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.

Stride Treglown architects

Award-winning architects Stride Treglown have adopted the One Planet Living model to enable them to continually evaluate key areas of their business, design and service, in support of a sustainable future.

They measure gas, electricity, water and paper consumption at all their offices and staff travel. As a business, they have a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint by 10% within the next year and an ongoing objective to achieve further reductions in energy and materials consumption.

As a practice, Stride Treglown provide exemplar and award winning sustainable design across many sectors.

Stride Treglown website

University of Minnesota UMore Park

The University of Minnesota Outreach, Research and Education (UMore) Park is the University’s 5,000-acre property located 25 miles southeast of the Twin Cities in Dakota County.

A key element of the University of Minnesota’s UMore Park project is creating a sustainable community. The vision for UMore Park is for a sustainable, modern, University-founded community of 20,000 to 30,000 people developed over 25 to 30 years.

The University is working with BioRegional to come up with a sustainability plan for the 5,000-acre development. By using the One Planet Living framework, the result will be an efficient, well-planned built environment with lifestyle alternatives to achieve sustainable use of the resources on our planet.

Find out more:

UMore Park website
Rosemount Town Pages (newspaper)

Malmesbury and the Villages Community Area Partnership

Malmesbury and the Villages Community Area Partnership, a voluntary group covering the 20 local council areas in and around Malmesbury, Wiltshire, UK, are working on several initiatives to reduce environmental impacts and improve environmental quality in the area.

MVCAP are also looking at their own operations and environmental impact. To become more sustainable are using the One Planet Living framework and have developed and are implementing a One Planet Action Plan.

The MVCAP One Planet Action Plan has been developed to help them to reduce the environmental impacts of their  operations and to help them become more sustainable.

Initially they are targetting five of the ten One Planet Living principles – namely Zero Carbon, Zero Waste, Sustainable Transport, Health & Happiness, and Culture & Heritage.

Find out more at http://www.mvcap.org.uk/.

CNBC Responsible Business TV series

One Planet Communities is the focus of the next episode of the Responsible Business Television series, broadcasting on CNBC around the world this weekend.

Tune into your region’s CNBC channel at the following times to see several of the ground-breaking projects showcased and an interview with BioRegional’s International Director,  Pooran Desai OBE:

CNBC Asia

1st Broadcast: 30 October 17:30 SIN/HK Time

2nd Broadcast: 31 October 09:30 SIN/HK Time

CNBC Europe

1st Broadcast: 30 October 08:30 CET

2nd Broadcast: 30 October 13:30 CET

CNBC USA

Single Broadcast: 30 October 16:00 EST

If you miss the broadcast the film will go up on www.oneplanetcommunities.org early next week.

Sustainable Living Older Community

Kingston University is leading this project, called Sustainable Living and the Older Community, which aims to stimulate interest in and raise awareness of climate change, sustainable development, and living practices, with older people. It recently published a booklet “A Guide to Sustainable Green Living” which includes a chapter devoted to One Planet Living and the ten principles of sustainability.

The booklet is not yet available for download, but for more information about the project visit: http://sustainablelivingandtheoldercommunity.co.uk/

London Food Link

The One Planet Dining report is part of a programme of work by London Food Link to improve the sustainability of London’s food system.

Taking One Planet Living as its definition of sustainability, the report recognises that food accounts for around one third of our ecological footprint, and that unsustainably produced food represents an ever-greater environmental burden.

The report investigates the potential for greater use of sustainable food, and greater uptake of sustainable business practices by London’s food service sector. It provides a picture of current practices and attitudes to sustainability within the restaurant, hotel and catering sectors in London, and initial work to support improvements.

Find out more and download the report.

The Deanes School

After seeing the One Planet Living display at the Prince of Wales’ Garden Party to Make a Difference, staff and pupils from the Deanes School in Essex decided that the One Planet Living principles would be an ideal way of communicating the school’s work on sustainability to prospective parents at their recent open day.

Parents were asked to make a pledge based on the One Planet Living principles.  The principles fit into the school’s work on sustainability.  They have organised eight days for Key Stage 3 pupils to explore sustainability issues and take part in creating a sustainable school.

For more information, vodcasts and photos of their work, visit http://www.deanesschool.co.uk/page/?title=Focus+Friday&pid=89

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.”