycled materials to reduce embodied energy,
waste production and negative impacts of construction
materials. |
| Local
and Sustainable Food |
Making it more convenient for residents
to enjoy healthier diets from local and sustainable sources,
investing in local farmers and reducing the huge ecological
footprint of food. |
| Sustainable
Water |
Achieving significant reductions in domestic
water use with efficient appliances and fixtures, and
extensive re-use of rainwater and greywater. Sustainable
management of surface water through sustainable drainage
and irrigation measures. |
| Natural
Habitats and Wildlife |
Creating extensive protected areas for biodiversity
regeneration and undisturbed nesting habitat on-site,
emphasizing the use of diverse native plant species. |
| Culture
and Heritage |
Protecting and enhancing cultural heritage
in design and operation; investing in local and regional
identity. |
| Equity
and Fair Trade |
Promoting equity and fair trade within the
community; local employment, long-term balance between
housing and jobs, and affordable housing are emphasized. |
| Health
and Happiness |
Promoting quality of life, well-being, healthy
lifestyles, and active community engagement in development
and operations. |
One Planet Communities will encompass not only homes and
workspace, but also shared facilities such as schools, factories,
health and leisure facilities, transport and food links. This
kind of development will make it possible to show that people
can live within their fair share of the Earth's resources.
OPC will facilitate the development of these Communities,
by forming partnerships with sufficient capacity and expertise
to deliver them. Typically partners may include the relevant
local or regional government authority, local community representatives,
developers, architects, engineers, financiers, and providers
of key infrastructure and services related to transport, energy,
waste and food. OPC will bring skills and know-how about sustainable
living and sustainable development. It will be the catalyst
and inspiration for making One Planet Communities a reality,
whether they are new developments or major regeneration and
adaptive re-use projects.
What we do
While every regional initiative is unique, the activities
of One Planet Communities teams in each region will include:
1. Create Working Partnerships.
The One Planet approach weaves together the research, design
& delivery expertise of diverse stakeholders within the
framework of the Ten One Planet Principles for a true "best-of-breeds"
sustainability solution.
2. Sustainability Action Plan Design for Developments.
One Planet Communities works inclusively with design teams
and community stakeholders in the identification and expression
of their sustainability aspirations under the broad framework
of the Ten One Planet Principles. BioRegional partners with
relevant design team members to develop a comprehensive set
of strategies for each of the Ten Principles, identifying
indicators and targets for success and shaping the Master
Plan.
3. One Planet Lifestyles Design for Developments.
Ecological footprint research demonstrates that more than
50% of the ecological impact of a neighbourhood falls outside
the built environment and can be accounted as the net lifestyle
impact of its residents - what they eat, how they use transportation,
how thoroughly they recycle, etc. One Planet Lifestyles programs
help residents shrink their lifestyle impact A) by designing
the built environment ergonomically for sustainability (e.g.
easy, integrated recycling facilities) B) by setting up post-occupancy
opt-in systems such as car clubs, organic food box deliveries,
and Community Shared Agriculture C) by running One Planet
Lifestyles Educational Workshops for incoming residents and
communicating usability of sustainability features and D)
by transferring ownership of these processes to a Resident's
association or equivalent community body for long-term viability.
4. Evaluation of Developments.
The One Planet Communities program conducts post-occupancy
evaluations to determine the success of the built environment
and the One Planet Lifestyles program, comparing the net ecological
footprints of residents to a baseline sample of the average
ecological footprint of residents in nearby, equivalent non-sustainable
developments. If the residential development is wired for
cumulative data-gathering, the evaluation process can become
a feedback system to help residents monitor and improve their
progress towards household sustainability targets.
5. Communicate Successes.
One Planet Communities is committed to promoting the Ten One
Planet Principles to catalyse change with governments, businesses
and individuals, as keystones of a philosophy for sustainable
living. As One Planet Communities progress and grow, lessons
will be learned about the social, economic and environmental
costs and benefits of the approach. The One Planet Communities
program will work to widely disseminate lessons learned to
inform the decisions of governments, businesses, nongovernmental
organisations and individuals.
6. Share vital best practices across commercial and technical
domains.
One Planet Communities is building a networked knowledge-sharing
program for sharing lessons learned and best practices across
participating residential development projects under way in
the UK, Portugal, China, South Africa, the UAE, Canada, and
the United States.
For additional information about One Planet Communities,
including Common International Targets and Rquirements, consult
the For Developers information
page.
|
"'The most interesting aspect of this project
could be the social engineering... creating a sense
of community and a consensus for living within a smaller
ecological footprint.." - Washington Post
