About : standard furniture modern living
Title : standard furniture modern living
standard furniture modern living
[wayne meador]: hi there and welcome. my nameis wayne meador, and this is a world for change tv. if you are just now joining us, you aresustainability in the modern world; this is a live tv show that myself and andy brineput on every week on wednesdays at noon ct and at 6 pm gmt. typically we would put theshow on wednesday, but today is a special episode. today, we wanted to work to bringyou some, well, really an incredible organization called greenhouse in leads in the uk, butthey are a division of a larger organization who is working to drive sustainability initiativesin the uk and really - i think - have some goals to grow throughout the world and toreally make a difference and an impact in human life and in humanity. so i am excitedto bring that to you. i want andy to share
a little bit more about them and their organizationbefore we dive into the discussion. but, again, if you are joining us, please remember tocomment and engage with us using the hashtag #scmwlive. again, use the hashtag #scmwliveto engage with us, and we will do our best to get to every question that we can. we arealso going to have - towards the end of the show - an opportunity to talk with one ofthe residents who lives at this facility, and it's just very exciting. so, andy, i'dlike to hear more about greenhouse and how we connected with them, and please share thatbefore we get into the discussion. [andy brine]: excellent. well, yeah, i havebeen speaking with the people at greenhouse for a while now, and it's been really interestingto find out about the developments - and what
they are doing. and i was speaking in thegreen room too to them earlier, and i was just adding that we were looking for a communityaround the world that really talked about modern day sustainability, and, for me, thisis a company that really does bring modern day sustainability to life whereby an oldbuilding has been transformed into a new sustainable building with green technology as well. soit's going to be really exciting to talk to them about their project and what they aredoing, and also some of their upcoming projects that they have got in the works at the moment.so, yeah, i am going to pass it over to aisling. first of all, tell us a bit about yourself,first of all, and about some of the projects that you have got in the line
[aisling]: hi andy. as you said, i am aisling,and i work for a company call citu, and we are a sustainable development company in theuk. our every development that we create we try to combine three ingredients, which wefeel are essential for the future of the longer developments, and they are: design, communityand sustainability. we think all of those three are very much connected. sustainability- we will talk more about here at greenhouse on what we have implemented and some of ourother developments; community - we feel is really important that residents get to knoweach other. when you live in a community wher people actually know each other, which ismissing from a lot of, sort of, blocks of apartments where people don't really knowtheir neighbors. in a real community, when
you can meet your neighbors, people are muchnicer to each other, they work well together. generally, people are pretty nice, but ifyou don't know each other and mix together, then you don't have that, sort of, sense ofcommunity; design - lots of developers, sort of, talk about design. design is more thanjust the aesthetic of things, it's about designing in parts to a development that help peopleto mix in a community. for example, at greenhouse, we have an on-site gym, which is free forresidents to use. we have allotments near the site where residents can grow fruit andvegetable. and also meet and also an on-site cafe or deli. all of these things - by designingthem in as a developer - it helps to, sort of - we can't force a community to happen- but what it does is it helps a community
to happen naturally. [andy brine]: as i said, that is interestingto see you [inaudible] and how you brought it to life. so what was your vision, liketaking an old building and transforming it into something that looks - i think it looksamazing now. how did you make that happen initially? [aisling]: well, this particular building- greenhouse in leeds - was empty for, i think, about ten years and, unfortunately, you know,sort of all vandalism in the area and it was due to be demolished. but, structurally, itwas a sound building and so - you know - there was no reason to waste it and start againwith a brand new building. because we believe
in reusing where possible. so we bought thebuilding from the local council, and there was a lot of, sort of, people said it wouldn'twork. you know, because, obviously, it had a reputation because it had been vandalizedand left empty for so long. but, today, it is fully occupied, and it's a thriving communityand people are keen to stay here. [wayne meador]: that sounds a lot like maybethe oakland-california area. you know, i don't know if you guys have something to compareto or know of the oakland-california area, but it was a very similar scenario, and ithink all they have done is given the individuals who live in that area a tool to interact withor the ability to interact together, which again creates that community. and i am curiousto know then how that has affected the vandalism
and the overall general feel of what it'slike to come into that region? [aisling]: yeah, well certainly the buildingis now fully occupied. people, i think, take pride in the building, and it has improvedthe local area around as well because it's open for various events to the local community.our residents that live here are very active within the local community and get involvedin local groups, so, you know, it just all makes sense. and i am not familiar with thecalifornia area you mentioned - but, you know, it is definitely what we believe in and itseems to be working here. [wayne meador]: yeah...andy, i know we hadsome comments that we maybe should bring up, we have got quite a few people in the audience.sherill duce says, you know, it's been a while,
but it is nice to have audience members whocontinue to come back and continue to support the sustainability movement. double dog farms- or eric from san juan, washington - and red baron farms are both in the audience,so it's exciting to have that. we are thankful to have your support. remember if you arecommenting, please comment and use the hashtag #scmwlive, and we will get to your commentsas soon as we can. andy, i know we had some more questions in particular that we wantedto address. let's get to those. [andy brine]: yeah, i was interested in - ihave researched a lot about greenhouse and i have spoken to you a lot too actually, whichhas - it's been great to find out more about what you are doing. but i'd love for you toshare what technologies you have employed
there and how are they working for the development,and possibly what will you be using for future developments, if some of them aren't the bestpractices, i should say. [aisling]: yeah, sure. and greenhouse is anold building - an original building - built in the 1930s, so the approach we took wasfrom a fabric-first point of view, rather than just taking a building and adding onsolar panels and renewable technologies. first thing we did was insulate the building. sothat was really important- to insulate first to keep any heat in. then we have dug down80 meters, dug down those four board holes in a closed loop, and we take water from underthe ground. water is at 12 degrees - a constant temperature - it's kept warm from being underground.we pump that up, pump it back down again,
and when it is up, we are basically takingthe heat out of it, and through heat exchangers, which is used for heating and cooling theapartments and the offices during the day. and then we have - we collect rain water.so rain water harvesting and also solar panels for heating the hot water. [wayne meador]: that's interesting to me - iam definitely a fan of alternative energy. we had a whole series of alternative energyhere on this show a couple of months back, and really thinking outside the box when itcomes to using the energy that we already have in our environment rather than tryingto maybe artificially create more through burning up, you know, petrol fuel to makeand heat our environment. but, you know, i
am fascinated by that and that technology.can you talk a little bit more about that and maybe how that or what percentage of theenvironment is sustained by what you have created there? so if you were to cut thatbuilding out from the atmosphere around it or the environment around it, would the residentsthere be able to sustain themselves? how sustainable is something like this? [aisling]: yeah, no, we still have to relyon outside sources as well, and it reduces the energy. and alaric will talk to you abouthis own experiences, but the calculations we have done - compared to a new built propertyof a similar kind - it reduces the energy bills by 60%, so it obviously that does havea huge impact on the environment, but we still
have to rely on electricity from other sources- mains water for cold water supply. going forward, on our new developments, we are lookingat passive houses. we have started another development in sheffield, and a passive houseis essentially an airtight box that doesn't need any extra heating at all, and so, youknow, which should save 90% on your energy bills. so each development we do, we are lookingat how can we, sort of, push the boundaries; how can we improve; what else can we do. andwe have also developed an app for our houses, so people can control and also monitor theirenergy. because at greenhouse, we have done some surveys; we have a connection throughthe tv screen here to see how people are using their energy. the surveys we have done - post-occupancy- show that people and people's behavior will
change when they know what they are using.because a lot of the time, the energy companies - you will get a bill at the end of the month,but you don't really understand, you know, what it is for or how it breaks down. so byunderstanding exactly what your energy is and seeing a graph of what you are using,it will help people to sort of change their behavior when using energy. [andy brine]: definitely. i guess i was interestedin finding out also about your parts of the community. i mean, you have also got the availabilityto - i think people have their own allotments where they can grow their own fruit and veg,i think. [aisling]: yeah, that's right. at greenhouseand at this development here, we have an allotment
that is open to anyone - any of our residents.and some people don't want to use it and some people are very active. so we have a veryactive - i would say - group who use the allotment to grow their own veg, and also bring it backand we have a deli on site, so during the summer months, when they are harvesting thelot, they bring it back and some of it is used in the deli as well, and to serve foodto the other residents within the building [andy brine]: and i know we are focusing onresidential at the moment, but i also saw the business side of things as well. you doallow businesses to rent offices there [aisling]: yeah, no, definitely. mixed useis really an important part of our design as well, and because it tends to be that onthe residential side, people are working during
the day and they come back in the evening- not everyone, but, you know, the majority of people. so in order to, sort of, get themost efficiencies from the building, we have offices here during the day, and so the cooling/heatingsystem works best that way when there is, sort of, full occupancy in the building. notonly does the energy work better that way, but also by having sort of a mix of uses,the building is always alive, there is always things happening here, and it is much nicerthan going to a building which is possibly 90% empty during the day when people are atwork, you know. so throughout the day, the courtyard is always busy with people passingthrough, you know, visiting businesses, working in businesses, and residents using the gym,using the deli, and then it gets busier again
at night, when residents come home from work- and that again is key to the design and development. every development we do, we willtry and get a mix of commercial spaces in there to keep that vibrancy and life, really,in the developments [andy brine]: i was just thinking - as youwere talking - that you got the business aspect and you got the residential aspect. for me,for example, if i was living there at the moment, i would grow my own fruit and vegin the allotment, let's say. i'd wake up every morning and i'd go downstairs and i'd workin the sustainable building, so i am not sure if i will leave much, but that's really good. [aisling]: one of our own people, who workswith us actually who lives and works in the
building. so we always joke that she has gotthe shortest commute of anyone i know. [wayne meador]: we have a question from oneof our audience members. red baron farm says, "do you use aquaponics? or is there aquaponicson site or any type of animal husbandry like rabbits or chickens to complete the nutrientcycles?" so that's a question i think is important for some people in their lifestyle [aisling]: no, we don't. i am not hugely familiarwith aquaponics, but it's not - we don't have any animals on site. we do grow fruit andveg, we have herbs and, you know, flowers in the courtyard. but, no, not something wehave looked up. we are interested in innovation and what's the next big thing. and one ofour buyers at our sheffield developments is
very keen on sustainability as well and sheis a writer in sustainability, and we are actually getting lots of, sort of, feedbackfrom her on some of our materials we are using. so we are always open to sort of new ideasand the best ways of doing things. [wayne meador]: yeah, yeah sure. personally,i like to grow my own fruit and veg. i have a youtube channel where i document some ofthat, kind of on the side, outside of a world for change tv, and i am experiencing withaquaponics and the ability to grow more fruit and veg in a smaller amount of space, andthen you have fish - tilapia, typically, that is left over that gives you protein or someof your protein. and it is a closed loop type of a cycle where you have multiple inputsthat can go into that system, and it provides
so much to a community - or it could provideso much to a community. i think it was a great question from one of the audience members,and i'd love to hear how you might consider something like that, down the road in futuredevelopments. because it is incredible what that could offer. andy, we have still got10 minutes here in this last, this first thirty minutes of our episode. what are some of theother questions that you feel like we should address? we have, you know, heard a lot fromour audience over the last few weeks as we were prepping for this show. [andy brine]: i guess i have got many questions,and i am sure we can't answer all the questions on the show. but i guess one of the big thingsis: what would your vision be in terms of
having more sustainable buildings like this- i know you can't do all the developments, but, let's say, how would you see, like, theuk developing more sustainable properties, maybe in and around london, maybe down thesouth and things like that, so! [aisling]: yeah, i think we need to try harder.i think that's got to be driven by legislation. there has been some watering down of zerocarbon targets for developers. we are a little disappointed with that because we will continueto push the sustainability agenda because we think it's the future. but we are a smallhousing developer, so we can only do so much. but i think the market also will play a bigrole in that, and if people, you know, get on board with sustainability, realize howimportant it is, and shows like this will
sort of all add to that, then people willdemand more in-housing. and the big risk to that is we have a shortage of housing in theuk at the moment, so i think there is a mixture of things that come into play there. governmentsreally, sort of, you know, pushing the agenda, people like ourselves - if there was littlemore developers behaving that way, i think that would be fantastic. there are four orfive big house builders in the uk, and if they - they have the power, sort of, to reallypush the agenda because they have got the weight behind them. but we - as citu - willcontinue to invest in projects around the uk and just try and, you know, continually- as technology improves, as materials improve - will hopefully reduce the impact even further.because construction is one of the biggest
contributors really to damaging our environment,but obviously we all have to live somewhere - so how do we do it as sustainably as wecan. [andy brine]: yeah, definitely. i mean, iwas talking to some of the [inaudible] somebody who - they are trying to get people usingmore and more solar panels in and around basic [inaudible] area. he was saying one of thelargest problems he has found is that developers won't even invest in these technologies atthe moment, so pushing that demand, so i guess how do we - how can people push more of ademand for this, let's say. [aisling]: yeah, i think people can demandit, you know, and say, "why are you not building houses like this." people can buy houses fromdevelopers like ourselves - people who are
building more sustainably. the governmentreally does play a role in setting the agenda and pushing the targets, which we would liketo see. we are sort of meeting them well above there anyway, and i suppose the bigger investmentmarket has a role to play as well - in investing in smaller house builders like ourselves,so we can develop bigger communities in, sort of, bigger cities around the uk and - potentially- other places as well. [wayne meador]: you know, i don't wanna jumpin here too much, but i think that we have an obligation, i think, as human beings thatknow the right path forward to really push that agenda. and i think, now you can correctme if i am wrong here, but i would suspect that the work that you are doing - even thoughyou are a small developer - is putting a pinch
on, you know, some of the other developersto have to scramble and either figure out how to legislate in that it is okay that theycontinue to build how they normally build or the demand will shift and it will forcethem to fall under a new legislation, and allow some of that to move through. so yousee that happening as the result of efforts like yourself and maybe other small buildersin your area? [aisling]: i think we have definitely seenit in our most recent development in sheffield, where we have had people queuing up overnightto buy the properties, and so we have noticed a bit, of sort of - let me say - worry fromsome of the other local developers nearby, and but that's a good thing because whetherthey are forced into doing it or whatever
the reason behind it, you know, we all haveto start building more sustainably. you know, we have to take responsibility, so and that'snot a bad thing - whatever the reason. it would be good if they felt that way naturallyand there is a real drive to do it, but, yeah, i hope we do and make people think differently. [wayne meador]: that's part of what we aredoing with this show. you know, sustainability in the modern world; it embodies that andit embodies the consumer having a choice. and when the consumer gets a choice - andyand i were just on a hangout this week with a company called earth accounting out in california,and they are looking to put together an app that allows you - the consumer - to see thefull carbon footprint of a product before
you even purchase it off a store shelf. so,again, consumers getting a choice can push forward a change in - you know - the marketplace,if you will. and i think that's what you are doing there. so kudos to you guys - i am excitedto have you on the show. [aisling]: thank you, thank you very much.yeah, no, i agree. i think, you know, there is a movement and people can sort of, youknow, speak out about where they want to buy. it will come down to legislation as well,but i think all of these, sort of, anyone speaking out will just make a huge difference.and people will respond to the market over time, if people shout loud enough. [andy brine]: i had one last question then- and my last question before we move on to
the second section of the show is: can youtell us a little bit more about your new development and what's coming up, or does that all needto be confidential? [aisling]: no, not confidential at all. 'passivehouse' is the next step that we are building in sheffield, so first people have startedmoving in, and the passive house is, forgive me if you, if everyone, sort of, knows whatit is, but it is essentially an airtight home, which there is enough heat from our lightbulbsand our appliances to heat the home, instead of having to add in additional central heating.so that's - it's not a new technology; it was developed in 1989, and it has been usedwidely in germany and scandinavia, but it is not very well used in the uk. i think weare the first developer building on this scale.
so we are committed to building passive houses.with older buildings, you can't make them passive houses - another standard - but westill feel that older buildings are there to be saved and regenerated, so we will doa mix of passive houses and regenerated older buildings. and we have two other developmentsin leeds that we are going in for planning, and one in sheffield, so, hopefully, furtherafield as we grow the team and have more investment brought into the company. [wayne meador]: very good. if you are justnow watching us - or if you are just now joining us rather - my name is wayne meador and myco-partner andy brine (co-host), we are talking with greenhouse in leeds, a company ownedby citu, and we are talking with aisling,
and she is sharing with us what they are doingto change and shift the housing market in the uk to be more sustainable. we are goingto take a quick break and we will be right back. [wayne meador]: hi there - if you are justnow joining us, again my name is wayne meador and andy brine is on the other end. this issustainability in the modern world, and you are watching the production of a world forchange tv. and you are watching this as a special episode, so we are going to do moreof a full one-hour episode. and we are talking with citu, they are a developer developinga greenhouse in leeds. they have had an active greenhouse now for quite some time. and weare talking with one of their property managers,
aisling and we also have one of the residentsnow - who has joined us on camera now. his name is alaric. alaric- welcome to the show. [alaric]: thank you very much, thanks forhaving me on. [wayne meador]: yeah, it's a pleasure to haveyou here, and i will let you guys get situated and setup on your end, just a little bit.but i am going to jump over to andy for a little bit. andy - we had some comments, somesuggestions and things that we wanted to make sure that we talked with alaric about. again,alaric is a resident there at the greenhouse location - he has been there a while and weare looking forward to talking to him. but, andy, what do you have, in particular, thatyou want to ask him or want to kick off with.
[andy brine]: i guess, a good place to startwould be: when did you first move into the greenhouse, and what were you expecting beforeyou actually moved in? [alaric]: thanks for a good question. i actuallymoved in almost literally on the first anniversary of the building in 2011. so it's quite a youngcommunity - there were still lots of flats - apartments in north american parts - thatwere empty, so it was sort of just getting done. i guess - i mean, i am british, buti lived in finland for quite a long time. actually, aisling was just mentioning scandinavia,and she was mentioning british building regulations as well. so in finland, i lived in a blockof flats from the 1950s - this was environmentally way ahead of anything i could buy in britain:better or insulated, all the heat was provided
byproducts of electricity generation. andso i was getting off of a train for a job interview in leeds - having come over fromfinland - and it was just like going back in time, it was sort of terrific. i was lookingto buy a place, but i didn't want to live in any of these kind of 19th century slums,which still make up a lot of the housing stock in leeds. so i was really, really excitedwhen my dad, in fact, found that this building existed, and so i guess, a lot of my expectationson how this building should work were defined by my experience of living in scandinavia.sometimes it has lived up to those hopes; sometimes it has surpassed them; sometimesit hasn't. but, yeah, i was looking for a building with a light carbon footprint. iwasn't as keen on the sustainable community
side of it, particularly, but since i havenow really gotten into that, i really appreciate it. so i guess it had some of the things iwas looking for [andy brine]: it'd be interesting to findout - and i wasn't expecting this - but how was your experience differing from scandinaviaand where you are living now then? [alaric]: yeah so, well, i guess i'll do someof the bemoans first, like some of the things i like about finland that you don't get here.but you may not get a new finnish flats either, but 1950s, you know, finnish functionalism,it was just a brilliant period, and you had communal washing and drying facilities. andin finland, you can wash your clothes and leave them just sitting in a room that everyonehas access to, and no one will steal it, so
that's good., and whereas in britain, we havethese small flats and you get a lot of wet clothes, and you have to try and dry theminside the flat, you know. so we had communal washing and drying facilities. we had communalsaunas, which was great. everyone could just kind of come to the sauna together on theweekend and hang out together. communal gardening - all these kind of cleaning up the grounds- we are going to start trying to do that in the greenhouse soon. so those are someof the things i really liked about the old place in finland. but coming here, there hasbeen this emphasis on a sustainable community as well - so where i lived in finland it wasnot a mixed-use development, and i really appreciate that about greenhouse. what aislingwas saying about the building always feeling
alive; it's true - even at 3 in the morning, in fact, so there is always people around and stuff happening, and, i mean, for me,i am entering my thirties. you know so it is going to be twenties - setting up my career,and then it is going to really invest in something other than a job, really, and put an effortin trying to make a community happen, to make people hang out, to greet each other and havefun. that's been really worthwhile for me. i really appreciated it. [wayne meador]: seems like there is probablythere are a lot of economic benefits outside of just being able to make friends. i mean,not only are you making friends, but you are really getting connected with the community,that's just what humans do - we like to connect
with a community. we like to build relationshipsand i am sure, you know, business and work and the way that you earn your income hasbenefitted and profited from this type of living environment. and that, to me, is justkinda stepping out there and assuming it. but i can tell you - coming to a small townwhere a world for change offices are located - it's the same type of scenario. small communityand we get that community feel, we all get to help each other - so, you know, i knowwhat you are talking about. you just got a building that holds the amount of people thatmy town holds. and, you know, you have that, but i'd like to hear more about the gardening- i mean, what's it like there. what's a day like for you living there? maybe a weekend?
[alaric]: yeah, well, you know, the answerthat you get from me may not quite the one that you want. but it's a true answer anyway.i mean, i am involved in the allotment here and doing gardening stuff, it's somethingthat i do really like. i do like it when i go down, even though it's a kind of scruffybit of ground in the middle of a quiet, sort of a deprived area out of leeds. there isa sense of peacefulness about it that i really appreciate. and it has been a great way tomeet neighbors. those of my neighbors who are interested in the allotment because, youknow, this is a building for normal people; this isn't a building for 'green voting' hippies,necessarily, although i am a 'green voting' hippie. but, you know, there are lots of peoplehere who just have normal jobs and are interested
in the environment, and the building helpsthem make their lives sustainable without them trying, so that's great. but those ofus who want to do something with the allotment - i mean, it's been great to meet those folks- you know, you spend couple of hours and you have got something to do - you can't digin soil, you can't seed; you just chat, and that's brilliant. but at the same time i havebecome much more aware - while living here - of the kind of pressures of twenty-firstcentury economies on communities because most people here are young professionals, so theyare working a lot of hours. a lot of them work 50, maybe 60, hours a week. a lot ofpeople have got relationships that are very spread out because they have had to move aroundthe country a lot to make their careers happen,
so they have got friends in different cities,families are far away, partners are often in different cities. so that takes peopleaway on the weekends a lot, although they will have that girlfriend visiting on theweekend and she doesn't want to come down to the allotment, you know. so the kind ofcentrifugal forces, you know, of our economies are apparent here, and it does make it muchharder for us to make things like the allotment work. so, you know, we have had experienceslike we plant a lot of stuff and it's great, and then everyone is away in the harvest time.you know, i work at the university, the academic year is just starting, people are away ona holiday, you know, cuz, historically, you go on a holiday at harvest time so you cando the harvest and people can leave the country.
so we have real problems , kind of, makingthe allotment remotely sustainable as a way of feeding yourself and i think largely becauseof the way our economy is set up as a very non-local, centrifugal economy. [wayne meador]: yeah, if you need something,just go order it on amazon and it shows up. [alaric]: yeah unfortunately. it's not fortunately,it's sort of unfortunately. [wayne meador]: yeah right...it's hard to [alaric]: the allotment.... [wayne meador]: yeah, go ahead [alaric]: but the allotment has been a greatproject in so many ways. we are still working
on it. you know, one year, we will finallymake it work. it has lots of advantages, but feeding ourselves in a practical sense isnot one of those advantages. [wayne meador]: so, from your, with your insight,what would it take to get to be more - i guess, to have that advantage, to be able to feedyourself on a property of that size, and is it even a feasible concept? where do we go? [alaric]: yeah, i don't think it's a feasibleconcept. i mean, it's still a good concept, but, you know, we are in the middle of a bigcity in britain - one of britain's bigger cities - and, you know, there is just notthat much agricultural land right near us, so that's an inherent limitation and verymuch due to just how our agricultural economy
is setup. and i'm just trying to think through- yeah - how it might make, kind of, agriculture here, sort of, functional. i need to givebut more thought; i am sure i have lots of useful things to say; i just don't have anyin my mind at this moment [wayne meador]: well, it's just a good - ithink having a discussion like this is something that gives an audience member who, you know,later on - a year from now - when they are watching this show because they have lookedat youtube and they are trying to understand what a sustainable community is like to livein or a modern sustainable building style community would be like. you know, gettinghonest feedback from somebody like you is what we kind of pride ourselves in at a worldfor change tv. because, you know, we are not
here to filter the truth - we are here tomake sure that everybody has the information they need to make an educated buying decision,similar to the app i was talking about earlier. and i am fascinated with growing things. asi was mentioning earlier, the aquaponics and you can grow vertical - so that's an optionthat doesn't necessarily take dirt to grow food. so that's an option and as a resident,living in that building, could you then come up to the building owner or the managementand say, "you know, i have a suggestion. several of us residents would like to pitch in andwe think we can make a vertical garden that can produce enough food for our salads everyweek." is that something you can consider to do, the way it's set up there?
[alaric]: yeah, that's a really good question,isn't it. and given the physical style of the building maybe not that particular example,but it is a really good point. the citu - the developers behind this building i mean, youknow, they made lots of mistakes, but they stuck around. so the model in britain is thedeveloper puts up a building and runs away laughing, and they could have let someoneelse pick up the pieces when the building doesn't work properly. and so the developerhere has, you know, always promised to, sort of, stick with the building, and so far theyhave done that, which is fantastic. so, yeah, we do have real opportunities to rethink howthe building works, and one of the projects at the moment is to get the residents, hopefully,to start looking after the grounds of the
building. we previously paid gardeners todo that, which is the normal thing you would do for flats, and, yeah, the gardeners haven'tdone a great job, so i think we can do a better one. so there are all these possibilities,but actually just thinking about sustainable food - i mean, this is a really tiny, maybequite insignificant example, but it's a real one in my life. my partner and i order a vegbox, so, you know, you get a box of organic vegetables delivered from a farm, which specializesin local food and this kind of thing. i am living my normal life - i am at work all day.if i was living in a block of flats, it's almost impossible to get something like thatdelivered to you in any useful kind of way. whereas here, we have got a - what..in britain,in scotland [inaudible] we would call him
a janitor or a - what's the name... [wayne meador]: doorman, maybe? [alaric]: a concierge. yeah, sorry, the guysare helping me out, but we have got a guy and he really helps fix things - he is a greatguy, he is called jimmy, helps everyone, helps us do some stuff. if someone wants to deliversomething, jimmy is there to look after it for us and i will just ring him up and say,"jimmy! you got my veg box." and so even that tiny thing of me being able to exercise thosechoices as a consumer to buy in a more sustainable way has been facilitated. but, really, it'squite small changes in how the building is run. it's just about making it more human,yeah, less of a kind of profit machine.
[wayne meador]: yeah, yeah, andy, i am blownaway by this conversation. i mean, i feel like there is so much information here; imight have to probably go back and watch the show again, just to take notes, but reallyit's helping to shape my mentality around what it might be like to live in a inner-citytype of a community. i envision communities being a part of communities that are a partof cities that are a part of, you know, larger regions. so, you know, a community doesn'tjust need to be the building; the community can be that building and all of you who arefriends and who interact together, but, as a whole, you can, you know, do so much moretogether to impact the greater community around you and outside, you know, in the streets.you know, i hope that's happening. we are
sharing a greenroom link to some of the audiencemembers, if they would like to join us. andy would be putting that into the comment sectionon google plus, so if you are watching on youtube, twitter, facebook etc, you will needto come over to google plus of you would like to join us. and when you do, make sure youcome in and you have your mic muted; that way you don't disrupt the discussion. andthen as we get to you, we will be able to unmute your mike and pull you into the discussion.so if you are just now joining us, we are here talking with alaric - he is a residentat a location in leeds called the greenhouse in leeds - it is a development of citu inthe uk, and it is a new sustainable modern style of development, or rather i should say:its an older building that has been redeveloped
to be a sustainable building and a sustainablecommunity. i just really feel like - boy, i don't know, i have got so many questionsgoing on in my head here. andy, maybe we should ask the audience or we should take a lookand see if we have comments to bring in. [andy brine]: i have got a good comment that'scome up and it's in response to one of the - what alaric mentioned earlier - and it'sfrom jessica maynard. and my comment tracker is not popping up - i don't know what's happening- so if you could bring up that comment, wayne. i will mention it at the same time: "i dolove that sustainability is going outside of the 'green, folksy hippies' type people- not that there is a thing wrong with that -being 'green, folksy or hippie' - but itis a beautiful thing to see a different group
of people getting involved in the sustainabilitymovement." and i completely believe. excellent. [alaric]: i wouldn't mind throwing in anothercomment that's come to mind, if that's okay [wayne meador]: we have fifteen minutes andthe floor is yours. we are going to really take the gloves off now and we have giventhem a green room link, so they can come in, if any of the audience members wants to joinus. so go ahead, alaric, i'd like to hear [alaric]: actually, aisling is back now to [wayne meador]: yeah, good deal [alaric]: one of the surprising things tome as well has been that citu - which makes the building - made a facebook page for thebuilding, which is probably not that uncommon
now. but i have never had one before - i don'tlike facebook, you know, all sorts of privacy issues and so forth. but most people in thebuilding use facebook. i tend to see facebook as kind of distracting from the real-lifecommunity, yeah? but one of the nice things about it has been that people really use thatreally effectively, so when you are in a block of flats, you don't bump into your neighborsvery easily. you don't bump into the people in the floor below you, but people will alsosay, i guess in the earliest days, someone was like, "has anyone got a hoover i can borrow- a vacuum cleaner". i don't know why they haven't got one, but we say, "yeah yeah yeah!i have got one", and we get that all the time, so people share stuff in the building, andthrough that facebook group, someone organized
a football team for the building, which hasbeen really successful, and everyone is kind of advertising events that way. and quiteoften, people will turn up to a real life event - maybe once a year, something likethat. you don't get to seem them very often, but because you see them every few weeks,every month or so posting on facebook, you don't forget who they are. so there is a kindof sense of continual, kind of thin community - it doesn't have to be, kind of, having teawith your neighbors every week. you just have a sense of you know who your people are andto be on a conversational terms with them, and actually the facebook page has been really,surprisingly successful for me. and i really appreciate it.
[wayne meador]: yeah, clears a throat, weuse google plus. but you know, nothing against facebook. because i really think that thereis something valuable in what you just said. it brings up a good point, and that is, youknow, we have technology now that can help us come together. and that's what we are doingright now, on a hangout, from multiple parts of the world, and we are sharing this conversation- this incredible bonding time almost as if we are just having this discussion, and weare just giving it away for everybody to learn from. and that really is the embodiment ofwhat you are doing there, internally at a small level. and if we can replicate thatin our lives - in our home lives - each and every day, then it comes out of us as we interactwith other people on a regular basis. so it
really is a good point. we have red baronfarms in the hangout with us. i don't know if we can hear him, andy. i am going to letyou control all that. [andy brine]: he has joined us in the greenroom. i don't know if we can hear him at all [red baron farms]: can you hear me? [wayne meador]: we can.... [andy brine]: yeah, tell us what questionyou have got today for us. thanks for coming on [red baron farms]: well, i was just wondering- you know, sustainability has so many diff factors; you know, there is sustainabilityliving, there is energy, there is your food,
there is the society that you created, buthave you quantified any of these various things, like what percentage of food, for example,or, you know, what percentage of time you [wayne meador]: okay, i think we are gettinga little bit of a digital sound from you there, red baron farms, but what i did get is thereare several different factors - and you listed living, energy, food and society - as it appliesto sustainability, and have they quantified maybe the percentage of food, i guess - isthat the question you were asking? is that the question you were asking? you know, thepercentage of food they can provide in that location? is that the question? okay, we mayhave lost him - my interpretation would have been that.
[alaric]: yeah, i have got some answer tothis, but aisling might want to talk [aisling]: well, alaric will jump in as well,but as a developer what we can quantify really is the energy systems that we put in - youknow, how much energy we save. i suppose, on the food, alaric is right in what he saysthat we will build a sustainable development, but there is different reasons that peoplewill buy here. and some people, you know, they are really interested in the carbon footprintsand so they will search out developments like ourselves. other people realize - oh, it'smuch cheaper to live there because of the energy bills, but not necessarily interestedin being involved as much in the gardening or, you know, but the byproduct of livinghere is that they will reduce their carbon
footprint. so, as a developer, we will anywaycontinue to build houses like this, but i do think the reality is that people have differentnotions for buying. and i think it is the education as well - and if we continue tospread the word, people will, you know, demand more sustainable properties to live in and- you know - search out better ways of living. [alaric]: is it okay if i come in as well?is that alright? [wayne meador]: yep [alaric]: nice. i don't have a straightforwardanswer at all to the excellent question in trying to kind of quantify how sustainablewe are in different areas. it is a really good point, isn't it? sustainability doescome in different forms, and maybe we should
be talking more about being less unsustainablein this building than sustainable, right? well, i did attempt to do a kind of back-of-end- well, it took me a long time - but a back-of-end for like calculations of my carbon footprintfor a year of me living in the building, which is, as you were implying earlier, really hardto do because you can't just get an app and go, "oh! i just bought a toaster. what wasthe carbon footprint of that toaster?" we are not quite at that stage yet, so it wasquite difficult trying to set the calculations to try and do. but for something like thisbuilding, you can work what the carbon impact of this building is, the building and allthe concrete and so forth. but the long-term carbon footprint of that depends on whetherthe building stands for 50 years or 100 years
or 200 years, you know - how much carbon haveyou used per year since it was built. so there are loads of kind of difficult assumptionsto make. and, in the uk, the average carbon emissions per person is about- the carbondioxide equivalent emissions per person - is about 13 metric tons, and it's like what imade up to work out my carbon footprint. and my energy here is much lower than you wouldexpect in a british house, so that's fantastic. but probably because of on-site electricity- there are, kind of, wind turbines here as well - but mostly because of the [inaudible]water system, so that has really helped, you know, it has definitely cut my carbon footprint.at the same time, things like food, you know, i am still kind of buying from the normal- or the reasonably normal food economy. i
get my veg box - i am a vegan, so you know- i mean, beef obviously, for example, has very high carbon footprint, so i have cutthat out, but it is not inherent in this building. i guess my big achievement is that becauseof my job, i fly a reasonable amount, and obviously that has got a huge carbon impact,but the effects of living in this building, cycling to work, eating vegan probably i madethe end of the uk average of 13 tonnes, and as i make a lot more than the average uk income,that's kind of an achievement, even though it is quite a depressing one. building isreally helping me to stay at the uk average despite my excessive consumption. [wayne meador]: we appreciate you being honestand transparent, no it's really good, but,
andy, i am ready to close whenever you are.if we need to bring some other people in or if i am missing any comments. this has justbeen an incredible show and discussion. i feel lifted up just as a result of it. [andy brine]: yeah, one other thing i wasgoing to mention because i saw it on the website. it said that you use upcycle materials interms of furniture as well in that place. so that would lower the footprint at the sametime, wouldn't it? [aisling]: yeah, so, within the furniturein some of the apartments and offices, but also in the building materials as well, sowe have numbers on the door, which are recycled yogurt pots, and we have recycled materialswithin the concrete. the wood we use is bamboo
because it takes eight months to grow a wholecrop, instead of cutting down oak trees, which take hundreds of years to grow. so throughoutthe, sort of, building process, we have tried to use sustainable materials as possible,and all the appliances in the apartments are a-rated. and we also have a 'free-cycle' areawhere one resident - if they no longer need something, they can put it in the 'free cycling'area, and another resident or anyone looking there can make use of it. and, oh, and books.we have a little book, sort of, sharing area, so when you have finished reading a book,you can take one out, so that's quite popular as well. [alaric]: yeah, the 'free-cycle' area, i mean,just from my point of view as a resident.
i don't think about my bamboo floor everyday. it's very nice, but, you know, the 'free-cycle' area really is a part of my life. and it'scompletely normal that people just pop into it and have a look around under there. peoplewill post on facebook and say, 'oh i have just put often quite nice stuff in there'.a fair amount of my furniture came from there. and you know all sorts of - you know, we gotone of those lights that comes on very slowly in the morning, so when you wake up, it'sas if the sun is rising. i could have gone to ikea and spent a 100 pounds on them, andwe just found one in the 'free cycle' area. and there was one there - but it is broken,so we fixed it. and that's light, you know. and that has been really successful, actually.everyone uses it, even if you aren't interested
in greenery because it's just useful for you. [wayne meador]: it seems like this show canjust continue to go on and on. i mean, it's reminding me of - i think it's called a - thelittle red library. it's a program here in the states where people are putting up a littlemailbox size library at the end of their driveway and people can come and exchange the books.and we have a freecycle.org, a free-cycle website very similar to that, but it is socool to see you doing it in your environment like that and making it available to the residents,so, very cool. and jessica maynard - as a matter of fact, i am going to bring up everycomment i can - jessica maynard she just commented and said, "i love the free-cycle idea as well.so wonderful. yeah, i use my library like
crazy. it is very sustainable". and it reallyis. and so is using the internet because it doesn't take any paper at all for us to dothat research minus the carbon its takes to keep the servers running. but, you know, allthat being said, really, i think it's time to wrap it up. it's been a great show. wehave learned a lot together and red baron farm jumped in and joined us in the greenroom as well, so that was incredible. thank you. andy, i will leave it up to you to closeout the show. [andy brine]: well, yeah, i'd just like tosay, thank you again. just like those last comments, for me, it brings a true essenceof a community in so many different aspects, you know, in regard to being sustainable atthe same time. so it just shows what you can
do if you set your mind to it, and obviously,you got a bit of money and backing behind you to make it happen. but a whole communitycan make things happen. well, that's what we are doing here at a world for change. that'swhat we are doing with the show. do you want to bring that comment up quick, wayne, beforewe close? [wayne meador]: no, it's fine. go ahead. [andy brine]: so, yeah, i say thanks againfor coming along. i really appreciate it. what i will say is next week is a new month,february, and that brings a new theme. our theme for next month is going to be 'sustainabilityand clothing'. so we are looking forward to bringing some different experts to talk aboutdifferent areas of sustainable clothing, from
upcycle clothing to different ways of reusingcertain products to create sustainable clothing, and so much more. so tune in next week, sametime: 1 pm est and 6 pm gmt. and we do look forward to seeing you all again next week.bye for now. thank you!