Main features of the Banksia Eco Warriors Project

Dear friends,

As you can see we are getting closer to our aspirational goal of one post per week. This is mainly as a result to the great contributions by friends of the project. So if you think you could contribute with a post, please contact me.

This week we have two very important guests talking about the main features of the project, but it is better if you see it for yourselves (as you can see my video-editing skills can only improve from now!)




See you next week, most probably it will be the second post on Lifecycle Assessment.

Cheers,

Jaime

Permaculture

Hi my name is Marcia and I am a friend of the Banksia Eco Warriors Project. I hope you like this entry about permaculture. If you like it I will be writing more :)

Permaculture was born in 1970 as a result of Bill Mollison’s careful observation of nature. The name originated by merging the words “Permanent” and “Culture", but is much more than that, in truth it is a search for peace, harmony and an abundant life. One of the principles of permaculture is to distribute natural resources equitably without prejudice to the environment.

In permaculture we adopt a conscious planning to make possible, among other things, the use of land without waste or pollution, the restoration of degraded landscapes and minimum energy consumption. In short, we must feed the natural cycles so they remain productive.

To illustrate this, we can think about water, for example. In traditional systems we take the water from dams, build a complex system of cleaning and distribution of water to our homes, use clean water to cook, to drink, to take a shower, wash the clothes and dishes, to flush and after that, put all that dirty water together and send to a station for sewage treatment. We put asphalt on our streets and make our backyards waterproof, which prevents the water from going to the earth to supply the groundwater sources when it rains. That same groundwater feeds the rivers from which we take our water....so in summary, we have broken the water's cycle in many parts.

To permaculture, the ideal is that we use the water from our area, for instance collecting rain water , reuse water from our house to the garden and specially think better about our lifestyle.

The same happens with our food, we can produce a part of our food in our own homes, we can buy directly from the producers, eat fruits and vegetables from season and produced in a system which doesn't use the monoculture and without agrochemicals. If we utilize monoculture systems for our agriculture, this will never be sustainable because the diversity promotes the balance, different vegetables need different substances from the soil and they have interactions between their which support for resist to plagues.

In many initiatives we use permaculture even if we have never heard that word, if you have a vegetable garden in you home or school, this is permaculture! If you use your organic rubbish in your garden, this is permaculture! If you re-use you dishwasher’s water to water your garden, this is permaculture!

Permaculture is when you help the nature cycles to be alive and healthy in order to provide a healthy and happy life for everyone.

Lifecycle Assessment (1)

After a long absence from our blog, we are back with this little piece on lifecycle assessment that Nadisha Prelis, a good friend of the Banksia Eco Warriors project, has prepared for us. I am trying to engage a few regular contributors to make sure we post something every week. If you are interested in posting on this blog, please let me know!

With so much being said about climate change you, like millions of people out there, may want to help make a positive change. One way of doing this is through the choices you make as a consumer. Let’s assume you are already committed to doing your best to make sure your environmental impact on the planet is as small as it can be. As part of that commitment you may have made many choices as a consumer. For example perhaps you weighed the environmental impacts of choosing:

- A laptop versus a desktop computer.

- A gas boosted solar hot water system versus a normal gas hot water system to replace an existing electric one.

- Cloth nappies versus disposable nappies.

- A hybrid car versus an ordinary, energy efficient car.

- A compact fluorescent light versus an incandescent light.

On the face of it, the environmentally responsible choice would be simple. Of course a compact fluorescent light is going to be better for the environment! Well is it? Did you know that Compact Fluorescent Lamps contain small amounts of mercury that can contribute to air and water pollution if released in landfills and waste incinerators? Does it start to get tricky? If we look at a product in the context of its entire life, how can we know for sure whether those “green” products are as green as we think? It would seem that there are other less obvious or immediate impacts that need to be considered than those that happen when we use a product.

Let’s look at a quick example. There has been a lot of talk about hybrid cars. Of course, they are less polluting and therefore a far better transportation choice. Buts lets take our beautiful hybrid car out of its usual where its drives proudly, if not a bit smugly by a gas guzzling four wheel drive. What about how it was made and what it took to make it? What happens after it goes to the scrap heap? Can these upstream and downstream stages of the car’s life produce more emissions than what we will be saving over its useful life? Now it gets pretty complicated doesn’t it?

This is where Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) comes in handy. Lifecycle assessment is a way of considering the environmental impacts throughout the entire life of a product. This means looking at a range of impacts when raw materials are extracted, when the product is manufactured, transported to markets, used , re-used, recycled, and disposed of. It may sound like a lot of work, and indeed it is, but this whole of life approach allows a holistic and therefore fairer assessment of the true environmental impact of a product.

But how is this done? What I suggest is that we stop here for now and that in the next entry we try to see what would be involved in comparing two alternatives using lifecycle assessment. For me one the less obvious choices would be between cloth and disposable nappies, so we might give that a try!

Environmental information resource list

Hello everyone,

Just a quick post to let you all know that we have just published a new document on Banksia's website. It is basically a compilation of links to different sources of environmental information, and you can access it by clicking here.

Just to mention a couple of items in the list, there is a very interesting Greenhouse Gas Emissions flow chart produced by the World Resources Institute (see image below), and extremely valuable information about the links between social and environmental justice can be found on the Transnational Institute website, of which my beloved Susan George is a fellow.


See you soon!

Update and miscellaneous

(Left: biomimicry: Japan's 500 Series Shinkansen bullet train is modeled after a kingfisher's beak. Getty Images)

I thought I would give everyone an update since it has been a while (2 weeks and 2 days) since our last post. We want to post at least weekly but incorporating it into the weekly routine will take some adjustment.

Since the last post a few things have happened:

• We had our meeting (see last post), which went very well. It was great to have representatives from three state government departments and the local council looking at the project strategically.
  
• One of the most important outcomes was that our architects (FMSA Architects) have agreed to produce a Vision Document that will greatly assist us seeking additional resources for the project.
  
• Gina and I have been working on broadening the support for the project in a number of ways. For instance, in two weeks we will be meeting with our local federal MP, Maria Vamvakinou.
  
• I am back at Uni after the summer break and will be able to use the Eco Warriors project for my main assignment in the course Sustainable Energy Systems and Design, in which I will be looking at the energy efficiency and renewable energy generation sides of the project.
  
• Next Tuesday we are meeting with representatives from DSE to start the process of signing the Funding Agreement and to jointly analyse the Project Milestones that will inform the agreement.
  
• I have been reading the Garnaut Review and I am working on a small review on the Review. Not quite there yet, by the time I finish the may publish the final report!
  

Finally, just some food for thought about the picture I used for this post. This week we learned a bit about biomimicry in the Masters. Biomimicry could be roughly described as a sustainability strategy that looks at incorporating some of nature's design features into human technology.

You can find out more about it by following the following links:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2008/id20080211_074559.htm
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/

What could we learn from the Banksia, I wonder?

Monday's meeting

This morning I asked our Manager, Gina Dougall, to tell you all about a very important meeting that is taking place on Monday. So here is what she said without needing to rehearse or prepare, she is such a media animal!



Our next post will analyse the Interim Report released by the Garnaut Climate Change Review, so come back soon to check it out!

Information Session at Sustainability Victoria

Last Tuesday my manager Gina and I attended an information session organised by Sustainability Victoria (www.sustainability.vic.gov.au) and DSE (www.dse.vic.gov.au) for all the successful EcoLiving Centres.

Before the day Gina and I were very excited even and bit anxious about making a good impression, so when we got to the workshop we had already spent quite a lot of time developing our workplan and milestones.

In the end none of that work was really necessary as the workshop turned out to be more about getting to know all the stakeholders involved in the Grants initiative, including all the other successful projects. The presentation about all the different projects was a great display of diversity of organisations and approaches in environmental practice, and it was great to see that other neighbourhood houses (North East NH Network) have been successful with their submission as well.

We also learned a great deal about the great programs carried out by Sustainability Victoria and started to discuss ways in which our centres can convey information about those programs.

One of the best outcomes of the day was the decision to create a network of EcoLiving Centres in Victoria, which will facilitate the flow of communication and the collaboration between the different projects.

We also had a bit of time to visit the Sustainability Victoria building, which has a six star environmental rating.

My feeling is that our project is slowly gaining momentum and that after the workshop we know all the players in the game, so it is time to start working really hard!

So what is this Eco Warriors project all about?

Banksia Gardens Community Centre is a neighbourhood house located in the public housing estate of Broadmeadows, in the North of Melbourne, Australia.

As it can be seen in the previous post we have recently received funding to set up an Eco-Living Demonstration Centre, which is quite a fancy name for a sort of environmental education centre.

But one of the things that make this project exciting is our commitment to combine this new environmental focus with our community development practice, as we believe that communities experiencing disadvantage should not be excluded from the "Sustainability Revolution". Thus, the aim of the project is to make substantial sustainable modifications to the building and to our operations and to use these as a demonstration for the community at large.

So during the first stage of this project, visitors to this blog should be able to keep track of the changes made to the building and to share with us the lessons that we learn as we make this project become a reality.

Obviously your feedback is welcome and it is one of the reasons why we have set up this blog. We invite you to share this journey with us. We are convinced that it will be a worthwhile one, even though we are also sure that we will find many challenges ahead.

Banksia Eco-Warriors: Community Empowerment for a Green Tomorrow

Welcome to Banksia Gardens Community Centre!

This blog has been created for people to be able to track the development of the Banksia Eco-Warriors Project.

It seems logical that the first post is dedicated to direct viewers to the official website of the Eco Living Centre Grants initiative, this way people can understand where the money will come from :). So here it is:


http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/DSE/nrence.nsf/fid/A901CE52397F8B00CA2573D4001F1D33