New book of the Club of Rome on 'Plundering the Planet'

On June 6th the Club of Rome launched a new report on our misuse of natural resources: Plundering the Planet. How to manage the Earth's limited mineral resources.
Up to now it is only available in German, but more information (in English) can be found here:
- executive summary
- some findings in detail
- background information

Living Building Challenge: green building certificate

Living Building Challenge is another green building certification programme, but it aims at going much further than BREEAM or LEED. It considers 8 performance areas: site, water, energy, health, materials, equity, beauty and process. It has been launched in 2006 and is supported by the Living Building Institute since 2009.
A document with the Living Building Challenge Standard, extended descriptions of case studies and further information can be found on their website.

boek Duurzaam bouwen in Vlaanderen

Source: DO Vlaanderen

Het Departement Duurzame Ontwikkeling van de Vlaamse Overheid heeft een boek gepubliceerd waarin 10 duurzame bouwprojecten beschreven worden die op de ene of andere manier door hen financieel ondersteund werden.
Het is een mooi Voorbeeldboek Duurzaam Bouwen in Vlaanderen - Momentopname in 10 projecten geworden.

C2C Islands

  

The Cradle to Cradle Islands project was an Interreg IVB North Sea Region Project with 22 partners from six countries around the North Sea.
Main goal was to develop innovative solutions in the field of energy, water and materials using C2C principles as a guide.
The project just came to its end. All presentations and conclusions can be found on the project website.

Green design by Pia Wustenberg



Credits: Pia Wustenberg


Pia Wustenberg is a German designer who lives in England. On her website you find some very nice and poetic examples of design products that make use of sustainable materials that are commonly available around us like moss and paper. Take a look at her Garden Rug and her lamps and tables made of processed paper. Don't forget to watch the video on how the processed paper is made! The result is wonderful!

Building with mud and steel frames

Source: No Tech Magazine - Marcelo Cortes

No Tech Magazine shows 2 nice examples of building projects with mud and steel frames: one from the Kazakh architect Saken Narynov and one from the Chilean architect Marcelo Cortes.

Building with bamboo

Source: design boom via webecoist

Bamboo is a fast growing and strong material that might perfectly fit as sustainable building material, under the condition that it is not transported over thousands of kilometres.
Some nice examples of bamboo buildings can be found on Webecoist. 

A very nice bamboo building is the Green School in Bali. And there is a very inspiring TED talk by John Hardy, the founder of this school which is not only a beautiful building, but also an educational project that teaches children how to build, garden, create and get into college.

Bottle schools: using plastic bottles to build schools

Bottle school La Cereza (source: Hug it forward)

Hug it forward is a non-profit organisation in Guatemala who supports poorer communities to build eco-friendly schools by recycling waste plastic bottles as construction material. They have already 14 bottle schools completed and 3 are in progress.

On Transition movement

An alternative way of dealing with climate change and peak oil through local environmental and social initiatives, this is more or less what transition movement is about. It started in the UK, but it quickly spreads all over the world.
A more detailed description can be found on wikipedia.
Information on the UK transition network can be found here.
For those interested in transition towns and how this works in reality, certainly take a look at what happens in Totnes, UK, the first transition town.

Also in Flanders, Belgium, the transition movement is spreading out.

• All kinds of initiatives in Flanders can be found on http://www.transitie.be/ (in Dutch)
• For those interested in the transition movement applied to the built environment, the website of Transitiearena Duurzaam Wonen en Bouwen is a good starting point (in Dutch).
• An interesting website on the transition movement from a Flemish researcher, specialized in sustainable materials

Opnieuw op bezoek bij ...

De komende weken kan je weer verschillende bedrijven en gebouwen bezoeken die op de ene of andere manier met energie en duurzaamheid bezig zijn.

Bedrijven zetten op zondag 2 oktober hun deuren open voor geïnteresseerden tijdens de  'Open Bedrijvendag'. Het thema voor 2011 is 'materialen in beweging': meer dan 35 bedrijven verspreid over heel Vlaanderen tonen hoe de kringloop van materialen door recyclage en recuperatie van afvalstoffen kan gesloten worden.

Energiezuinige woningen kan je bezoeken in november. Wat vroeger 'Open Klimaathuizen' heette en 1 weekend duurde, is sinds 2 jaar 'Ecobouwers Open Deur' en neemt 2 weekends in beslag, 5-6 november en 11,12 en 13 november.

Alternative building materials

In some cases people need to look for alternative construction materials due to lack of common materials or lack of money to buy these materials. But these examples can also be inspiring for us, to think out of the box even when we have the opportunity or the money for common materials. A slide show, by Studio H, with many examples of use of alternative building materials. Unfortunately without oral explanation, but the short text below the slide show is informative, as it points out some of the pros and cons of reuse of unusual materials as building materials.

Environmental impact of materials

Not only use of energy and water has an important impact on the sustainability of buildings, also the materials contribute to the sustainability. Their impact traditionally is assessed through LCA or life cycle assessment. According to the ISO 14040 a good LCA consists of 4 subsequent steps:

1. definition of the goal and scope of the LCA: of what specifically are you determining the environmental impact?
2. a life cycle inventory (LCI): an inventory of 'all' in and outcoming fluxes: which natural resources are used, how much water or land is used, which gases are emitted, etc.
3. a translation of the inventory into impacts on environment, health, biodiversity,... 
4. finally, an interpretation of the results

For the European context, different databases with LCA data of (building) materials are available:
ECOINVENT: a large, well documented and transparent LCI database from the Swiss ecoinvent Competence Centre. The LCI data are online available for a fee, but all documentation reports are accessible free of charge (for some, registration as guest is needed).
GEMIS: a large German database, available in German and English, completely available free of charge
A tool, especially made for eco-design, is the Ecolizer 2.0, available in Dutch and English. The tool is online available free of charge. An easy-to-use paper version can be ordered for a small fee at OVAM