One Planet Living SOUTH
AFRICA |
The proposed Johannesburg site
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The timeline on the potential Johannesburg site has been
postponed in that the tender for the land will now only go out, at
the earliest, in June 2006. That said, this is still subject to the
Johannesburg Metropolitan Council final approval of the OPL
specification, in March, prior to the tender being publicised. Work
planning continues with this site in mind, however, with EcoCity,
our Johannesburg NGO partner from the WSSD in 2002, leading on the
project from Johannesburg.
With regard to the Muldersdrift pilot community, the project
managers there are submitting a funding application in March to a
French funding agency for 'green streamlining' to the project.
BioRegional will be mentioned as a consulting partner showing how 'Ethembalethu' (Place of Hope) could
become an OPL community, albeit on a demonstration scale, linking in
with a larger South African community if this were to be in
Johannesburg. We would work with South African consultants in
drawing up a Sustainability Action Plan for the site to cover not
only the initial design of the eco-village but also the long term
management.
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In the Cape, contacts there presented the OPL concept at a Summit
in Sustainable Human Settlement in Stellenbosch in November 2005.
The process of finding a site in the Cape involves three levels of
government, which is slowing down the process; that said, the
potential developer is still attempting to pursue negotiations for a
site to be allocated to them for a pilot OPL project.
We have been contacted, via WWF SA, by another potentially
interested developer in KwaZulu Natal. The plan is for BioRegional
to meet with them when next in South Africa.
Sarah Alsen, Country Manager for South Africa, goes on maternity
leave at the end of February; her position, whilst she is away, will
be filled by Sumeet Manchanda of BioRegional Consulting (sumeet.machanda@bioregional.com)
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THE INTERVIEW |
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For this issue, we interviewed Jane Durney who is the Z-squared
Project Manager at BioRegional.
GL: How did the idea of Z-squared come
up?
JD: Through the monitoring of BedZED we
realized that the eco-footprint of a BedZED resident was reduced from 3 planets to
1.4 planets while we were aiming for a 1
planet target. We understood that the scale of BedZED (100 units)
was not big enough to achieve our goal. That's why we came up with
Z-squared, which is a concept design for a 2,000 home (5,000 person)
development. This size allows us to build services and infrastructure such as schools,
water, energy production and distribution, waste management, etc,
and so further reduce
the average eco-footprint of each resident.
GL: Why "Z-squared"?
JD:
Based on the BedZED experience it was decided from the
beginning that Z-squared would be zero
carbon emission and we decided to add a "zero waste" dimension when studies showed that
there was only 5 to 6 years of landfill capacity around London to
store waste. To reach our target of “zero
waste” we will use different techniques such as recycling, and anaerobic digestion.
For example, sewage
and organic waste will produce biogas through the anaerobic
digester that will then be used in a Central Heating Plant (CHP)
providing heat, hot water and power to the community. The digestate produced by anaerobic digestion could
be used by farmers around the community as a fertilizer. The
zero carbon target will be achieved through
the construction of thermally efficient buildings with low energy
fixtures and fittings, the production of heat and power through
biomass and biogas CHP; wind turbines plus
Inter Seasonal Thermal Storage, a technology
commonly used in the Netherlands that utilizes either a
suitable underground aquifer, pilings or the earth to store heat in
summer (thus providing cooling) which can then be accessed for heat
in winter. Z-squared metabolism breaks down into three flows,
energy, dry waste, and wet waste; they are interlinked at several
points such as energy and Z-squared tries to take advantage of each
flow to reduce the global eco-footprint of the community.
GL: What is the link between Z-squared and
OPL?
JD: Z-squared has been designed initially
as a concept and the research completed for Z-squared can be used in
the other OPL communities around the world for which the two first
principles out of the 10 existing ones are
zero carbon and zero
waste. It is very likely that the "flagship" OPL community
that BioRegional and WWF are looking to build in the UK will be
built in London using the OPL framework and the knowledge provided
by Z-squared research.
GL: What is the status of Z-squared as of
today?
JD: We are in discussion with BioRegional
Quintain Limited (BQL) a joint venture between Quintain Estates and
Development PLC, one of the UK's principal developers and BioRegional Properties which is part owned by
BioRegional Development group. BQL has committed to using the OPL
framework in all of their development work and also to find and
secure a site to build Z-squared in the London area. The London
Borough of Barking and Dagenham in the Thames Gateway area is very
keen to have a Z-squared community built there. The Mayor of London
has also shown strong interest in sustainable communities and we
hope to have a secured site for an OPL community using the Z-squared concept in London by the end of
2006. If built in the Thames Gateway, this community could be
tightly linked to the One Planet Olympics in
which BioRegional and WWF have contributed substantially in
2005.
Z-squared project
© Foster and
Partners
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THE TOPIC
Using Ecological Footprinting
to Define
the Sustainability Problem
by Jules Siedenburg,
OPL Lead
Technical Manager, BioRegional.
If we are to persuade people to live
sustainably, we first need a robust way of judging what constitutes a
sustainable lifestyle. Ecological footprinting was developed to address
this challenge.
Simply put, eco-footprinting is an accounting tool that measures
humanity’s demands upon nature, then compares these with resource
supply. Specifically, it determines whether the impacts of our
lifestyles, the processes, products and services we use as individuals
and communities – fall within the Earth’s regenerative capacity.
Every facet of our lifestyle is broken down into the land area
required to provide us with this good or service. For instance, the land
area needed to produce our food can be calculated, as can the area
needed to absorb our pollution or generate our energy. The resulting
total can then be compared to our ‘allowable land area’, i.e., the
world’s biologically productive land divided by the global population,
while reserving 10% of the Earth’s surface for biodiversity.
WWF’s Living Planet Report 2004 reports that the average UK resident
requires approximately 5.9 hectares of biologically producutive land to
sustain his/her consumption. Yet available global biocapacity amounts to
only about 1.8 hectares per person, leading to the UK’s ‘three planet
challenge’, i.e., humanity would require three planets if everyone lived
at this level.
The challenge facing the UK is not unique, though different countries
and regions are presently consuming and polluting at very different
rates. The North American lifestyle, for example, would require
five-and-a-half planets to sustain it. China is currently at the
one-planet level, but this is set to increase rapidly due to high rates
of economic growth. While useful, such simple measures disguise an
uneven breakdown of impacts. Thus, some Chinese consume much more than
one planet’s worth while many others consume less, creating diverse
sustainability challenges.
Although much of the world’s population lives
below its allowable quota, humanity’s ecological footprint nonetheless
exceeds the total area of the Earth’s biologically active land by
approximately 20%, such that we currently consume 1.2 planets’ worth of
resources. As a global population, we are thus no longer ‘living off the
interest’ of the Earth (i.e., sustainable harvest levels), but are
eating into its ‘natural capital’, raising concerns about the future.
Through its diverse initiatives (e.g., OPL Communities, OPL Business,
OPL Schools), One Planet Living works to find solutions that allow
individuals, companies and countries to maintain a high quality of life
while living within their ecological footprint .
For
more information on ecological footprinting:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org
http:\\www.bestfootforward.com
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