One Planet Living® at Grow Community

One Planet Living® at Grow Community

If everyone in the world lives like an average European, we will need 3 planets to live on.

If everyone in the world lives like an average North American, we will need 5 planets to live on

What if we didn’t have unlimited clean water and air, and only a finite area in which to have built places and play places, farming places and wild places?

What if there were just ONE planet?

What is One Planet Living?

The One Planet Living® program envisions a world in which it is easy, attractive, and affordable for all of us to lead happy, healthy lives with fewer of the earth’s resources.

One Planet Living® uses ten guiding principles as a framework for building healthy, vital communities. The program was developed by Bioregional, an international, non-profit environmental organization. Grow Community’s first neighborhood The Village was one of nine endorsed One Planet Communities® in the world, and the second in North America.

As a member of Grow Community, you don’t have to make big sacrifices, learn a bunch of new stuff, or completely turn your life around to live here. We did that for you.

Learn more about One Planet Living

Our Ten Guiding One Planet Principles

Encouraging active, sociable, meaningful lives to promote good health and well being.

Imagine requiring less to be happy and healthy, yet feeling that your life was full. Imagine connecting, inspiring, and thriving among those around you. Imagine if this was simply just the good life, and green was just a color.

Making buildings energy efficient and delivering all energy with renewable technologies.

Imagine living in a house that produces more than it consumes. Have you ever seen the meter run backward? You will.

Reducing the need to travel, and encouraging low and zero carbon modes of transport to reduce emissions.

Imagine being a five minute walk from everything you need. Imagine taking your bike in for a tune up. Imagine not driving “thru” anything, especially your life.

Grow Community enjoys a great Walkability Score.

Reducing waste, reusing where possible, and ultimately sending zero waste to landfill.

Imagine telling your grandchildren, “when I was your age, they actually had to come and pick up garbage in a big truck.”

Using sustainable and healthy products, such as those with low embodied energy, sourced locally, made from renewable or waste resources.

Imagine breathing easier knowing your home won’t have that “new house” smell.

Respecting and reviving local identity, wisdom and culture; encouraging the involvement of people in shaping their community and creating a new culture of sustainability.

Imagine knowing the full history and heritage of the place you call home. Imagine having more art and drama in your life. You know, the kind that doesn’t require a remote control or a therapist.

Using water efficiently in buildings, farming and manufacturing. Designing to avoid local issues such as flooding , drought and water course pollution.

Imagine knowing where your water comes from, and where it goes when very little of it goes down the drain. Imagine knowing where the island’s salmon streams are, when the lowest low tide is, and how to water the garden from your rain barrel.

Protecting and restoring biodiversity and creating new natural habitats through good land use and integration into the built environment.

Imagine knowing which month brings berries, the difference between a spruce and a fir, and the nesting season of migrating robins, hummingbirds, and eagles. Imagine learning all this from your kitchen window, your patio. Imagine nibbling on raspberries on your walk to the movies.

Supporting sustainable and humane farming, promoting access to healthy, low impact, local, seasonal and organic diets and reducing food waste.

Imagine getting your hands dirty from harvesting your own food from your neighborhood pea patch, or selecting the freshest seasonal varieties from your farmer’s market. Imagine shopping at a grocery store that bought most of its fruit and vegetables from local farmers.

Creating bioregional economies that support equity and diverse local employment and international fair trade.

Imagine living in a home and a community where the cost of living makes sense. Where you can choose to own a car. Or not. Where the energy company sends you a check rather than a bill. Where you can contribute to growing a true local economy.

Click here to meet GROWmit our One Planet Frog representing the one earth we all share.