IES Blog

Eco-friendly living can come in many shapes and forms - from recycling paper and aluminum to placing solar panels on your home, to the more extreme option of living in an eco-village.  An eco-village focuses on organic farming, green building, communal spaces and many other aspects of sustainability.  For those that remember the communes of the 1960s and 1970s, eco-villages do have some similar characteristics as they both center around sharing and using the land to farm and eat but the main difference is they aren’t solely for hippies anymore.  From Sweden to Missouri and everywhere in between, these new settlements are popping up and prospering.

“The future of housing, in general, is sustainable communities,” Laura Mamo, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and co-author of Living Green, tells Green House. She argues that single-family homes on large suburban lots have failed society, because they’ve created social isolation, dependence on personal cars and intolerably hefty mortgages for homeowners. 

Each village differs - but for the most part, residents own the home but not the land it sits on, helping to significantly reduce the taxes. Residents of these communities are usually responsible to help out by cooking communal dinners, tending to the wood-burning furnace that heats all the homes or maintaining the surrounding gardens.  Each eco-village or community has its own set rules and way of life but they all share the same principles of living a more simplified life and reducing their overall carbon footprint for a better tomorrow.

If living in an eco-village isn’t for you, then try looking at some of the unique ways these residents live and try adapting them to your neighborhood. Why not unite with your neighbors and try growing a few items in each of your yards and sharing the crop? Or set up a monthly volunteer day to plant new trees or flowers in your neighborhood parks? These are small ways to make an impact in your own community and make your own pseudo-eco-village!

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Tags:Building, communications, housing, recycle, reduce, Sustainability, Sweden

(image: es74273 under Creative Commons)

When you think of green building in the last ten years, you think primarily of two verticals - housing and office space. So there is one massive vertical missing in the equation - retail.

Retail development has traditionally been the slowest to warm up to the whole concept of green building, but according to a recent article in Retail Traffic Magazine, retail developers are finally turning the corner.

In fact, green retail construction has moved ahead at an increasing pace, even despite the sour effects of the economy. Retail developers have recognized that not only is it the right thing to do, it can also help their bottom line, and that of their customers, in the long run.

LEED has gotten a boost in the retail market as well. According to the article, the USGBC reports that there are more than 2,600 projects registered for LEED in the retail sector. This is quite remarkable, especially when you consider that developers don’t even have a true LEED standard specifically for retail. After more than a half-decade of waiting, though, those standards should be released sometime this year.

The truth is, retail developers have always been looking to save money on water and power – after all, making money is what retail is all about. So they’ve been further ahead of the curve than even the USGBC.

There is still much work to be done, but another good thing is that the developers are not the only ones who see the value of LEED certification – so do the marketing guys, who now have a huge selling point for their customers. The savings get passed on to them, and thus, to the rest of us.

Now if we can only get them to ditch those darn plastic bags…

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Tags:Building, green retail construction, housing, LEED, LEED Certification, office