In communal living some people share work, such as planting and tending a garden.

But communal living has become a way many ordinary people live and according to them, the benefits are can be great.

What is Communal Living?

First off, the definition of communal living is not a commune, although it can take that form. Communal living is often used interchangeably with the term ‘intentional living’ or the formation of intentional communities that can take a range of forms dependent on the desires of the participants. Typically the common thread between communal living communities is that they share resources.  It is an ancient concept dating back to early human days.

Communal houses and communities have been set up where people from different walks of life, live together and share the costs of maintaining the home and the needs of those who live there. Housing coops, eco-villages and even traditional suburban neighborhoods utilize communal living practices, such as growing food in their own plots and sharing the surplus with others, or setting up a community garden for all to participate and benefit.

Contemporary Communal Living

Lammas, a low impact living communal establishment in West Wales that exemplifies the principle of community living. Astutely the neighborhood group has made their own living model one that is replicable across its own country, possibly inspiring others to make their own community with an existing success to refer from.

The founding group wanted to both create affordable housing and the development of a rural livelihood, while preserving the natural environment of the land they would use. In short, they were aiming for sustainable development.

With support from individuals as well the government, the project was allowed to go ahead after a three year long battle. It also received a £350 000 grant from the government to build an education center.

Over passing years they were also able to borrow and pay back thousands of pounds used to buy the land on which the community lives.

This community functions with the environment and sustainable development in mind, believing very much in Permaculture. Every family residing there does have a responsibility to produce at least one land-based product, be it textile products or fruit.

Many of what is made is sold on Lammas and other shops, and of course the money made is worked back into the community.

Because of their eco-friendly farming techniques and optimized use of land because of some implemented Permaculture techniques, Lammas is expected to produce £108 000 worth of produce from the land once fully operational and cultivated.

Those who reside there are not prohibited from maintaining a full-time job outside of the community and the income derived from that job is the worker’s own. The rules are simply – only use what is produced by the land to supply things such as food and energy to your home.

Lammas is only one example of the type of communities out there today that are trying to make a difference and go back to living the simple, self sustainable life.

People all around the world are taken action to living in a way that is both meaningful to them and generally more balanced with the existing resources of the Earth.  Be it small or big, and positive change is always only a step away.

Vertical hydroponics made with recycled materials. Image: Sing-Me Lee/flickr

Hydroponics is defined as “the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil”.

Vertical hydroponics is simply put the vertical distribution of water. It takes up wall space instead of floor space and works much like normal hydroponics. Many people opt for this type of growing system for growing plants indoors, either for food, herbs, flowers or other oramental value.

A pump does the work of distributing water to the plants in your garden and, if done correctly, yields just as much as that of a normal hydroponic system. It costs just about the same so, if you have limited space, this is the option for you.

The only difference in this system is that water is pumped up to the plants from a central water system at the bottom. Water reaches the plant and the plant receives all the nutrients it needs from fertilizers you mix with the water.

This specific system also uses light more efficiently. Where you had to add more light with each new hydroponic system, the vertical hydroponic system uses less light distributed more widely. Various systems can use the same light, just be careful that the systems do not overshadow each other.

Some systems are made of stackable pots that are insulated to protect the plants from too extreme temperatures. These systems can be bought ready to use.

If you are not much of a builder, you will find the internet very useful. If you still can’t get your head around the idea, you can always opt to buy a system. Most deals include a step by step instruction DVD while other package deals include all the material you will need.

Plants and vegetables that work perfectly with hydroponic systems:

1.     Tomatoes

2.     Lettuce

3.     Ivy

4.     Parsley

5.     Basil

6.     Flowers

7.     Herbs

8.     Corn

9.     Strawberries

10.  Peppers

11.  Eggplants

12.  Broccoli

An outdoor vertical hydroponic grower with solar panels. Image: IrisDragon/flickr

At this time, vertical hydropinic farming is not commercially adapted because there are still a few problems such as the effects of gravity. It will affect the plant and how it yields its fruits. Sustainable, organic farming with good soil management techniques is still the optimal way to grow food and plants.
However, these kinds of innovative hydroponic systems are perfect for those of us who do not have a big garden or yard.  It is one of the steps you can take in terms of self sustainability. There is no harsh environmental impact and it is something that can be used for a home or even in communities.

Compared to sustainable farming practices, vertical hydroponics is much less energy effcient and frankly an un-natural technical eco-system. It does however provide yields that can be managed relatively easily and a wonderful supplement to traditional growing practices, especially for people living in an apartment or urban area where soil is scarce.

A city is a great example of the built environment, made up diverse buildings and infrastructure. Image: Ghassan Tabet/flickr

The purpose of a manufactured, non-natural environment is to provide us with all the conveniences that nature does not conveniently provide. Theaters for entertainment, shopping  malls for home and pleasurable purposes, hotels and homes for shelter, train routes and planes for transportation, even greenhouses for year round growing. The built environment is dominant in our daily life.

Our society is particularly “built up” since industrialization era, and especially flourished with cheap energy and oil enabling construction. Before these modern times societies were using more sustainable materials to build up the environment. This is evident in villages throughout Europe that use locally sourced eco-friendly materials such as wood, rock or adobe, among other innovative techniques of the time.

Humans in technologically advanced countries often spend most of their time in man -made habits. Funny, how advancing technologies and innovations are meant to improve our lives and give us more leisure time, and yet we still spend most of our days inside away from the natural beauty  that awaits us in the great outdoors.

Although the built environment provides us many true conveniences and benefits, when it comes to living habitats, real estate and property values are always shifting due to global and local economic factors, and can often result in a downward spiral, in which case the built environment becomes particularly unhealthy or even dangerous for human occupancy.

A link between health risks and the built environment has been established when conditions of the man made environment significantly limit a person’s ability to access clean air, fresh food or quality water. Obesity is also a byproduct of some built environments when a city or space is planned with inadequate exercise space.

A beautiful "green" built environment in Germany. Image: def110/flickr

Long term city planning, architecture, and engineering coupled with sustainability practices, such as Permaculture design, can help the built environment flow more naturally, closing energy and waste loops and organizing an environment that reflects a space where needs and resources are met for a diversity of individuals effected by the built space. In summary, there is great hope when apply sustainable design principles to the built environment. Going green from the start is optimal, but there is certainly no shortage of opportunity for improvement in almost all present-day structures.

Grow your own herbs in a container garden for a flourishing supply. Image: wallygrom/flickr

Container gardening is great if you do not have any land to plant a garden or you just wish to add some texture and beauty to an area.  An easy, healthy, and sustainable set of plants to grow in containers are herbs.  They come in all shapes, sizes, and variety of colors.  Some herbs flower, some do not.  But all can be used for their beauty, their healing ability, and their tastiness.

Herb Container Gardening 101

Before you begin, learn the growing requirements for the herbs you desire to plant.  Herbs that can be relatively close together will produce a beautifully designed container garden.  Consider the geometric space of the container; is the container long and rectangular like a window box or deck container or perhaps the container is a uniquely shaped household item that has been repurposed into a container for the garden.  Good design uses and accentuates the geometric design of the container and the plants should compliment (not overcrowd) the container.

A single container does not need to be used for an herb garden.  Alternatively, a more modern designed container garden can be achieved by placing a single herb plant in identical container pots and then arranging the pots into a geometric design.

Next, consider the layout desired for your herb container garden; herbs that will grow tall can be placed in the back of the container while those that are more colorful (purple basil, for example) can be an eye-catching center piece and used as a balance counterweight.  Think about the texture of herbs as well.  Salad burnet and purple sage, for example, have soft textured leaves while rosemary is pricklier.

Flowering herbs can be especially delightful in a designed container garden.  Chives, chamomile, chicory, echinacea, lavender, thyme, and yarrow all produce colorful flowers.  If the herb garden will be eaten, it is important to consider that most herbs used for culinary purposes will not be allowed to flower early in the season so it is best to focus on texture and leaf color to bring a sense of fullness to your herb garden design.

Regardless of the design of the container garden it is important that creativity and fun are a included in the gardening and designing experience.

A modular home in typical modern design.

Although many find a modern home style to be visually pleasing, many others find the minimal clean lines unappealing and one characteristic that has prevented some people from purchasing an eco-friendly modular home. Thanks to popular demand, the design styles are expanding beyond a modern “efficient.”

When most people think of modular homes a vision of a modernistic angular box house usually comes to mind, even the”green” modular homes bear this visual connotation.  The reason lies in the common designs of manufactured homes, that meet all building codes. Modular homes, although manufactured, can be more customized to the location and desires of the homeowner. Thus, a variety of designs are available, not just modern.

However, not all eco modular homes are modernistic in design. American Home Sales and New World Homes are small companies located in the United States that specialize in constructing environmentally friendly modular homes that do not look like box homes.  Their home designs are inspired by historic and regional designs such as craftsman, cottage, cape style, and southern plantations.  Looking at these designs it is nearly impossible to see these as the typical “prefab modular home.”  These eco modular homes range in size, from as little as 400 square feet to several thousand square feet.

These eco modular homes embrace green building principles including energy efficiency, water conservation, use of renewable and sustainable building materials, energy efficient design, compact construction, and use of material that enhances indoor air quality such as low- and non-VOC paints, glues, and calking.

These green, or eco modular homes provide benefits to the individual as well as to the global population.  For example, homes that are built for energy efficiency can save the individual money by reducing utility bills and reducing maintenance and helps reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses.  Integration of water conservation techniques such as rain barrels, rain chains, and efficient appliances help save on water bills and help ensure clean water remains a sustainable resource.

In contrast, here a "green" modular home is in old world style from New World Home company. Image: GearPatrol.com

The advantage of the modular home is that they are pre-constructed in a central location with efficient building techniques.  Modular homes use an engineered approach to produce houses in a more efficient and cost effective method. Instead of the old-fashioned construction method, (stick-built) most of the work is pre-fabricated at an off-site climate controlled factory. This also reduces any potential delays from weather or other weather related problems.  In addition, small modular homes prices also tend to remain low relative to new construction homes and for this reason are great for vacation homes, as a new addition to a piece of property, for people on a budget or first-time buyers.

If you have had experience with an eco modular home or green manufactured home please share in the comments section for readers.

You might wonder why people will choose to live in underground houses or, earth sheltered homes as they are more commonly known, but considering the advantages it has for the environment, the novelty of an earth sheltered home and low energy bill, you will understand.

First of all, by using this particular building method, you are in fact multi-purposing valuable land. You can even park your car on the roof.

Image: Trendir.com

Another great thing about these kinds of homes is that they are safe. They can withstand hurricanes and tornadoes when built properly and properly protected.

Because earth sheltered homes have a very small part exposed to the outside, you can save tons on maintenance costs and using chemical based cleaners. When building your home, generally your sustainable building material needed is also less, yet labor costs can be high due the unique building style.

Saving on energy costs is a definite when it comes to these kinds of homes. Heating and cooling costs will not be as high as in a regular, conventional home. This is because nature protects your home and it is not influenced greatly by outside temperatures. Your pipes are far less likely to freeze in the winter due to the home’s natural insulation.

To further ‘green’ your home, you can incorporate solar energy to further save on energy costs. If this is done effectively, your energy use might end up costing you nothing at all.

An underground home is both unique and suprisingly green.

In the end, these kinds of homes are designed and built to save energy and in turn save you money. It reduces your carbon footprint and, combined with sustainable and eco-friendly building methods, these homes can become a more popular design of the future.

Because it is so energy efficient, you can save up to 80% on energy costs. An added bonus is that because of the natural insulation, noise will not be a problem.

Sustainable packaging can take many forms, although it is defined by having minimum environmental impact. Image: FotoosVanRobin/flckr

Sustainable packaging design is one viable way of providing packaging that is environmentally smart and responsible. Ideally, minimal to no packaging is ideal, but not always practical. So alternatively, choosing carefully choosing packaged products for purchase can make a difference in how we preserve our resources.

Sustainable packaging, like the word ‘sustainable’ is loosely defined, but can be used to described packaging or container materials that are either biodegradable, organic, ecologically harvested and manufactured, recycled, upcycled or a combination thereof.

The pictured innovative egg carton design ditches the Styrofoam standard and uses coconut fibers, a natural biodegradable material, perhaps the byproduct from a coconut water or meat processing company, which otherwise would have been perceived as waste.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) is a group that is dedicated to developing and implementing sustainable packaging. It is a GreenBlue project and GreenBlue is a nonprofit organization that helps businesses use their resources in order to deliver to products that are more sustainable.

The SPC project’s main aim is to develop a packaging system that is both economical and promote usage of sustainable  materials. Such sustainable materials are highly debatable.

The founding members of the SPC are the Strabucks Coffee Company, the Dow Chemical Company, Nike, Unilever, EvCo Research, NatureWorks (formerly known as Cargill Dow LLC), Priority Metrics, The Estee Lauder Companies and MWV (formerly known as MeadWestvaco).

Members of the SPC include huge names in the industry including McDonald’s, The Coca Cola Company, the BASF Corporation, Dell DuPont, ExxonMobil Chemical Company, the Kellogg Company, Microsoft and UPS. The very ‘un-sustainable’ core products of many of these companies, makes their membership exude a bit of greenwashing.

Yet how effective is sustainable packaging in reducing the waste that comes from the very products they wrap? Is this a step in the right direction or an effective mask duping consumers into thinking their doing good by “going green.”

When although the SPC may have their own sets standards, shared with the world, when it comes down to reality, sustainability is truly defined by common sense and a little  probing into the start-to-end cycle of both the packaging and product at hand. Just because McDonald’s Amazon beef is wrapped in a SPC approved packaging, doesn’t make it truly sustainable.

The SPC has defined sustainable packaging through a total of eight requirements. Sustainable packaging is a safe and healthy packaging solution. During the life cycle of the packaging, it will cause no harm to either an individual or community and It must be produced from only healthy materials.

Sustainable packaging must meet the cost and performance criteria set out by the industry. All packaging must be sourced, produced as well as transported and recycled by the use of renewable energy sources.

All sustainable packaging must be produced using only ‘clean’ technologies and practices, and must be designed in such a way that the materials and energy used, is used to the fullest. Optimization in terms of re-usability and recycling is also essential.

Lastly, sustainable packaging must be recovered and used in biological and industrial so-called ‘closed loop cycles’.

True sustainable packaging used has at least some bettering interest to not only you and your health, but the environment as well. It is up to society to define and dictate these desires, not rely on other entities to set a sustainable packaging standard, to literally cover up unsustainable products.

There is a wide range of more eco-friendly packaging solutions available on the market today, including biodegradable packaging, packaging made from renewable resources as well as recycled packaging. Society has hope in the fact that consumers tend to embrace the idea of sustainable packaging, so long that it does not inconvenience their consumption process. As buying local and other consumption habits adapt to a truly green lifestyle sustainable packaging can surely evolve as well.

Upcycle clothing into anything you want. Image: BeWakeful/flickr

Upcycled clothing might sound like some ridiculous new fashion trend, but it is simply put the recycling up your old, out-dated clothing. If you are creative and pretty good with a needle, this is most definitely for you.

With upcycled clothing you either revamp an old jean by adding something or an old shirt by maybe even removing something. Otherwise, you can only use the material and make a whole new design.

Not only is this a great money saver, but you are able to express yourself in a way that will cost you next to nothing.

You can raid second-hand clothing stores and cut and sew yourself something unique and invaluable. If you do raid a second-hand store, chose one that is connected to welfare organization. That way, you are also doing your bit for the community in terms of finance.

The greatest benefit of all is that by upcycling clothing, you are doing your bit to save the earth. Your contribution might seem small, but taking into consideration the material you are not using, it is quite a noticeable difference.

If you do use new material in the process of upcycling your clothes, use organic cotton. Make use of bamboo fabric and other eco-friendly materials.

Consider the harmful production processes and pollution caused by the transport of clothes, revamping your old clothes is at no cost to the environment.

The scarps of material that is left over from your upcycling can also be recycled, so do not overlook the importance of this either.

If you are very efficient and have an entrepreneur set of mind, you can even start selling these upcycled pieces of clothing. Combined with organic and eco-friendly materials, you can do this while causing minimal to no harm to the environment.

Being green and living an eco-friendly life has a lot to do with sustainability. The more ways you can provide in your own needs and provide using only eco-friendly products, the smaller the negative impact you will have on the earth.

There are many websites and blogs out there that can help you with ideas and places where you can find eco-friendly materials. Do your research and experiment a little.

Alternative building methods offer more diversity of buildings than commercial building methods. Image: Hanan Conan/flickr

With environmental education and awareness came the need for more eco-friendly and sustainable building methods. It called for people to think out of the box and come up with what we are able to implement today.

Alternative building methods have become more popular due to their often lower cost, novelty, durability, and non-toxicity. A few methods is of alternative buildings are adobe/mud house, earth sheltered homes (hobbit houses), yurts, earth-bag buildings, and modular homes along with pre-fab construction. Innovative and far-thinking architect, Hassan Fathy is particularly influential in bringing insights and techniques on alternative buildings to light.

Adobe construction is one of the oldest techniques used. Its use can be tracked all the way back to the 1^st century A.D. Rome, and likely thrived thousand of years before that. This technique involves the molding of bricks made of clay while they were still wet and were casted small enough to be able to shrink whit drying without the possibility of cracking.

Because these structures were able to soak up solar heat, they were cool during the warm days and warm during the cooler nights.

Today, Adobe building techniques are meshed together with modern building methods to, in the end, create a greener, more energy efficient building.

Another alternative method being used is that of the incorporation of bamboo. Bamboo is known to be strong and is able to replace wood and even steel in construction. Bamboo buildings and other structures are suitable for locations with a tropical warm climate. Otherwise they would be an inappropriate building technique in chilly places. Imagine a bamboo hut in Chicago?! Surely not, such structures thrive in places like Bali and Southeast Asia.

Because bamboo grows at such a fast rate, it is a renewable and very efficient building material. It is used in the construction of prefabricated homes and, because bamboo is grown with very few or none pesticides, it is environmentally friendly as well.

It is very notable that construction techniques are turning to the past to find safer and better alternatives than the damaging methods we tend to use today. Examples of this are natural plasters used and even compressed air blocks.

In the end, why fix something that was not broken to begin with. When homes and other buildings were constructed before the common use of electricity in homes, the buildings were efficient. They were designed to use the environment to its advantage.

Other alternative building methods include cob, an ancient technique, cast earth construction, Corwood construction and the use of light straw-clay. Cob is a great building material, very insulative, yet it is extremely labor intenstive and will require maintenence throughout the years to patch up the naturally occuring cracks. For this reason cob is used along with other building materials, or used soley for smaller structures such as a bench.

Apart from alternative building methods, new homes are also equipped with energy efficient equipment. The incorporation of energy efficient equipment such as solar panels and electric, tankless water heaters, ensures that homes are kept up and running at minimum cost and minimum energy use.

In the long run, alternative building methods combined with new technology and energy efficient equipment, will reduce the cost of the maintenance of a home as well as minimize the environmental impact development has.

There are many alternative building methods and there is no limits, except for your own creativity, when it comes to what you can choose benefit the environment as well as your family.

The prototype for the $100 laptop. Image: jsbarrie/flickr

The 100 Dollar laptop, also known as the Children’s Machine, 2B1 and better known as the XO-1, is an inexpensive subnotebook computer.

It was created with the goal of distributing the laptop to children in developing countries, effectively giving them the opportunity to explore and learn, in the end leading to a better quality education. Everyone has the right to knowledge and this was just what this laptop could bring children.

The idea and laptop was developed by an organization called One Laptop per Child (OLPC). It is manufactured by Quanta Computers and is designed to use Linux software which is free, community developed software. It has no hard drive and instead uses an internal flash memory.

The idea was first introduced in November of 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) by the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Anan, and the project’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte.

There are many things that make this project special, including the way in which the laptop was developed and operates.

First of all, it is designed to use far less energy than that of a conventional laptop. It thus more energy efficient and is designed to use only between 2 to 3 Watts in total power consumption.

The production cost of this laptop was also kept way down, thus using methods that kept not only the environment in mind during production, but maintenance as well.

The LCD screen of the laptop is also designed to use only between 0.1 to 1.0 Watts. It even has a monochrome mode for when efficient lighting, as in daylight, is available.

This laptop also has various rechargeable batteries, making the constant need for electricity not a necessity. Because it is able to run on battery power, simply charging it before use can eliminate the need for a constant flow electricity to the machine.

Different models come with different power options. The XO 0.1 Beta came with a power option that included a battery and a hand-crank generator. XO 1 came with a pull-string generator while newer models were specifically designed to use less energy in order to operate.

Also helping to lower power consumption is the fact that moving parts were intentionally left out of the machine. Moving parts use more energy and they were not added in order to be more energy efficient. This is why you will find no hard drive, optical drive, floppy drives or fans.

The machine is able to passively cool itself and thus there is no need for a fan.