The Environmental Impact of Sieben Linden Ecovillage

This book takes a holistic approach to understanding the environmental impact of a novel and innovative eco-village – Sieben Linden in Germany. It not only tackles development matters but also addresses global sustainability development goals, particularly on how to make human settlements more inclusive, resilient and sustainable. The book explores the impact of resident’s everyday lifestyles, as well as the buildings and infrastructures that they live in and use, and produces a quantifiable measure of environmental impact.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780367145644, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Environmental impact assessment is widely taught and researched, but rarely covers both lifestyle and building construction in a town or neighbourhood. This book provides a broad assessment of the environmental impact of the ecovillage Sieben Linden in Germany.

The ecovillage was founded in 1997 and has a population of over one hundred people. This book shows how raising the awareness of individuals and adopting a consistent way of community living can be environmentally friendly. This applies both to everyday practices and the way the houses in the ecovillage are built. The tools used to measure the impact are Ecological Footprint and Carbon Footprint methodologies, making use of indicators such as Primary Energy Intensity and Global Warming Potential. Despite the difficulties encountered by using standardised methodologies, these research tools provide an overall assessment and have allowed comparisons with selected, similar cases and general values from statistic sources.

This book will be of great use to professionals and scholars in the fields of environmental impact assessment, particularly at the town/district/city level, and of city and ecovillage management. It will particularly appeal to those engaged in a Sustainable Development Goal #11 perspective, as well as environmental policy makers at the local level.