Hi Folks:

I was going to talk about intentional communities last week but life got in the way.  Actually, last Friday night Marcia and I were at an open meeting to discuss Victoria’s Official Community Plan.  In a way this fits in as sustainability, green building, water and energy are key issues for any OCP.  Vancouver has recently gone through a similar process, as are other cities around the world.

A topic like ‘intentional communities’ is vast, certainly more than can be contained in one writing (even if that writing was a book), and the idea of an intentional community means many different things to many different people.  However, since I’m writing this I get to define some of the parameters at least, and others are most welcome to continue the discussion in the comments below.  Let’s break this down into its components: intention and community.

Intention means to do ‘something’ deliberately.  One definition of intention is:

“intention

noun

1: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions; “his intent was to provide a new translation”; “good intentions are not enough”; “it was created with the conscious aim of answering immediate needs”; “he made no secret of his designs” [syn: {purpose}, {intent}, {aim}, {design}]”

There are two ways of looking at a definition of ‘community’.  One is that it comes from two base words – ‘com’, which is Latin for ‘with’, and ‘unity’, which infers a oneness of purpose, idea or design.  The other uses the Latin word ‘commun’ as a base, which means ‘in common’.  Either way, a community is a group that share a common purpose, common ideas, objects or lifestyle.  Incidentally, ‘pan’ comes from the Latin for ‘bread’, so company or companion means one with whom you share bread.

In any event, an intentional community then is a group of people who have a specific purpose of coming together to share in some common goal.  It may be to share energy, food, religious or cultural values or other attributes, but since this blog is primarily about sustainability in myriad forms, I’m going to filter my topic through that sieve.  We also need to consider what a community is – a town, a city, a neighbourhood, a rural community, or all of the above?  And what criteria should we consider – water, energy, food, transportation, sustainability, mixed-income, mixed housing, cohousing, commercial opportunities… more?

I don’t even know the name of the first intentional community I ever heard about (Findhorn was the second one for me).  All I really remember is that they had invented what was known locally as the ‘green money’ system.  This was long before being ‘green’ became in vogue, and since the government generally frowned on groups or individuals developing their own currencies (there are exceptions now, such as the Toronto Dollar or Salt Spring Dollar programs), instead every person in this community had an account.  Labour or products within the community could be charged in ‘green’, which basically meant that one person’s account was credited and the other’s debited.  For an auto mechanic, for example, one might pay for the parts in cash and the labour in green.  Seemed like a good idea to me.

The next idea for an intentional community I heard about was the Bamberton project on eastern Vancouver Island.  Started in 1988 the project had both wide support and some opposition; in some ways it may have simply been ahead of its time.  Guy Dauncey used to have a list of the covenants and other materials related to this community but unfortunately it’s been removed from his site.  The project was begun by David Butterfield and others at the Trust for Sustainable Development in Victoria, and while it was unsuccessful¹, it did become a springboard for the later projects like Shoal Point in Victoria and the community of Civano in Arizona.

I got to thinking about this idea again recently because one of the members of the Advisory Board for the Trust for Sustainable Development, Doug Makaroff is currently involved with a similar project called Living Forest Communities.  They’re currently working on a project north of Victoria called Elkington Forest, and they’ve also started the Everwoods project on Cortes Island.

That got me thinking about other intentional communities.  I’ve written before about Greensburg, KS, a small farming town that was all but obliterated by a class 5 tornado, and rebuilt as a model ‘green’ town.  Then I went looking through my more than 14,000 bookmarks, an organizational project in itself that I dread taking on!  Here are some of the links I found (in no particular order):

• Community Energy Association
• Delicious Peace Coffee Company: JJ Keki, a coffee farmer in Uganda went to his Christian, Jewish and Muslim neighbours and convinced a few of them to form a cooperative so that they would get sustainable prices for their coffee and peace and prosperity for themselves and their communities.  That was the beginning of Mirembe Kawomera Coffee, which means, “Delicious Peace” in the Luganda language.
• Grupo Fenix: An organization in Nicaragua that offers courses for people to broaden their knowledge of solar power and sustainable development, while living in a local rural community and helping with reforestation and other projects.
• Providence Farm – A Therapeutic Community: Located just north of Victoria, a working organic farm dedicated to restoring the spirit and skills of those with physical, mental and emotional challenges.
• Playa Viva -  Sustainable Resort & Residence Community: Zihuatanejo, Mexico
• Southface: a nonprofit organization that for more than 30 years has promoted energy, water and resource-efficient workplaces, homes and communities throughout the Southeast US.
• Jonathan Rose Companies: An architectural firm with several offices in the US, involved with the creation of several sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods, including this one.
  • Creating the Planning and Infrastructure Framework for Mixed Use Mixed Income Transit-Oriented and Urban-Infill Development (.pdf)
• Battery Park City, New York
• Enterprise Green Communities
• American Planning Association Green Communities Research Center
• Sustainable Development: Growing Green Communities (National Center for Biotechnology Information)
• BeadForLife: Eradicating Poverty One Bead at a Time
• Community Enhancement and Economic Development Society – South Cariboo Region, BC
• Okotoks, AB – Sustainable Okotoks
• Blue Zones: Live Longer, Better
• LocalHarvest – Community-Supported Agriculture
• Eight Tips from the Experts to Make Your Community Shared Agriculture Project a Success
• Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community
• Smart Planning for Communities Initiative (formerly Integrated Community Sustainability Planning) (BC Ministry of Rural and Community Development)
• Cowichan Green Community
• Cowichan Land Trust Green Map
• Woodwynn Therapeutic Community: Woodwynn Farms is our 193 acre organic farm for our therapeutic community for the homeless, offering an opportunity to change peoples’ lives with educational and work programmes based on responsibility, dignity, independence and the principles of peer-to-peer help. (also just north of Victoria)
• Everdale Organic Farm and Environmental Learning Centre – Hillsburgh, ON
• Urban Agriculture Notes by City Farmer – Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
• LISC: Local Initiatives Support Colation – Helping neighbours build communities
• Alison & Associates: Creating powerful, effective, and well-resourced nonprofits and community collaborations

That’s probably enough to start with.  The last link in this category I’m going to leave to Enrique Peñalosa – the former mayor of the city of Bogota, Columbia who achieved a transformation in that city nothing short of miraculous.  If you have any more ideas to share, leave them below!  Community is all about involvement, after all.

Okay, the links for this week include:

• Eco-mmunity Greenzine
• 3rd Whale – The Find Green App
• Algae Aviation Fuel: While this won’t reduce the 65-70 million barrels of oil used annually by the US Military, it’s certainly more sustainable, and that’s worth some celebration!
• GREENGUARD Environmental Institute: Healthy Indoor Environments
• Gaining Ground 2010 – Eco-Logical: Best Plans for Green Cities October 4-7, 2010 – Vancouver, BC
• How Much Does a Business Need to Believe in Sustainability to Do It Well?
• Veracruz Biomimicry & Design Workshop: June 18-26, 2010, Veracruz, Mexico
• Biomimicry Institure: The Great TV Rebellion of 2010 Take Part – April 19-25, 2010
• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (book review)
• GreenGuard Launches Revamped Website for Eco-Conscious Parents
• BASF Online Campus for High-Performance Construction
  • Improving the Performance of Existing Commercial Buildings: The Chemistry of Sustainable Retrofits (.pdf)
• From Trash to Treasure: Recology, Inc.
• Reduce Cleaning Needs with an Entrance Flooring System
• When Green Becomes Code
• ED+C magazine: Articles
• The Green Practitioner: That sweet, sweet smell…of VOCs
• Editor’s Note: Applause: Building Industry Codes Catching Up!
• Sustainable Facility magazine: Articles
• US Department of Energy: Solar Decathalon
• The Fun Factor: Incorporating an element of humor into sustainable communications not only bolsters the message, but can change behavior too.
• Intel Amends Corporate Charter To Include Sustainability
• Americans rebuild for the ‘new urban century’
• 100 Blogs Every Science Student Should Subscribe To (of course, for grammar students it would be ‘100 Blogs to Which Every Grammar Student Should Subscribe’)
• Façade Stabilization Solutions: preserving the past and building the future! – webinar, April 21, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT
• The Keys to Green Affordable Housing: A Guide for Existing Multifamily Properties – three webinars on April 1, April 15 and May 13, 2010, 1:00-2:30 p.m. EDT
• The Copenhagen Accord at Three Months: 110 Countries Now Support a New Global Effort to Achieve Climate Safety
• Green Building Advisor eNews
• Domes of Carbon Over U.S. Cities Damage Urban Health
• Understanding Green Schools – webinar, on demand until March 17, 2011
• Sustainable Facility eNews
• Healthy Building eNews
• Visiting China, Seeing Green: CAP Goes to China to Investigate its Clean Energy Investment Strategy

That’s it for this week.  See you next Friday!
Mike.

P.S.  Assuming that you have your own garden, how about this: How to Garden with Urine: Make your own fertilizer for free

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1 I’ve heard that another development company has taken over the Bamberton area. Although their plans will certainly differ from the original, I trust they’ll maintain at least the same spirit in their design.