Who’s using One Planet Living?

Organisations all over the world are using the tried and tested One Planet Living framework to reduce their environmental impacts and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. With ten guiding principles One Planet Living is comprehensive and flexible, allowing organisations to develop their own solutions to the sustainability challanges that they face.

The very best organisations have committed to challenging targets and have an endorsed One Plant Action Plan. These organisations include One Planet Companies such as B&Q, One Planet Regions such as the London Borough of Sutton, and a range of One Planet Communities around the world.

Hundreds of other organisations are using the One Planet Living framework in their own way outside of BioRegional’s One Planet programme, and just some of these organisations and projects are featured below. If you would like to tell us about how you are using One Planet Living, then do let us know.

Bike the Earth

Earth Partners Foundation has launched “Bike the Earth” to showcase and champion One Planet Living in the run up to the London Olympics and United Nations Earth Summit 2012.

Find out more, including how you can get involved at www.biketheearth.net

Vale of Glamorgan Council

The Vale of Glamorgan Council has signed up to the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Development Charter, which is based on the principles of One Planet Living.

Leader of the Vale Council, Gordon Kemp, said: “We are pleased to join the Assembly in its commitment to One Planet living. The council is working hard to be as environmentally friendly as possible in its day-to-day business. Local councils are responsible for many environmental issues and we want sustainability to be at the heart of our services.”

Green Ochre

Green Ochre is an environmental performance improvement company, based in Adelaide, Australia. Green Ochre works with organisations to review their operations, and advise on and recommend measures to help implement better practices and systems that lead to savings in both business costs and to the environment.

Green Ochre have recently used the free One Planet Action Plan toolkit. Their summary One Planet Action Plan has been published on the United Nations Environment Programme website. (PDF file)

2012 Imperative

The 2012 Imperative aims to embed ecological and sustainability literacy in design education by 2012. The project was launched with a Teach-in October 2009 at the Victoria & Albert Musuem in London.

One Planet Living is a key concept of the 2012 Imperative, and the website states that:  “In the UK we must move from our three planet lifestyles to a One Planet future, and the design industry must understand this challenge as the most important part of every brief.”

One Planet Reno

One Planet Reno is a deep green retrofit of an old home in a Canadian urban neighborhood: “The One Planet Living framework is our guide: we’re striving for carbon neutral operations, using healthy and sustainable building materials and much more. We know it won’t be perfect, but we hope you’ll learn from us as we grapple with site, budget and timing constraints. In the spirit of growing the green building movement, we want to share our progress with you as we break new ground.”

City of Charles Sturt

The City of Charles Sturt is a Local Government Area in the western suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia. ‘Towards One Planet Living: Greening the Western Suburbs‘ is a 5 year plan that sets out what the Council intends to do to reduce its ecological footprint. The plan lists a range of strategies and actions under four key themes: climate change, water, biodiversity and waste.

‘Towards One Planet Living: Greening the Western Suburbs’ was developed with input from over 30 external organisations and community feedback from a series of public workshops held in early 2009. It was formally endorsed by Council in June 2009, and the Council is now working to implement the plan.

Ronneby

The town of Ronneby in Sweden has published a brochure ‘Future Living Ronneby‘ – which it describes as “part of the municipality’s residential planning strategy to create the society we want to hand over to our future generations.”

The brochure shows three examples of what it hopes will be the start towards a future planning model for the municipality, representing a local call to action.

Ronneby adheres to the goals of One Planet Living. The ten guiding principles of One Planet Living serve as a framework to help the municipality examine the sustainability challenges it faces – and to develop appropriate solutions.

Hab Oakus

Hab Oakus is a joint venture between development company Hab and housing association group Green Square. Hab is a residential development company established by design guru Kevin McCloud. Its aim is to raise standards by building well-designed environmentally-friendly housing in provincial or suburban locations where the quality of new-build housing is particularly poor.

Hab Oakus subscribes to the ten One Planet Living principles and works closely with a wide range of organisations which are committed to enabling people to live sustainable lives.

Bicycle City

Bicycle City is a planned car-free community in South Carolina, USA, where people live, work and visit. Its eco-friendly design is healthy, sustainable and could be applied to urban or non-urban areas. Residents who own a car can conveniently park it on the edge of the community nearest their home.

Bicycle City’s Sustainability Goals are based on the ecocity definition as outlined by Ecocity Builders and Urban Ecology Australia, with inspiration from the One Planet Living 10 sustainability principles.

Cardiff University

Cardiff has become the first Welsh university to join businesses and local authorities to make a landmark commitment to future proofing lives and communities across Wales.

Cardiff is among the first to sign the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Development Charter which makes One Planet living a key commitment of the Assembly Government.

The Welsh Assembly Government has made a commitment to becoming a one planet nation – to only use our fair share of resources to sustain our lifestyles.

Welsh Assembly Government

The Welsh Assembly Governmment’s Sustainable Development Charter was launched on 28 May. Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing Jane Davidson said: “One Planet Living, where we live and plan for a future that only uses our fair share of the earth’s resources, is a key commitment of the Assembly Government. Our Charter puts sustainability at the heart of organisations’ development.”

Organisations will be asked to sign an annual challenge stating how they will continue to embed sustainable development into their operations.

National Trust

The National Trust is committed to a sustainable future, and is a signatory of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Development Charter.

Rob Jarman, the National Trust’s Head of Sustainability states that “One Planet Living is a movement seeking to change this so that everyone can enjoy a high quality of life, within the carrying capacity of this one planet of ours. The question that we must address now is how can we ensure our overall use of natural resources is reduced to that which our Earth can support? That is the challenge the Trust is facing up to. We are in a good position to find practical and positive solutions, not least because we can draw on the legacy of those at Trust properties who had inspiring ideas to live on their own means.”

Middlesbrough Council

Middlesbrough Council in the north of England has adopted the One Planet Living model, developed by BioRegional and WWF, to provide a new sustainability framework for council activities.

The council says that: “To help ensure that all aspects of improving quality of life are addressed sustainably, the One Planet Living framework has been adopted. This approach addresses economic, social and environmental issues in an integrated way, by using ten One Planet principles. The aim of the One Planet programme is for Middlesbrough to develop into a happier, healthier town where residents can live within their ‘fair share’ of the Earth’s resources.”

One Planet Learning

Friends Centre is an adult education centre in Brighton and Hove and has been of the Brighton and Hove community since 1945.

Friends Centre has moved to Brighton Junction, a new community space within the One Brighton eco development in the New England Quarter. One Brighton is a One Planet Community, built according to the ten One Planet Living principles.

To celebrate the move, and inspired by the One Planet Living framework, Friends Centre has launched One Planet Learning – courses and workshops designed to raise environmental awareness and encourage sustainable living.

Bristol Zoo Gardens

Bristol Zoo Gardens is committed to sustainability, and is committed to championining conservation through mass mobilisation. It aims to enable others to engage with sustainability through examples of its design, construction, infrastructure, landscaping and maintenance.

Bristol Zoo Gardens is in the the process of publishing an environmental sustainability manifesto which will promote the principles of One Planet Living, and which aims to inspire other good Zoos and visitor attractions to improve the sustainability of their organisations, as well as promoting sustainable living to the Zoo’s visitors.

Ireland West 2020

Ireland West 2020: a bright green future is a vision of a vibrant and sustainable Ireland West, benefiting from world class clusters in ICT, medical devices, renewable energy and smartocean innovation.

Ireland West 2020 was submitted under Your Country, Your Call, a national competition designed to find two major proposals that will transform the Irish economy economy by creating jobs and opportunity. Ireland West 2020 succeeded in making a short-list of 40 from the 9,000 entries to the competition.

Ireland West 2020 put forward the idea that working from a sustainability framework, it would be possible to unlock the potential of the region, and that the One Planet Living initiative provided a basis for such a framework.

London Borough of Sutton

One Planet Sutton is a major initiative that will enable local people, business and council services within the London Borough of Sutton to live and work within their fair share of the earth’s resources. One Planet Sutton is the UK’s first endorsed One Planet Region.

Sutton Council has developed a One Planet Action Plan that sets targets for council operations and a series of interventions that will enable Sutton residents and businesses to achieve one planet living by 2025. The targets include for all council buildings to be zero carbon by 2017 and the whole borough “enabled” to be zero carbon by 2025.

Herbert Smith

Herbert Smith is an international legal practice with a 1,300-lawyer network across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Herbet Smith used the One Planet Living framework to measure its environmental impact, and the results highlighted the huge impact of international travel and significant impact of food. A workshop with staff was a lively way to turn the problems into actions to reduce environmental impact. The main actions were resolving the international working culture by optimising and reducing travel, creating the management systems needed to get the One Planet Action Plan working, and introducing a sustainable procurement policy.

B&Q

B&Q is the UK’s largest home improvement retailer, and as an endorsed One Planet Company, the One Planet Living principles are embedded into B&Q’s governance structure. Sustainability is one of B&Q’s seven key business plans and progress is reported to the Board of Directors. Managers across the company have sustainability targets relating to their day to day responsibilities.

B&Q has already made impressive progress: Based on reporting in 2008, the company made an absolute saving of 6% CO2 (19,000 tonnes) compared to emissions in 2006. This was achieved even with an increase in turnover and without any off setting or green energy tariffs. Further achievements include smart water metering which has reduced water consumption by 13.6 million litres per annum, and a 48% reduction in waste to landfill.