In order to create the sustainable future, we must do more than just develop technical solutions. We also need to think about how individuals in a neighborhood live and interact. Property owners often focus solely on renovation of worn buildings and installations during refurbishment, while making them more energy efficient. It’s easy to forget that the people who live and work in the area are an important factor determining what can be accomplished when reducing environmental impact.
The individual’s impact
Individual behavior has a significant impact on resource usage, mainly the use of electricity and hot water, minimizing and recycling waste as well as transportation and travel. A good understanding about energy and resource issues are important to achive acceptance about implementation of technical measures that are often perceived as disruptions in everyday life.
Property owners and residents
A conscious approach to the way people in an area can interact to reduce their own environmental impact is an important tool for housing and communities in efforts to develop future sustainable neighbourhoods. The project addresses the issue “how can property owners, residents and those working in the neighbourhood, interact to reduce energy usage and other resources using simple means?”
Finding good examples
The project will create inspirational and repeatable examples of how resource efficiency can be achieved by engaging the people who live and/or work in Stockholm suburb of Hökarängen. This will be done at the same time as Hˆker‰ngen is undergoing extensive technical energy and waste improvements, as well as renovation of outdoor environments, housing facades, local facilities, etc… The propoerty owner, Stockholmshem, will invest some SEK 300 million during the project (end of 2014).
As a result, energy usage will be reduced by over 35 percent. The work focuses thereby not only on energy usage but also on reducing the carbon emissions associated with energy. Calculated reduction are estimated to 40-50%, equivalent to 2,000 to 2,500 tons of carbon dioxide.