deliverable report deliverable no.: d6.11.c work … deliverables report_d6.11c.pdf · the...

Integrated Project

PRIORITY 6: Sustainable development, global change and ecosystems. Sub-priority: Sustainable energy sys-

tems.

Date: 17th September 2012

Authors: Tina Opalic, Velimir Segon, Pauline Ryan, Catherine Ryan

Version: 1.0

CONCERTO is co-funded by the European Commission

Project Acronym: SERVE REF EC: (Project Number) TREN07/FP6EN/S.07.71106/038382

REF (project coordinator org.): DOCUMENT: SERVE Ecovillage Social Case Study REF.:

Project Coordinator: Seamus Hoyne Project coordination org.: Limerick Institute of Technology Date: 17st September 2012 Revision: 1

CONCERTO INITIATIVE SERVE

Sustainable Energy for the Rural Village

Environment

Deliverable Report Deliverable No.: D6.11.c

Work Package No: 6

Deliverable Report

SERVE 2

Table of contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................ 3

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 4 1.1 BACKGROUND ON THE SERVE PROJECT .................................................................................................. 4 1.2 OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE .......................................................................................................................... 4

2 SURVEYING METHODOLOGY AND SAMPLE ............................................................................................ 6

3 CLOUGHJORDAN ECOVILLAGE – ETHOS AND FACILITIES ................................................................... 8

4 RESULTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 9 4.1 CASE STUDY BASIC INFORMATION ............................................................................................................. 9 4.2 MOTIVATION AND REASONS FOR MOVING TO CLOUGHJORDAN ECOVILLAGE .............................................. 10 4.3 MAIN BENEFITS FOR BEING A PART OF ECOVILLAGE COMMUNITY .............................................................. 12 4.4 MAIN ISSUES/CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED .............................................................................................. 15 4.5 OVERALL SATISFACTION WITH THE VILLAGE PROJECT .............................................................................. 16 4.6 INFLUENCE OF ECOVILLAGE AND PREDICTED IMPACT ON REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL .......................... 18 4.7 SUGGESTIONS ON IMPROVING THE ECOVILLAGE STRUCTURE, ORGANIZATION, ACTIVITIES AND ITS’ PROMOTION THROUGH MEDIA .............................................................................................................................. 19

5 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 21

REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................................... 23

ANNEX I: BASELINE STUDY QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................... 24

ANNEX II: SOCIAL CASE STUDY NO. 1 ............................................................................................................ 26






Executive Summary

An ecovillage is an alternative model to mainstream culture of living. It is set as an intentional community whose members strive to live in a socially and environmentally sustainable manner, to practice voluntary simplicity in search for life satisfaction and fulfillment. As such they are often seen as holistic communities, relying on a three-legged stool – balancing between challenges and practical efforts to create a meanin-gful life, one that offers satisfaction on personal, social and ecological level. This report presents the results of the surveying among chosen Ecovillagers residing in the Irelands’ first founded as one of the activities in the SERVE project. The surveying was performed as part of the activi-ties aimed to assess the impact of the SERVE project from socio-economic viewpoint, aiming to highlight the Ecovillagers upgrade in the lifestyle which resulted from merging with the culture and ethos of a sus-tainable community, their personal satisfaction with the project but also disappointment with certain as-pects of the community life. The focus was on the following main objectives:

Exploring the residents’ motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage and thus becoming a part of the community with a pioneer model not only in the region but in Ireland

Assessing main benefits and quality of life gains deriving from the Ecovillage life on one hand and challenges and issues encountered on the other

Portraying whether the expectations of the residents were met through their overall satisfaction with the Village project

Predicting the Ecovillages’ impact on regional and national level

Finding ways to improve the already existing structure and organisation of the Ecovillage and its media coverage

Ecovillagers’ opinions and thoughts on their somewhat radically changed lifestyle were assessed and highlighted through semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted during July and August 2012 while the approach adopted for data gathering was one of a phenomenological nature. As a mode of inquiry that unveils the complexity of human experience, phenomenology is known as a method that aims to get 'to the things themselves' through creating written descriptions of personal experience as the source of all claims to knowledge (Conklin, 2007, p. 276) and thus was a logical choice. Social case studies proved as an invaluable source of information on the Ecovillage model, as the model itself suggests that the possibility of a sustainable society depends not only on what we do, but on how we think, and the un-derstanding that these mutually influence one another. The results of the Case Studies have managed to portray the inseparate bond between nature and society (Goldman and Schurman 2000). Hopefully, the results of the study will have its share in intensifying the need to revise the conceptual divide between society and nature as the efforts of improving environmental and neglecting social and personal are inad-equate, as are efforts of forming intentional community that lack the attention to ecology. This research certainly enabled all the dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in ecological build-ing development as the Village to be shown but to also to reflect on the SERVE project and its' impact on the society.

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background on the SERVE project

The SERVE project is funded under the EU CONCERTO Programme and aims to develop a sustainable region in North Tipperary, Ireland, through the implementation of actions in the field of sustainable energy. Actions include energy upgrades for existing dwellings, installation of renewable energy heating systems and the development of an Ecovillage in Cloughjordan. The Village project is a lot more than an eco-housing estate - set out with the objective of Building Sustainable Community is now putting in many sys-tems to build resilience. As well as the planned 130 high performance homes, renewable energy for heat-ing, land for growing food and trees, an enterprise centre and community buildings, the project is champi-oning community supported agriculture, exploring community currencies, introducing local democracy and governance systems and playing a part in the strengthening of the local and regional economy back-ground. The activities within the SERVE project have also included the development of a biomass district heating system for the Ecovillage – first of a kind in Ireland and the establishing of an ESCO which would operate and run the system. The completion and implementation of the system was as planned finalized at the end of 2009. In addition to the technical and environmental benefits which will be brought about by the SERVE project, the objectives also include the assessment of the impact of the project on the SERVE region and its citi-zens from a socio-economic viewpoint. The work in this area is organised through a separate Work Pack-age, namely WP6: Socio-Economic Analysis and Research, with the following tasks:

Provide a detailed analysis of the impact on job creation and service supply.

Provide a coherent overview and prepare (scenario based) forecasts for replication both within North Tipperary and beyond.

Identify opportunities for the development of Energy Supply Companies (ESCO's) within Ireland

Perform an analysis of local funding and money flows from proposed action

Perform an evaluation of the different externalities of the above-mentioned chains compared to key alternatives for the different timeframes envisaged; applicable to regional conditions in the SERVE project.

Perform an analysis of payback time for proposed SERVE project measures in buildings sector as well as other cost-benefit and SWOT analysis as appropriate.

Study the effects on health, involvement of citizens, attitudes of building owners and consumers, acceptance and effects of job growth for concrete cases included in this project.

The focus of the socio-economic analysis done was not only to study effects of job growth for concrete cases included in this project thus exploring the economic side but to also focus on the social elements of the project – by providing clear picture how the project changed society as a whole focusing on health aspects, involvement of citizens and local politicians, perception of population towards sustainable devel-opment, attitudes of installers and householders of retrofitted houses and portraying the nature of the cre-ated Ecovillage community through the views of the Ecovillagers.

1.2 Objectives and scope

The general objective of this report is related to the WP6 tasks as mentioned in the Introduction, specifi-cally related to the ones emphasizing the sociological side of the research – to study the effects on health,

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involvement of citizens, attitudes of building owners and consumers based on the surveys of attitudes, opinion and knowledge, acceptance and effects of job growth for concrete cases included in this project. This resulted in the series of case studies which gathered the personal retrospective of involved house holders of retrofitted homes, the installation workers, the councillors of the North Tipperary region as well as the Ecovillagers. The case studies enabled all the dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in ecological building development as the Village to be shown but also to reflect on the SERVE project and its' impact on the society. As the report will aim to highlight their upgrade in the lifestyle which resulted from the merging with the culture and ethos of a sustainable community, their personal satisfaction with the project but also disap-pointment with certain aspects of the community life, it is hoped to provide inspiration to those willing to replicate the model. The information provided on the advantages of forming a sustainable community will provide assistance in progressing other energy reduction and energy saving projects. The specific objective of this report is to provide a detailed scenario of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage suc-cess story portraying the nature of the created sustainable community through the views of the Ecovillag-ers grasping their experiential world. The following key objectives are in the focus of this report:

Exploring the residents’ motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage and thus becoming a part of the community with a pioneer model not only in the region but in Ireland.

Assessing the main benefits and quality of life gains deriving from the Ecovillage life on one hand and challenges and issues encountered on the other.

Portraying whether the expectations of the residents were met through their overall satisfaction with the Village project.

Predicting the Ecovillages’ impact on regional and national level .

Finding ways to improve the already existing structure and organisation of the Ecovillage and its media coverage.

This report focuses on these particular five objectives through the analyses of case studies which offered multiple perspectives on shared experience in order to show all dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in ecological building development such as the Village.

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2 Surveying methodology and sample

The surveying was conducted among six residents within the Village through semi-structured interviews allowing to interviewer to tailor the questions to the interview context and to the residents interviewed. The residents were chosen for interviewing based on voluntary bases and according to certain criteria decided by the researcher. The voluntary aspect has by far most facilitated the surveying due to residents’ interest in discussing the development of the Village and their willingness to share their inner perspective. Such purposive sampling of most active and connected residents has led to representative sample as a result. Gender equity was ensured by including equal number of male and female interviewees. The following are the names of those who took part (Table 1.).

Table 1. List of Ecovillagers interviewed

Name Case Number House type Type of material used

Una McNamara 1 Terraced house Timber framed house, lime-hemp render

Pa Finucane 2 Four storey building (hostel) Outer insulation used

Brendan Power 3 Two storey detached house Timber frame with cast hemp and lime walls

Annemarie Nugent 4 Two storey kit house Closed wall timber construction

Elaine Kelly 5 Two storey passive design house

Swedish pre-manufactured tim-ber framed

John Jopling 6 Detached two storey house Hemp-lime construction

A questionnaire was designed specific to the research topic, containing five particular objectives to show all dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in the Village but also to reflect on the success of the SERVE project. Exploring the residents’ motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage and thus emerging into a novel type of a community was certainly one of the key issues addressed. The questionnaire also aimed to assess the main benefits and quality of life gains deriving from the ecovillage life on one hand and challenges and issues encountered on the other. An attempt to determine whether their expectations have been met was part of the third objective trying to portray their overall satisfaction with the Village project. The fourth objective of the questionnaire reflected on the predicted impact of the Ecovillage on the society while the last objective was aimed at gathering opinions on improving the organi-zation and structure established in the Village together with its representation in the media. These specific topics explored during the interview were thought about well in advance through desktop research on so-cial aspects of the ecovillages already established throughout the world. The interviews were conducted during July and August 2012, taking place in each of the respondents’ homes, taking between 30-60 minutes, depending on the individual respondent. The interviews were semi-structured based on a core set of questions, each set designed to cover different thematic frame-works whilst the form in which the questions were asked (the stance of curiosity adopted by the interview-er) did not bias the results. The approach adopted for data gathering was one of a phenomenological nature. As a mode of inquiry that unveils the complexity of human experience, phenomenology is known as a method that aims to get 'to the things themselves' through creating written descriptions of personal experience as the source of all claims to knowledge (Conklin, 2007, p. 276) and thus was a logical choice. The qualitative data from re-search participants has been gathered, focusing on the nature of their community experiences accumulat-ed at this point of time which assumed an interdependence of social, spatial and psychological processes with an aim of realizing authenticity in the environment. The following sources of information were used for the preparation of this report to focus on as many as-pects of the case:

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Desktop research – existing information, reports and case studies on established ecovillage mod-els across Europe and beyond;

Information derived directly from the interviews which were later on described in the Case studies;

Information provided directly from the company SPIL which has established the Ecovillage. Data were obtained through direct communication as well as from a variety of written information avail-able on the web.

The case studies were based on transcription of semi-structured interviews and their analyses carried out during July and August 2012. For the purpose of this report further analysis was done searching for pat-terns in statements across cases that lead to characteristics that are not part of the phenomenon and those that are. Separate case study material was reduced into a smaller set of categories until essence was captured across cases. After analysing the obtained information, it was possible to identify challenges and benefits of a sustainable community way of living which includes new opportunities for personal de-velopment and finally to make relevant conclusions and recommendations.

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3 Cloughjordan Ecovillage – ethos and facilities

Located in fields adjacent to Cloughjordan’s main street, Ecovillage was created by the company Sustain-able Projects Ireland Ltd. Incorporated in 1999, trading as The Village, SPIL is registered as Educational Charity. Run along co-operative principles, SPIL has a context of a community where rights and responsi-bilities of making the project work successfully are shared out to its members. Accordingly, the evolving decision-making processes are founded on the Consensus Model, with practical structures in place to ensure that the company will achieve its aims The Village is both an organisation - a company limited by guarantee and a community - articles of association ensure that the group operates as a co-operative. A legally binding member’s agreement defines members' rights and obligations. In addition members sub-scribe to an ecological charter which sets out guidelines for the design of the development and which will continue to affect all future operations. As a company that has been using an evolving structure of consensus decision-making for many years, decisions that enjoy popular support are arrived at within a very short time-frame. The framework within which the company's strategies are formulated is well comprised in the SPIL's mission statement explain-ing its raison d'etre: To serve as an education, enterprise and research service resource for all. Much of the early years were spent developing the structure and ethos of the company and raising finance to buy land for the Ecovillage. Capital was raised through the members putting in their own money and through a bank loan. In 2003 members adopted the idea of shared purposes and principles of shared out responsibilities. Since then members have adopted a revolutionary organisational system which gives maximum autonomy to all participants. It represents a shift towards the new paradigm of self-organising adaptive systems instead of command-and-control ways of organising. In 2005 the land was purchased in Cloughjordan and Outline Planning Permission for a sustainable com-munity of 130 homes and work units was received. The infrastructure work began in February 2007 and March 2009 was the starting date for construction of the first homes. The first residents of the Ecovillage moved into their new homes in December 2009. By now, building is complete or well underway for many of the planned 114 low-energy homes and 16 live-work units. The buildings which have been constructed are indeed exceeding the SERVE energy targets; the average energy performance of residential buildings (54 kWh/m

2/yr) are indeed 24% better than SERVE original targets at 70 kWh/m

2/yr. As regards the two

non-residential buildings in the Ecovillage, one is completed, the Community Hostel Building – 588 m2 and

it will play an important role in providing on site accommodation to the many interested visitors and course participants that rhe Ecovillage is attracting. The Enterprise Building will host a Community Enterprise Centre (518m

2) that will provide eco-entrepreneurship workspace along with an innovation hub, with trai-

ning and education being a key feature of potential income generation. The Ecovillage is surrounded by 50 acres of land dedicated to woodland and active food production. The SPIL company provides its members with fully serviced sites which have either outline planning per-mission, or full planning permission for certain buildings. All buildings are built by members in line with the overall Master Plan design, and with Ecological Charter specifications. When one purchases a site in the Ecovillage he/ she automatically becomes a member of Sustainable Projects Ireland Ltd. Site price was determined by two amounts – Site Purchase Price and Community Development Charge. A person pur-chasing a site within the Ecovillage paid two amounts to SPIL:

Site Purchase Price. This charge covers the cost of the site and the provision of utility services such as, electricity, water, sewage, fibre optic cable, district heating pipe and access to an allot-ment.

Community Development Charge. This charge is a contribution towards the cost of construction of the District Heating Plant and Solar Park. With this fee it was also planned to cover the cost of providing an 800 litre buffer tank and a house station to each house. Internal heating installation such as under floor heating or radiators were viewed as additional cost and as such had to be covered by the homeowner.

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4 Results

The survey results are divided according to the framework of themes bound to be explored by the ques-tionnaire and are listed as follows:

Case study basic information.

Motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage and becoming a part of the com-munity.

Main benefits for being a part of Ecovillage community.

Main issues/challenges encountered.

Overall satisfaction with the Village project.

Influence of eco village and predicted impact on regional and national level.

Suggestions on improving the structure and organisation of the eco village and its promotion through media.

4.1 Case study basic information

Questions within this group:

Name of Ecovillage community member and address

Background on Ecovillage community member- age, profession, previous social background and type of residence, personal interests, attitudes toward environment protection and sustainable de-velopment / level of knowledge and information on RES, RUE utilisation, where and how were they informed about The Village project

Short background on other household members

Short description of household (type of house, build method used, area of household, allotment area – if they are growing their own food...)

Photos of the household, household owner and other members sharing the household

Level of involvement in the Ecovillage structure (SPIL Board Member, Part of Working Group etc) The first and second set of questions were designed with intention to sketch the society background from the interviewees were coming from before deciding to settle at the Ecovillage. Basic information on their professional occupation, the model for the house built chosen and the way of finding out about the Village were included, so the portraits of their personality and character would become more vivid. Initial insight on the background of all six case studies reveals an array of diverse personalities, dispositions, situations and experienced life lessons which acted as a catalyst that forced reflection on their lives and lead them eventually to move and emerge in creating the Village. All six residents participated in the survey on voluntary bases, willing to discuss the development of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage and share their opinions and personal views on the Village project as awhole. This approach led to representative sample of either most active or most connected residents. Although, in the Cloughjordan Ecovillage level of community involvement that each resident experiences is purely an individual decision, five out of six interviewees are almost uniquely passionate about their involvement in the community activities of the Ecovillage whilst the sixth interviewee, occupied at the moment by her work commitments and raising young children, was one of the first to move with her family to the Village. Their proactive role taken on in the Village structure (varying from management positions in the Service Com-pany, SPIL board membership, being part of programmes and working groups organised within the Vil-lage, voluntary tour guiding etc.) shows that these members are not merely participating in the Village life but far more - creating and defining it. A parallel could be linked to the assumption that social participation in the local community is essential for community identity (Cuba, Hummon, 1993)

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As for the means of finding out about the project, half of the interviewees have heard about the Ecovillage through media (internet, TV, radio) and after participating in experience weekend decided to settle down in the community. The other half came across the Village project through word of mouth – one interviewee was exposed to the Ecovillage concept at the Cultivate Centre in Dublin, through a form inviting member-ship to the Village project; while interest of another arose from his previous active involvement in promot-ing a greener and more sustainable culture in London where he lived. The Ecovillage is a showcase of a wide variety of build methods, including passive house timber frame, lime-hemp and cob construction. Each member decides on the material composition of their home, in line with planning permission and the Village Ecological Charter. The Village has the first lime-hemp construc-tion used on a large-scale housing project in Ireland. The type of houses chosen by the residents inter-viewed show that they are keen on putting forward a novel way of using materials, methods and standards in both construction and architecture. In relation, the choice of lime hemp was noticed in our sample – two of our interviewees opted for a timber framed house with cast hemp and lime walls (lime-hemp internal and external render), whilst the third opted for a hemp-lime construction. One interviewee used innovative outsulation (external thermal insulation) combined with southerly/ westerly orientation of the building to minimize heath loss while the other has opted for a hemcrete house with a difference - in an effort to cut down on waste, he has chosen to use the whole of the hemp plant rather than just hemp hurds as is usu-ally the case. This innovative design of other interviewee house was made by architect Michael Rice and draws on the philosophies of sacred geometry and 'Holistic Architecture’

1.

4.2 Motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage

Questions within this group: Description/opinion from member:

Personal motivation (who motivated them, what were they influenced by…).

Quality of living reasons (every day stress, pollution, environment, food, social connections, cul-tural other).

Social motivators (level of overall connection with the society before moving, with neighbours, people…).

Personal reasons (need for change, need to influence the society, divorce, separation/ starting a family.

Comfort and energy consumption and costs (Heating system; Wall/roof insulation; Win-dows/doors; Other – comparison).

Other important aspects. Second thematic frame of the questionnaire is motivation – exploring the individual motivators and influ-ences that have inspired the interviewees to act and bring somewhat radical change into their life by their decision of transferring to a pioneer community, which in some cases referred to a wider aspect than just the physical act of moving. This was certainly one of the key issues addressed throughout the interview, and has by far most, when compared to other themes revealed residents' innermost and fundamental beliefs and attitudes. This seemed inevitable as their search for answers on a simple question of how did they get here triggered reflection on their life experience gained so far. In residents' narrative, accounts of certain level of disconnectedness and alienation from conventional social patterns were noted (whether on a personal level or due to outer circumstances (community/global). Unsurprisingly, recursive coding of all six respondings has captured one word that has been constantly repeated in every answer (all six re-spondents) – community. Residents have notably stated the importance of community aspect of the Ecovillage – whether a community of like-minded and supportive individuals was seen as an additional

1 Holistic Architecture is designing a home or business incorporating unique design elements; environmentally

sustainable/green products and energy/physics into a cohesive wholeness to produce a physical, spiritual and emotional well-being into the design/ home/business. What sets Holistic architecture apart from traditional archi-tecture is completing the wholeness by adding the design element of energy – the understanding and utilization of the universal laws of energy. (Hollistic Architects, 2009).

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benefit, whether belonging to a family-safe, inclusive and already established community was their priority need, whether they discovered they lack of a true connectedness with their previous community which could not been established through superficial neighbourliness but through community activism, whether they felt the need to become a part of an integrated village community as a more extended version of a family as an alternative to urban nuclear family – they all seem to be aware that the community aspect, in one way or another, was an important part of their motivation. Three out of six have also noted the benefits of communities' rural settlement as a part of their motivation – strong motivation to emerge in a village life due to childhood memories, ecovillage integration into an existing village offering facilities and services, strong belief that traditional village life is filled with purpose as opposed to urban conglomerates are the reasons listed. In a wider sense, the need for being a part of the community resonates with the inherent human yearning for belonging. Thus, it is far from surprise that the ways in which the interviewees are seeking to establish the authentic reconnection with the society have emerged through multiple forms as an answer to this set of questions. These results are completely in line with the concept underpinning the Ecovillage movement – it is not just about emphasizing environmental sustainability - social and economic equity are given the same im-portance as the environment. In fact the answer in why the worldwide phenomenon of the Ecovillage movement has struck the cord creating far resonance and could even become the future of the housing development, lies in its encompassing approach to address the inadequacy of modern lifestyle - on both social and ecological field. It is the winning blend of environmental concern and community concept based on social cohesion and spirit of togetherness which makes the distinguishing difference between the Ecovillage phenomenon from the next environmentally sustainable development/ intentional community. In fact it’s the interaction between residents which forms the heart and soul of The Ecovillage community (C. Walton, 2009). In line with the above described, it was not just the community aspect which the residents found appeal-ing, equal importance was given to expressed sustainability concerns whether of environmental, social or economic nature (in all six answers the residents referred to both. This is in line with the core essence of Ecovillage community – marriage of environmental con-cern and the social component and thus is no surprise. However, what was somewhat surprising was the stable balance in the representative sample between these two – although both mentioned among all the respondents, community factors were per-ceived as the stronger motivator in three out of six case studies, while the other three gave precedence to shaping more sustainable future from ecologic, social or economic perspective. Residents have strongly expressed their need for establishing more sustainable lifestyles and showed deep awareness regarding the environmental and social issues as well as reluctance toward the inherent sense of the unsustainable pattern of modern lifestyles. Opinions reflected on the breakdown of communi-ty principles as modern life has become even more segmented in an unnatural way, thus radically chang-ing the perception of space and place, leading to increasing sense of dissonance.. (I always felt quite strongly that the traditional village life is really what it is about, is what man is about, we can handle it at a village level and when get into this urban conglomerates we have lost the whole meaning of life – the breakdown of family – the nuclear family, I don’t feel it’s a natural family, I think family is an extended fami-ly, P.Finucane, Case Study no. 2). It could be argued that what residents search for in the construction of a new space/community, is in fact a solution to their personal experience of psychological dissonance caused by breakdown of traditional forms of community, wasteful consumerist lifestyles, the destruction of natural habitat, urban sprawl, factory farming, and over-reliance on fossil fuels as mentioned in the inter-views. As in regards to willingness of community contribution two respondents saw the Ecovillage as an oppor-tunity to offer their professional skills and expertise to building a more resilient environment for the com-munity, whilst one interviewee recognized this concentrated know-how and expertise typical for the com-munity as a particular soothing benefit for her and her family in ever changing environment. This could be adhered to communities well balanced nature of giving and receiving.

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Although only one interviewee explicitly declared herself as a doer – as in the need of actively participating in a more sustainable and innovative life style rather than just talking about the change this characteristic could be easily applied on all the respondents. This proactive approach is the main catalyst differing those who express concern but find no way of actively improving issues between those who do. More spiritual residents of Ecovillage seem to have vigour need of improving the life around us not just on a community level but on a wider society level. This adheres to the Ghandian philosophy of being the change you wish to see in the world as referred to in words live the change you wish to see by one of the residents on the Village web site. It could be argued that spirituality of the community as in sharing the vision together, results in the creation of sense of purpose. To put purpose before regulations, to put purpose before just merely creating self-sustainability of a community is the key factor that all the change derives from. This was the main generator in a study focusing on revitalisation of the existing traditional village Panchayat in sustainable ways following Gandhian principles. This motivation of doing the right thing when it comes to preservation of environment and shaping com-munity in a sustainable way, results in the sense of pride and belonging of the residents thus tightening the bond between social and environmental. It is not merely in making the Panchayat (village-authors’ comment) self-sufficient that draw strength from Gandhi, it is also to assert that dharma is essentially more important than the law. (R.B. Patil, 2009) However, not all the respondents seem to share the same exiling passion about radical yet natural society change improvement through cooperativeness – as one case study showed the proactive approach has simply derived in relation to economic issues – oil scarcity con-cern triggered the decision to build a passive house in the community. As pointed out in a perceiving way, in one of the case studies, although sustainability motivation seems to be something that all the respond-ents would subscribe to, it shows its differing nature when applied in practice: ...sustainability is the distinc-tive thing about the community but people have extremely different understandings of what sustainability really is. Some of my co-residents are content to build a huge, very eco, well insulated house and think this is what the project is all about – at one extreme. And then at the other extreme, people like me think the whole world needs to be changed in all kinds of way and we need to work as cooperatives and all kind of radical change needs to come. So we are a very diverse lot of people and the word ‘sustainability’ would be something we would all subscribe to but we all have very different, varying opinions of what that actual means in practice. (J. Jopling, Case study no.6). It was noted by the same interviewee that the Village project lacks of emphasized spirituality characteristic for Ecovillages, explaining it by the projects’ main stream nature: ...a lot of the eco-villagers are more spir-itual, they are people who feel they are on a spiritual journey together and whilst there are obviously peo-ple amongst us who feel strongly in that kind of way, a lot of us don’t. It’s not typical, it’s much more main stream this project...it sets out in our constitution to be a model of how development could and should be in the future, a model for which people can learn. (J.Jopling, Case Study no.6) It could be argued that spir-itual journey of togetherness refers to a vision, a purpose and as such is the key factor that all the change derives from, resulting in improvements even in mainstream culture.

4.3 Main benefits of being a part of Ecovillage community

Questions within this group: Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers):

Quality of living gains (living a sustainable life, healthy environment, community in interaction with nature, organic food, farming, social benefits and social interaction, cultural change, other)

Level of influence/involvement in the community – consensus (participation in the making of community consensus - level of power influence and responsibilities gained )

Level of social connections within the community (social cohesion of the community, social inter-raction, feeling of belonging, togetherness, intergenerational quality, better environment for the children…)

Environmental and social activism (ability to change the society, protect the environment, perma-culture..)

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Attitude towards being a part of the first Ecovillage community / Identification with the community

Energy savings

Other According to Van Schyndel Kasper ecovillage members are united by shared ecological, social-economic and cultural-spiritual values

2. (Van Schyndel Kasper, 2008). While the respondents reflected strongly to

the environmental, social and economic concerns in the second thematic framework, this set of questions highlighted spiritual perspective of some interviewees regarding the perceived benefits of the project. A strong sense of shared values referred to as shared vision of community/ sense of community, (often characterized in spiritual terms) seems to be the core benefit as it is mentioned by the residents in five case studies. Depending on their personality tuned to outer or inner sensors of perception, the respond-ents seem to have two approaches to this phenomenon – one of a practical and the other of more spiritual nature which are seldom of interplaying nature. Whereas both explain the positive sides of community life, one relates to more practical way of community benefits which, as listed by the respondents, include net-work of people willing to help in everyday situations

3, proximity of all the necessary facilities (doctor, the

post office, schools…), community as a work wise opportunity (chance to offer professional skills to the wider community members but also as a chance to improve professional expertise by hands on learning), regular supply of fresh, healthy food (own grown, community supported farm), the decrease of overall life cost due to food growing and improved energy efficiency of their new homes. In regard to the last men-tioned, four respondents stated that they enjoy the benefits of Ecovillages commitment to energy efficien-cy which implies using no more energy than needed – and using it in such a way as to minimize the envi-ronmental impact of meeting that needs. The benefits mentioned are: energy savings gained due to lower heating cost (vividly portrayed by one interviewee stating that the cost of heating for his hostel in Clough-jordan is much less than what it cost him to heat his house in Dublin), the comfort and warmth of a newly build isolated house, satisfaction with effective operation of district heating system. More spiritual approach taken on by some interviewees seeks to reflect deeper introspective of residents’ relations with the community resulting in the feeling of true belonging to a community and sense of place (emphasized by three respondents with the words of shared vision of community (that gives a sense of purpose (one respondent) and sense of place (transcribed answers from two respondents). As formulated by Schehr (1997) self-conscious recognition of a shared vision and organizational participation are the prerequisites of a social movement. A regular theme in respondents' answers was social but also envi-ronmental cohesion with the village life and its surroundings. This cohesion seem to create strong feeling of true belonging to a group and finding like-minded individuals who are not just cordially neighbourly but have a partnering attitude to your day-to-day shared lives (it’s not like having neighbours that come and go. It’s people who are here to be part of a community and if something happens to you, you will be looked after J.Jopling, Case study no. 6). An expanded notion of community and its accompanying ethic blends with the expanded notion of the natural surroundings and belonging to those surroundings resulting in a broader sense in which the Ecovillagers think about their home. A place called home thus expands, rooting in the surrounding, creating respect for the land. These leads to a feeling of well fitted in and sense of place as in truly belonging somewhere and to someone as a complete opposite of psychological disso-nance of an individual as it was previously discussed in the chapter 4.2. For one interviewee, this absolute integration into the ecovillage was crucial in clarifying to him an aspect of life that he was unaware of yet fundamental to him – on how he lives and enjoys his life. This was the community and sense of place he

2 Spiritual ecology is a spiritual response to the ecological crisis. It is considered a relatively recent term that refers

to the intersection between religion and spirituality on the one hand and on the other environment, ecology, and environmentalism. Practitioners of spiritual ecology fall into three categories: the scientific and academic, rel i-gious or spiritual environmentalism, and religious or spiritual individuals who relate strongly to the environment. (Sponsel, 2012).

3 In the spirit of community cooperativeness internal email network was established for the needs of the Eco Vil-

lage which works on the ‘best friend principles’ – members are offering their help, support and assistance wheth-er you need something to be picked up from Nenagh town, someone for babysitting or providing care in case of illness - someone will always be there to bail you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_ecology

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had found since he moved to the ecovillage: I realised the one thing I hadn’t really being looking for was a sense of community and that’s what I found here. (P. Finucane, Case Study no.2). This could be referred to the term authenticity. According to Dovey (1985), authenticity can be derived from the property of connectedness of the individual to the perceived, everyday world and environment, and the processes that created it and the consequences of one's engagement with it (Dovey, 1985). Set of questions exploring the benefits was thus aimed at residents’ experience gathered as a product of con-nectedness in the relationship between them and their community world where understanding how do en-vironments, places, and buildings have bearing on human identity, wholeness, and life becomes im-portant. This connection experienced correlates with the term dwelling in place coined by Seamon and Mugerauer (1985) and can be driven by a desire to achieve consonance between sense of self and the manner in which this is expressed through behaviour in the world. Five respondents found community spirit very appealing – in a sense of a supportive, understanding vibe in the Ecovillage that is by no means oppressive or with high expectations but creates a supportive sur-rounding for individuality. Regarding other benefits, quality of life gains were mentioned by three respond-ents referring to the active lifestyle resulting from the engagement in community work and life-long learn-ing experience (two respondents); reduced stress rates resulting from village relaxed energy (one re-spondent); good network of friends and communities’ user friendly surroundings for the challenges of a young family. An active approach of the residents was once again confirmed as two respondents referred to the benefits of consensus – the decision making process which is inclusive to all members and gives them an oppor-tunity to actively participate in governance. Together with sustainability in terms of community and envi-ronment, the consensus principle forms the core of the Ecovillage philosophy. It was noted by one re-spondent that the consensus can be both frustrating (very slow process, lot of opinions) but rewarding the way it gives members a greater sense of ownership through the right to decide, govern and in the end – to except or not to except proposed. As such it nurtures individuality but at the same time calls for responsi-bility of ones’ decision. As the Ecovillage is conducting exploration of new innovation, research and educational programmes it provides an opportunity for hands-on learning, becoming a living incubator of new ideas. This was per-ceived as a benefit by two respondents, considering the knowledge within ‘The Village’ to prove invaluable in the future. As the members share common values and objectives for their community there is a sense of interde-pendency between the members and a shared reliance. A strong social cohesion has thus been formed within the Ecovillage but with Cloughjordan village as well creating wholeness of the area – this was em-phasized by three respondents as a benefit. The respondents exerted a certain sense of pride in blending with the Cloughjordan community with an already existing strong established community spirit. This has profounded the feeling of fitting in and sense of place and belonging and according to one respondent with this deeper integration into Clougjordan village the project will reach its maximum potential to regenerate the area (but the integration does happen in the schools, the kids are going to school and that’s where the integration is, they are growing up together... P.Finucane, Case Study no 2). This intercommunity activity and integration could be related to creation of regional identity (Cuba, Hummon (1993)). Few assumptions deriving from a study A place called home: Identification with dwelling, community and region could be connected with the case study results within the third thematic framework: that demo-graphic qualities of residents and interpretive residential affiliations are critical to dwelling identity (one resident of our sample stated as a benefit that her children can interact with different age groups); that social participation in the local community is essential for community identity; and that patterns of inter-community spatial activity promote a regional identity. Such understandings are a part of an integrated theory of place identity, one sensitive to the complex ways the self is situated in the social-spatial envi-ronment. (Cuba, Hummon 1993).

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4.4 Main issues/challenges encountered

Questions within this group: Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers).

Community involvement challenges (ability to cope with consensus, obligations gained).

Community adapting challenges (personal adaption to community, adaption to social interaction, challenge to adapt to build one owns' life and at the same time to organize community).

Unfulfilled expectations (community organization, social component).

Financial problems (unforeseen).

Technical problems (unforeseen).

Other issues. Making a radical change to disengage from the previous way of life containing modern unsustainable yet soothingly familiar patterns and moving to a Cloughjordan rural surrounding to merge into an experi-mental Ecovillage life, certainly calls for a lot of impetus and motivation. Changing your surroundings, so-cial network, neighbours, friends, not just changing a house but building and owning one and completely emerging in un unknown matter – community living and in the same time - creating it, is the purest unroot-ing, on one side and purest hands-on emerging on the other, one can imagine. The reward, in a sense of belonging, sense of place found, giving purpose to your way of life in connectedness with yourself and the world, is by all means immense. However, the reward does not make the process less challenging. It is expected that a certain amount of pressure will be imposed on the residents from adaptation to the new living situation as they are trying to arrange their own lives and at the same time, making the deci-sions that needed to be made to organize the community and finding free time to devote to community activities. According to the respondents the positive emotions have certainly outweighed the inherent stress of the actual relocating (It’s traumatic to up your sticks and move anywhere (sic)...but just to be down on the ground floor with the growing community and what we are doing – it’s an exciting project – it way outweighs any trauma. I have said it’s the best decision I have ever made in my life and I still think it is! P.Finucane, Case Study no.2) All three interviewees which referred to this aspect found their transition very smooth due to the gradual nature of their process or due to personal and public awareness and laid back character. The overall effect of current Irish economic downturn

4 has directly affected both the Ecovillage as a whole,

limiting its further development, as well as its residents. If the Celtic Tiger5 era had boosted the planning of

such extensive project, the on-going financial crisis has certainly taken its toll on projects’, complex in any way, completion. The economic downturn as a challenge to the Village was discussed by three respond-ents and – interestingly, analysed from three different aspects – financial, social and complexity of infra-structure. Financial problems were noted as slow selling of sites – the prices had to be reconsidered due to the loan imposed and certain issues which the community will have to think about in the future to avoid dependency from larger banking institutions. Once again the community pro-active approach is highlighted here – the respondent implies on the community self-financing scheme

6 to overcome this issue.

One respondent referred to the seemingly indefinite time taking to complete the infrastructure as planned. This challenge was imposed by the sheer size of the undertaking which has been massive accompanied

4 The 2008–2012 Irish financial crisis, which had stemmed from the financial crisis of 2008, is a major political and

economic crisis in Ireland that is partly responsible for the country falling into recession for the first time since the 1980s.

5 UK economist Kevin Gardiner, in 1994 coined the term Celtic Tiger, comparing Ireland's unexpected economic

take-off to the Asian tiger economies. During the 'Celtic Tiger' period (1994-2000), Irish income per head reached and eventually exceeded EU-15 levels.

6 Community self - financing scheme called Loanstock is adopted at the Village. Members loan amounts to SPIL

(the amount of loan is based on the free-will decision of each member) at a low or no interest. This method was used to pay for the tree grant to Coillte for 17,000 tree saplings and planting.

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with higher running costs than predicted. The project was obviously accompanied by overwhelming work and the need for the know-how technical side, and as such it may be tiring at some point, especially during the stagnation phase. This could be linked to the psychological relief effect of rather seeing things ad-vance constantly, even on a gradual bases as oppose to exposing in a vast undertaking at once which becomes stagnant at one point. Economic downturn has taken its toll on the community spirit in a wider social sense as seen by one respondent - the challenges of meeting mortgages and bills took priority over important voluntary community work. As it was discussed in the previous chapter as the heart and soul of the community are made by residents’ interactions this could certainly affect the community as a whole. In relation, on a personal level, financial strain was experienced by two respondents due to expenses of house building and lack of full time employment while one respondent experienced frustration due to de-lays of capital funding for his building. Due to challenges that could be classified under community social aspects two respondents analysed the consensus decision making while interactions between residents were seen as a challenge by also two respondents. The flows of consensus decision making where seen in the time it takes due to overwhelm-ing generation of ideas, resulting from a broad array of knowledge, skills and expertise - the generation of ideas can be overwhelming. The respondent found this particularly frustrating to handle due to her ‘hands-on/action motivated mind’. However, despite the flaws, consensus was rated as a good decision making system which reflected other respondents thoughts as well - Everything has its flaws – everything – I pre-fer the flaws of consensus making than other systems (A. Nugent, Case Study no.1) Living in a community as something more than regular neighbours, where everyone has a stake in the outcome of decisions that are made, will inevitably lead to a certain amount of conflict interfering with the interactions between members. As pointed out by one respondent, conflict is such an integral part of deci-sion making for the ecovillage which could present a challenge to members’ interactions. This obviously can be contentious and troublesome for some members. The respondent also felt even though conflict can alienate some members from each other, the group is large enough to cushion such issues. Other respondent felt that interactions in the group could be improved due to ones’ acceptive and laid back character and with willing to really get to know community members with their faults and good sides – this awareness will lead to acceptance. A challenge that could be classified as personal social aspect was faced by one respondent who experienced trouble at the initial phase of emerging, to unroot the sense of home he felt for his previous residence due to strong network he had. Community infrastructure challenges could be classified as the ones experienced on a personal level of engagement (the upheaval of constructing the house enhanced by personal engagement and the need of extra care for the sustainable, yet sensitive to bad weather, building material (1 respondent); very slow frustrating building (1 respondent), as well as the ones experienced on a community level (district heating system (DHS) as the biggest challenge overall due to lack of real expertise (1 respondent), direct site access from the main street (1 respondent)). The lack of differing facilities characteristic for rural setting emerged as a challenge for a respondent on her decision to enrol her son in a Gaelscoil school

7 (the nearest in Nenagh) due to travel expenses.

4.5 Overall satisfaction with the Village project

Questions within this group:

Overall satisfaction with ESCO District Heating.

Overall satisfaction with equipment, producers, suppliers of equipment.

Overall satisfaction with project designers, architects, builders, installers, maintenance.

Overall satisfaction with engagement in SPIL.

7 The term Gaelic or Irish Gaelic is also frequently used for the Irish language. The term Gaelscoil refers to Irish-

medium schools outside the Irish-speaking regions

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Overall satisfaction with the Village organization and structure, activities and courses provided, level of engagement offered.

Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers)

Achieved expectations.

Quality.

Value for money.

Technical issues.

Subsidies (procedure for obtaining, availability of information).

Engagement in SPIL.

Other.

Responses to the two previous chapters on main benefits and challenges encountered, offered a detailed description of the experiential qualities of life in the Ecovillage and resolved themselves into either positive or negative evaluations of experiences. The questions reflecting the overall satisfaction with the Village project tended to examine whether residents’ expectations had been met, focusing more on the infrastruc-ture side of the Ecovillage, organisation and management. As such they followed the natural course of respondents’ narrative, shifting from interplay of personal and community benefits and challenges to a more detailed perspective that listed the benefits and the drawbacks of the project. Correlating, these two thematic frameworks have delivered some shared responses which were, at this point, described in more details. The overall satisfaction with the Village has been rated very high due to expectations met - all six re-spondents seem to be very satisfied with the project, stating they are actively achieving their expectations as ecovillage members. However one respondent has stated that only once the project is complete that its full potential will be appreciated. Due to the expressed tone of the answers it could be stated that three out of six case studies reveal a sense of excitement, trepidation and extreme satisfaction of the respondents which has seemingly erupted in relation to the question on the expectations as well as in the previous thematic framework of the questionnaire which explored the benefits of community life. This could be found particularly interesting as the questions within this framework, focusing on the detailed reflection on drawbacks and success of the whole project, examining each part, naturally call for a critique stance of the respondent. The three respondents mentioned, seem to be more than ‘only satisfied’ – they reported that their expectations were outweighed and that they feel extremely satisfied. When it comes to more detailed look on the case studies, two out of six, expressed satisfaction with every aspect covered by the set of questions, while one respondent stated his high satisfaction with everything except with the operation of district heating system and solar panels, due to poor expertise of the installa-tion company, which caused delays and extra expense. On the contrary to this opinion, one respondent found DHS particularly satisfying as to project as a whole. As for the other three answers that reflected on DHS – one respondent seems to be sufficiently happy with the DHS mainly due to lack of consistency; the other had some issues during the first operational year due to systems’ inconsistency and support from the suppliers of the services – this was rectified and now he finds operation of the DHS very satisfactory; the third respondent is satisfied with the system but conscious that some members’ district heating system (DHS) costs are higher than others which seem to stem back to a plumbing issue and maybe inconsisten-cies in connection techniques to the system. Majority of the respondents (4 of 6) stated they are happy and positive regarding SPIL (Sustainable Pro-jects Ireland Limited) of which one states: ...satisfaction with SPIL is excellent, as the members are very involved in running the various aspects of the project; we could say we ourselves are SPIL. (U. Macnama-ra, Case Study no.1). On the other hand, one respondent tends to be pragmatic about SPIL while other states that her initial contentment with SPIL was very poor until hers’ and concerns of other were ex-pressed directly with the board. This community action led to a reorganisation of the board membership and greater grassroots satisfaction which is a vivid example of the power an individual has in a community company. Regarding organizational structure, one respondent expressed satisfaction but at some times, frustration, with the consensus approach taking a lot of time.

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All interviewees expressed overall contentment with the newly build homes and with the suppliers (except for one respondent who had bad experience with the suppliers of her heat pump due to their lack of exper-tise), project designers, architects and builders involved in the building process. Their houses were not just great value for money in regard to building them to environmentally high standards, with competitive heating costs, but as perceived by two respondents, have added value and thus a correlation to usual buying of a property could not even be made –:...you are not just buying a plot of ground, you are buying into the whole of the 67 acres, an entitlement of an allotment...it’s not in the conventional sense that peo-ple buy a house in an estate; it’s value for money – I think so. P. Finucane, Case Study no 2.). Community vision and village ethos is what makes the difference. Regarding the houses built, one respondent reflected on opportunities that are available to either substi-tute the family’s income or improve the community space – e.g. renting a room for the conference at-tendees. What was noted from one respondents answer is enthusiasm derived from merging of Ecovillage and the traditional one attached to it – by regenerating the area the Ecovillage had gained yet another purpose building up its potential. The interconnection achieved and the sole influence of the project on the wider society seem to generate pride and strengthen the sense of belonging within the respondent:...part and parcel of what we are doing is that we are showing that we can build this ecovillage attached to a tradi-tional Irish village, that this can be successful and can regenerate in a way the village (sic) and from that point of view I think the project is first class! It’s an example to others particularly the technical end of it – the building, the skills that have been learned and are being developed on site here...and the energy sav-ing. P. Finucane, Case study no. 2). As for drawbacks of the project, the inevitable economic downturn was referred to by two respondents- whether in causing the slow sales of the sites or affecting them personally. Other drawbacks were seen as: hold ups in relation to planning regulations at the early stage of the build (one respondent); the pro-posed reed bed system for the ecovillage sewage system which could not be incorporated due to the number of houses (one respondent); the rural setting of the village that may limit the accessibility to work opportunities (one respondent).

4.6 Influence of Ecovillage and predicted impact on regional and national level

Questions within this group: Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers)

Attitude toward eco community replication within/outside SERVE region (indirect impact)

Current and predicted influence/impact of their changed way of living - community living on their circle of friends and relatives (direct impact)

Overall satisfaction of Ecovillage media coverage within the SERVE region/Ireland/Internationally

It can be stated with certainty that the Ecovillage has had a definite influence on the locality. All six inter-viewees agree that the establishment of the Village had regenerated the traditional village of Cloughjordan attached by, giving it an opportunity to maximise social, economic and environmental gains. According to two respondents, this successful blending with the existing community has happened due to common ground shared by the members of each village - Cloughjordan village was not a wasteful society influ-enced by the Celtic Tiger to begin with, but a non-consumerist rural village with well-established communi-ty ties. The other argument on common grounds was based on the 'mainstream nature' of the Village community which thus blended more easily with the surrounding village: the local people would have been considered; are they hippies or are they strange people. But now there’s a lot more people like us – a bit more conservative, that are here for the community, the social side and run their houses cheaper... E. Kelly, Case study no. 5). The respondents acknowledged the positive impact of awareness raising that reflected in behavioural changes in the locality community and local businesses (the local primary school has put solar panels on the roof; local cabinet maker has switched to non-toxic environmental friendly materials - water based paints). Financial and social benefits were also recognised as positive through

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income generated in Cloughjordan during the larger gatherings like conferences, the establishment of a new school, new work opportunities and overall outside interest brought to Cloughjordan. The main principle of the Ecovillage influence on both national and regional level is seen as raising con-sciousness on renewable energy use and sustainable building and technology. As highlighted by two par-ticipants, the Village project as such, seems to be a part of the overall greater change in Irish society, showing more interest for sustainable principles and thus working in a sensible direction. The respondents are unanimous in the opinion that the Ecovillage will be a learning source for individuals that wish to make the transition to a more sustainable and resilient lifestyle and that the expertise gathered could give inval-uable information for future reference on forming and building an intentional community. This knowledge accumulated, according to three respondents, has even greater value when shared as in warning others in mistakes that should not be made. Possibilities for replication of the Ecovillage principles on other com-munities is vast; however due to financial crisis and economic downturn, two respondents would not opt for a new costly build but for replication of their 'way of living ‘on already existing communities, regarding energy use, food production and social structure. Half of the respondents expressed their wish to see the project as a whole to be replicated (from which one noted that it should be gradually developed, in phases) while one interviewee noticed that the existing housing estate attached to the Village could be retrofitted. There was an interesting concern expressed by one interviewee in the terms of model replication - if more ecovillages were established then their regeneration effect on the existing traditional villages would be diluted as the novelty factor would reduce. Regarding the media coverage, majority of the interviewees (four out of six) feel that the project has at-tracted a lot of positive publicity through national and local media - national television programmes dedi-cated to the ecovillage, local and national newspaper, radio coverage. Majority of the respondents firmly believes the Ecovillage profile is maintained in the best way, both locally and internationally. The visit of the Irish President (Michael D. Higgins) on 6

th June 2012 gave the ecovillage additional publicity on the

national stage while its membership within GEN (Global Eco-Village Network)8 has assured contacts and

publicity in Europe. Two of the respondents feel more needs to be done to encourage both interest and investment into the project. The impact was also noted of respondents life changing experience when shared with friends and family - it has certainly triggered curiosity and expanded their knowledge of sustainable development.

4.7 Suggestions on improving the Ecovillage structure, organization, activities

and its’ promotion through media

There have been various ideas suggested by the respondents on improving the Ecovillages' structure and organization. As regarding the organization of Ecovillage, an aspect of new jobs generation was highlight-ed by two respondents as the main generator of communities' viability in the future. They have expressed concern in preventing Ecovillage in becoming a commuter base for larger cities what could easily happen with the economic downturn forcing people to take on jobs elsewhere. The proposed solution could be found in utilising and promoting talent and expertise accumulated by the self-builders on their chosen building method and design - this shared know how would add to the sustainability of the local community both in the Ecovillage and Cloughjordan itself by giving employment and bringing business to the area. One respondent addressed the need for more structured way to organise voluntary working hours and

8 The Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) is a growing network of sustainable communities and initiatives that bridge

different cultures, countries, and continents. GEN serves as umbrella organization for ecovillages, transition town initiatives, intentional communities, and ecologically-minded individuals worldwide. International works through three broad regional organisations: GEN Oceania and Asia (GENOA), the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA), and GEN-Europe/Africa/Middle East. GEN-International is currently supporting the emergence of GEN-Africa and CASA (El Consejo de Asentamientos Sustentables de las Américas) as independent networks in order to make more visible the dynamic and impressive work already being done in Africa and South America.

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individual responsibility for them so to sustain the proactive leadership spirit of the community. These two suggestions could be grouped in solutions for improving the viability of the community. Suggestions focusing on making better ties between the members, addressing the social side of the community were computer literacy courses to facilitate and enhance the communication between mem-bers and the possibility of introducing facilitation courses that would be helpful with conflict management issues thus improving interpersonal relations (one respondent). Other ideas were imposed to improve the organization of the community: some addressed the consensus - proposing it should be streamlined in certain situations due to the cost (one respondent); professional trainings for SPIL board members to en-hance their effectiveness(one respondent); a set number of building templates to shorten the length of time it takes to build houses (one respondent). Although community structure and promotion were themes already addressed in previous chapter, half of the respondents again availed the opportunity to compli-ment the developing process of the project, seeing it naturally evolve around its' core ecological principles and describing it as a continuous learning process. This complexity of sustainable community develop-ment that has a certain snowball effect was well described by one respondent: It’s very much a learning process, we haven’t got there yet and it will be a continuous learning process because we have to handle the changes. Originally it was a small group of people needing to a buy a piece of land, then it was a larg-er group of people developing that land now it’s this larger group of people needing to establish sustaina-ble livelihoods in relation to this land. That’s not something that can be done by that group...It involves relationships with a huge number of other players that don’t want to be controlled and be part of our eco village. They want to be part of the wider project...we have basic ecological principles...we are developing ways of ensuring that there is this shared ecological ethos and that people that have licences to use part of our land are bound by the ecological charter in the same way we are. We will be gradually developing that. Its a process of gradual development and learning how to do it. J. Jopling, Case Study no. 6. Half of the respondents complimented the efforts on actively promoting the project in media accomplished so far while two of them suggested to even more enhance the usage of social media. A further opportunity to develop the Ecovillage image and availability to the general public, as seen by one respondent, would be the establishment of visitors centre within the Ecovillage where information on design and build of each house could be offered. The role of the SERVE project was deeply appreciated by all five respondents which reflected on this theme. They seem to agree that the SERVE project made it all possible by providing core funding for the Ecovillage establishment and the incentives which were hugely beneficial for all North Tipperary area (three respondents out of five). The influence of the SERVE also proved invaluable in providing guidance to the project and keeping its focus on energy efficiency and building regulations (three respondents). The SERVE projects' incentives have leveraged a lot of building retrofitting done, which in th end, brought per-sonal benefit for one of the respondents with a technical background in energy efficiency, giving him an impetus to become self-employed. One respondent saw the benefit of the SERVE project in regard to getting the district heating system installed and operational.

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5 Conclusion

Making a radical change to disengage from the previous way of life containing modern unsustainable yet soothingly familiar patterns and moving to a Cloughjordan rural surrounding to merge into an experi-mental Ecovillage life, certainly calls for a lot of impetus and motivation. Changing your surroundings, so-cial network, neighbours, friends, not just changing a house but building and owning one and completely emerging in un unknown matter – community living and in the same time - creating it, is the purest unroot-ing, on one side and purest hands-on emerging on the other, one can imagine. The reward, in the sense of belonging, sense of place found, giving purpose to your way of life in connectedness with yourself and the world, is by all means immense. However, the reward does not make the process less challenging. This report focused on particular seven thematic frameworks in the analyses of case studies which offered multiple perspectives on shared experience in order to show all dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in ecological building development such as the Village. The study aimed to highlight the Ecovillag-ers’ upgrade in the lifestyle which resulted from the merging with the culture and ethos of a sustainable community, their personal satisfaction with the project but also disappointment with certain aspects of the community life, so to portray the inherent bond between the human nature and environment so explicitly expressed through principles of the ecovillage model. Assessing the data for the Ecovillage case study and taking in consideration lessons learned, certain rec-ommendations can be drawn:

Consider development of the Ecovillage project in phases that could allow gradual progress of de-velopment - building, but also landscaping, district heating monitoring, setting up educational ac-tivities, sorting out infrastructure, all at the same time can be on overwhelming task for the Board and Ecovillagers

Suppliers need more experience and training. This is due to lack of biomass DH technical knowledge and experience in the Ireland

Necessity of financial grant support – for many intentional communities cost is the biggest hurdle

Complexity of Ecovillage project planning – permissions, legal obligations, government support, funding

Stronger leadership with professional skills is particularly important in phases of setting up the pro-ject

The importance of voluntary work and responsibility of each member for the number of voluntary hours as it is this work that ‘glues’ the community and creates tighter bond between members

Due to the economic downturn and highly cost of new build explore replication possibilities of the ecovillage 'way of living ‘on already existing communities, regarding energy use, food production and social structure.

This research enabled all the dimensions that constitute a sustainable lifestyle in ecological building de-velopment as the Village but also to reflect on the SERVE project and its' impact on the society. The role of the SERVE project was deeply appreciated as the interviewees seem to agree that it was the SERVE project to make it all possible by providing core funding for the Ecovillage establishment and the incentives which were hugely beneficial for the whole North Tipperary area (three respondents out of five). The influ-ence of the SERVE also proved invaluable in providing guidance to the project and keeping its focus on energy efficiency and building regulations. The SERVE projects' incentives have leveraged a lot of building retrofitting done, which in the end, brought personal benefit for one of the respondents with a technical background in energy efficiency, giving him an impetus to become self-employed.

In regard to Ecovillage from the economic perspective, it was established by SPIL for the benefit of the community with operating surpluses being ploughed back into the community which makes them econom-ically viable in the long run. Co-operative models are wide spread across Ireland. In fact, Ireland is the world leader in co-operative ownership as a proportion of the population (Mayo, 2012) which could be referred to nation’s ethos of strong community principles which certainly creates advantageous climate for establishing sustainable holistic communities like the Village - philosophy of democracy providing a vote to

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each member in the form of consensus, backed up with a sense of reconnection with the community makes a strong case for the Village project replication. The replication of the model in Ireland would en-sure meeting local, regional and national climate change and energy targets. It is commonly known that an ecovillage model per se attracts people of emphasized spirituality. Intentionally or not, the establishment of the Village attracted more the Irelands’ mainstream population as noted by two respondents. This was, in fact, seen as a benefit, as the project in fact is intended (as set out in the constitution) to be a model of how development could and should be in the future, a model from which people can learn. With the spirituality on the ‘lowdown’ the project indeed would seem more attrac-tive to mainstream Ireland. However, it would be a dangerous assumption to make. Even the representa-tive sample showed a certain divide that could be made on the Ecovillagers of a more practical approach to benefits and a more personal approach on addressing the challenges to the ones already deeply rooted with cooperative principles, with the need to improve not just the community but the society as a whole, boosting of pride that the Ecovillage managed to rejuvenate the village attached to it, thus unveiling much deeper, authentic connection with the project itself, the community established and natural surroundings. It could be stated that this half of the representative sample are advocates of sustainable community living and thus form the very soul of the ecovillage model as such – it suggests that the possibility of a sustaina-ble society depends not only on what we do, but on how we think, and the understanding that these mutu-ally influence one another. However, the blending of the more practical and more spiritual members is bound to occur due to experiential emphasis which is the core of every ecovillage model thus inevitably changing the mind set of involved in the process. By creating a certain way of experiencing the world, combined with education on the benefits this way of life can offer, ecovillages represent the pure synthesis of knowledge and action. Challenges encountered by respondents are an inevitable part of Ecovillages’ both formation and mainte-nance and could be divided by their nature on personal and community social challenges as well as infra-structure community challenges. Ross Jackson (2004) is careful to point out; the ideal ecovillage does not exist. It is a work in process - a fundamental component of the new paradigm, where much is yet to be learned. The complexity of sustainable community development that has a certain snowball effect was well underpinned by one of the respondents describing it as a continuous learning process. The Irelands’ first Ecovillage established, certainly managed to showcase interplay between nature and mankind in enabling economic development while achieving a society that is sustainable in a long-term perspective and thus will made a path for others to follow.

23

References

Conklin, Thomas (2007). Method or Madness : Phenomenology as Knowledge Creator. Journal of Man-agement Inquiry 16 (275). Patil, R.B. (2008). Gandhian philosophy of a self-reliant village: study of Kuthambakkam in Ta-milnadu, International Journal of Rural Studies (IJRS) vol. 15 no. 2 , ISSN 1023–2001 Van Schyndel Kasper, D. (2008). Redefining Community in the Ecovillage. Human Ecology Review 15:12-24. Retrieved on: 2009-08-27. Sponsel, Leslie E (2012). Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Cuba, Lee and Hummon, David M. (1993). A Place to Call Home: Identification with Dwelling, Community, and Region, The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 111-131 Published by: Blackwell Publishing Schehr, R. C. (1997). Dynamic Utopia: Establishing intentional communities as a new social movement. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. Dovey, K. (1985). Authenticity in the environment. In D. Seamon, & R. Mugerauer (Eds.), Dwelling place and environment: Towards a phenomenology of person and world. New York: Columbia University Press. Kirby, A. (2003). Redefining social and environmental relations at the ecovillage at Ithaca, Journal of Envi-ronmental Psychology, Vol. 23, Issue 3, P. 323–332 Mayo, E. (2012). Global Business Ownership 2012: Members and shareholders across the world. Report for Co-operatives UK. Segon, V., Domac, J., Maras, H., Opalic, T. (2012). Socio economic study on SERVE projects' impact, jobs creation and service supply. Report prepared as a WP 6 deliverable for SERVE project. Goldman, M. and R.A. Schurman. (2000) Closing the great divide; New sociology theory on society and nature. Annual Review of Sociology 26, 563-584. Jackson, R. (2004). The Ecovillage Movement. Permaculture Magazine 44, 25-30. Walton, C. (2009) Case Study: Ecovillage – a model for normal living in the future, The FifthEstate http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/4214 Global Ecovillage Network (2002). Online at: http://gen.ecovillage.org/ The Village web site: http://www.thevillage.ie/ Walker, L. (2005). Ecovillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture. New Society Publishers. Preston, C. and G. Ramsey. (1999). Conservation Community: an introduction to concepts and issues in the establishment of the new American village. Village Habitat Design, LLC.

http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/4214

http://gen.ecovillage.org/

http://www.thevillage.ie/

24

ANNEX I: Baseline study questionnaire

SERVE Social Case Study for Ecovillage

Questionnaire

Case Study basic information

a. Name of Ecovillage community member and address b. Background on Ecovillage community member- age, profession, previous social background

and type of residence, personal interests, attitudes toward environment protection and sustai-nable development / level of knowledge and information on RES, RUE utilisation, where and how were they informed about The Village project

c. Short background on other household members d. Short description of household (type of house, build method used, area of household, allot-

ment area – if they are growing their own food,...) e. Photos of household, household owner and other members sharing the household f. Level of involvement in Ecovillage structure (SPIL Board Member, Part of Working Group etc)

Motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan Ecovillage and becoming a part of the

community (Including description of way of living and of previous household before moving to

Ecovillage)

Description/opinion from member

a. Personal motivation (who motivated them, what were they influenced by…) b. Quality of living reasons (every day stress, pollution, environment, food, social connections,

cultural other) c. Social motivators (level of overall connection with the society before moving, with neighbours,

people…) d. Personal reasons (need for change, need to influence the society, divorce, separation/ starting

a family e. Comfort and energy consumption and costs (Heating system; Wall/roof insulation;

Windows/doors; Other – comparison) f. Other important aspects

Main benefits for being a part of Ecovillage community


a. Quality of living gains (living a sustainable life, healthy environment, community in interaction with nature, organic food, farming, social benefits and social interaction, cultural change, ot-her)

b. Level of influence/involvement in the community – consensus (participation in the making of community consensus - level of power influence and responsibilities gained )

c. Level of social connections within the community (social cohesion of the community, social in-terraction, feeling of belonging togetherness, intergenerational quality, better environment for the children…)

d. Environmental and social activism (ability to change the society, protect the environment, permaculture..)

e. Attitude towards being a part of the first Ecovillage community / Identification with the community

f. Energy savings g. Other

25

Main issues/challenges encountered


a. Community involvement challenges (ability to cope with consensus, obligations gained) b. Community adapting challenges (personal adaption to community, adaption to social interacti-

on, challenge to adapt to build one owns' life and at the same time to organize community) c. Unfullfilled expectations (community organization, social component) d. Financial problems (unforseen) e. Technical problems (unforseen) f. Other issues

Overall satisfaction with the Village project

a. Overall satisfaction with ESCO District Heathing b. Overall satisfaction with equipment, producers, supplyers of equipment c. Overall satisfaction with project designers, architects, builders, installers, maintainance d. Overall satisfaction with engagement in SPIL e. Overall satisfaction with the Village organization and structure, activities and courses provi-

ded, level of engagement offered Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers)

a. Achieved expectations b. Quality c. Value for money d. Technical issues e. Subsidies (procedure for obtaining, availability of information) f. Engagement in SPIL g. Other

Influence of ecovillage and predicted impact on regional and national level

Description/opinion from member (semi-guided answers) a. Attitude toward eco community replication within/outside SERVE region (indirect impact) b. Current and predicted influence/impact of their changed way of living - community living on

their circle of friends and relatives (direct impact) c. Overall satisfaction of ecovillage media coverage within the SERVE regi-

on/Ireland/Internationally

Suggestions

a. Any suggestions on improving the ecovillage (structure, organization and activities) b. Any suggestions on improving the promotion of ecovillage through media and/or educational

programmes

SERVE Social Case Study for Eco Village, Cloughjordan Case Study No. 1 9/6/2012 LIT – Tipperary- Development Unit Catherine Ryan

27

Table of Contents

Background to SERVE 28

Case Study background information 29

Motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan eco village 31

Main benefits of being part of the eco village community 33

Main issues/challenges encountered experienced as an eco village community member 34

Overall satisfaction with the eco village project 35

Influence of eco village and predicted impact on regional and national level 36

Suggestions on improving the eco village’s structure, organisation and activities. 38

Suggestions on improving the promotion of the eco village 39

Conclusion 39

28

Background to SERVE

The SERVE project is funded under the EU CONCERTO Programme and aims to develop a

sustainable region in North Tipperary, Ireland, through the implementation of actions in the field

of sustainable energy. Actions include energy upgrades for existing dwellings, installation of

renewable energy heating systems, help with the sustainable development of an eco-village in

Cloughjordan and the part funding of its development of a district heating system.

Case Study background information

The name of the householder interviewed for the purpose of SERVE eco village case study no. 1

is Una Mac Namara.

She lives in ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Ireland in a two (+ attic) storey ter-

race house. Her timber framed house has natural insulation which consists of biobased spray

foam and lime-hemp internal and external render. It is an A rated standard house with a heat

recovery system which was designed by Michael Rice and built by Aidan O' Brien of Ecobuild.

The area of the house is 192 square metres (1550 square feet). Una does not have an allotment or

grow her own food however she is a member of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

farm scheme and she has some fruit trees in her garden.

Una is 60+ and is a retired primary school principal. Prior to moving to Cloughjordan's eco vil-

lage Una lived in a terraced house in Dublin. She is an active member of the eco village com-

munity and sings in the local choir. She also is a very artistic person and has a keen interest in

environmental integrity and protection. Una shows a deep knowledge of global social equity

issues and the benefits of sustainable development as a proactive path forward.

29

While living in Dublin Una was first exposed to the eco village concept at the 'Cultivate Centre'

in Temple Bar through a form inviting membership to The Village project. She joined 'The Vil-

lage' in 2005 and is currently an active member of a number of eco village groups, Village Edu-

cation, Research and Training (VERT), Land Use (LUG), Sustainable Project Ireland Ltd (SPIL)

and also Navigation. She also conducts regular tours of the eco village for visitors.

Motivation and reasons for moving to Cloughjordan eco village

Una's main motivation for moving to the eco village in Cloughjordan was environmental.

“...my motivation for moving to Cloughjordan and becoming part of an eco community was pri-

marily environmental eco values (sic), I have been thinking about these for a long time”.

30

She has been very aware of global issues faced by our modern society such as carbon dioxide

(CO2) emissions, climate change and natural resource destruction which all motivated her to

make a lifestyle change.

Una acknowledges that these global issues and her eco values gave her impetus to make a life-

style change “carbon dioxide emissions, influence on climate and particularly the influence on

the destruction of the forests, the seas, the wildlife, the animals... Therefore this motivated her to

“...join with others to do something more than the bit of recycling I had being doing myself.”

Her reasons for becoming part of the eco community were based on working with others who

shared common values and vision for the care of the earth and humanity.

“...the community has vision, a sense of purpose, continuing ongoing research, new ideas, work-

ing together with other people with the particular motivations and reasons for working for care

of the earth and care of humans...both are inter-related.”

She further recognises a need to share and use global resources equitably and sustainably. The

following statement gives an idea of some of the concerns and reasons why Una became part of

the eco village.

“I am aware of the north – south unequal divide ... multinational corporations, the arms trade,

the waste of natural resources and finances and also huge farming cooperatives growing food

for beef and cattle for feeding in the first world, and the green revolution ... where local farmers

particularly in the third world are not be allowed to have their own seeds and are sold seeds that

are genetically modified and do not last beyond a year .”

She identifies herself as a ‘doer’ and wanted to actively participate in a more sustainable and in-

novative life style rather than just talking about change. Therefore another reason that encour-

aged her move happened initially in Dublin through the ‘Cultivate Project’. She was inspired by

their energy, creativity, shared vision and drive to achieve a more sustainable way of life.

“when I came to the group initially in Dublin there was a sense of it felt right to do (sic), I felt

there was great energy, there was a sense of a common vision, a common purpose ... a common

philosophy, there was an enthusiasm ... their emphasis would not be on material values or on

31

material things and there was a great sense of creativity and moving forward with others build-

ing the first eco village in Ireland...”.

Main benefits of being part of the eco village community

One of the main benefits of being a member of the eco village community is having a common

perspective and a shared way of life.

“...for me I love having a shared vision it gives me a sense of purpose...”

Living in the eco village is both an active and educational experience for her; it gives her the op-

portunity for life-long learning and is by no means a stagnant existence. She is always being ex-

posed to new knowledge, experiences and learning about the world around her and experience

strong social cohesion with the eco village and Cloughjordan as a whole. She is very much a part

of a living, working environment yet also has her own personal space.

“I am nearly busier than when I was working, I am learning everyday from people here. They

decided to have a 100 houses and 30 live/work spaces, they wanted a big number of people so

they would have a variety of skills, expertise and experiences (sic). So that is what I am enjoy-

ing...”

As there is a broad range of knowledge and expertise in the eco village Una has gained valuable

learning on topics such as permaculture, gardening, transition towns etc. She therefore is ex-

posed to new visions, ideas and hands-on learning from different individuals within the commu-

nity. She enjoys the community spirit within the eco village and its inclusiveness and support.

“There is a great friendliness I would say; there is great support from the neighbours. Every-

body talks about their houses, their design or their children who are going to school and we are

inundated with various emails. I love being part of various groups because I feel I know what is

going on and I like to know what is going on, I like to have some influence on what is going

on...”

She also values the linkage with the Cloughjordan village and is involved in Tidy Towns and

beautifying the area. She also loves the community’s ethos of an edible landscape, green corri-

32

dors for wildlife and planting to encourage wildlife, insects and birds. These are all benefits to

her quality of life and social cohesion.

She also appreciates the supportive nature of the eco village for example if someone is sick or

even if someone just needs something from the nearest provincial town of Nenagh the other

members of the eco village will offer their support, care and assistance.

“...If I were short of something I won’t mind asking my neighbours ... we have a meitheal (Irish)

once a month ... which might involve the whole community, we come down to community garden

or community area and dig, weed and plant as is needed. Over many meitheals about a thou-

sand trees have been planted and staked all around the eco village. It was a great team effort.

For one of our cluster meitheal we made soup here for everyone and luckily we had a dry day

and it was a lovely gathering ... we are supposed to give 100 hours voluntary work for the

year...”

33

Main issues/challenges encountered experienced as an eco village

community member

One of the main challenges Una identifies is the current Irish economic downturn which is im-

pacting both the eco village as a whole and individuals personally within the eco village.

“... people haven’t been able to sell their own houses and get mortgages and can’t move here so

it has forced us maybe more so than might have been in the agenda to have a low cost build...

the financial problems have hit us so we have to look at reducing site prices, we have a loan to

pay back. We do not want to be dependent on larger banking institutions. We have a scheme

called ‘Loanstock’ whereby members’ loan amounts to SPIL at a low or no interest. We used

this method to pay for our tree grant to Coillte for our 17,000 tree saplings and planting. Mem-

bers were asked for whatever they could loan - €100 or €500, or €1000 until the grant of

€20,000 - €25,000 was paid...”

However, even in the face of financial stress Una acknowledges that the community tries to work

together to achieve their common vision of a sustainable society. As she identified herself as a

‘doer’ and with such a broad array of knowledge, skills and expertise the generation of ideas can

be overwhelming and sometimes her personality kicks in and she wants action. However, the

eco village works on the philosophy of consensus decision making which takes time and can be

frustrating for a hands-on/action motivated mind.

“I am a doer and there is so much talk going on and so many ideas and sometimes the ideas are

left by the wayside ... so I am inclined to say just do it. It took two years for the infrastructure to

be put in which I think should have been in place in a year...”

In regard to consensus Una again finds by default of her own personality that she may be frustrat-

ed at times by the decision making process however she is happy overall to work with the eco

village members to find common ground.

“...sometimes I feel would they just make a decision, would they listen to what we’re saying - if

we are not happy about something then that is it (sic)...”

34

Another challenge for Una was leaving her friends and work and relocating to Cloughjordan

however she admits it was an easy transition as she had great support from the other eco village

members prior to, during and after her move.

“I suppose it was a big change but I didn’t realise it was such a change ... from no definite paid

work, challenge from moving from friends in Dublin, challenge from selling the house and mov-

ing to a new area, but it was more gradual, it didn’t seem a huge difficulty...”

She had personal family commitments in Kerry up to October last year which did require her

leaving the eco village on a fortnightly basis for six days which did put a strain on her on a per-

sonal level. However, she valued the friendship and support she got during that time not only

from the community as a whole but also from the ‘cluster’ she is a part of within the eco village

community.

“...natural friendships form... and there is the guarantee of friendship and support within the

cluster and the wider community.”

Overall satisfaction with the eco village project

Overall for Una she is very happy with the eco village project in particular the ESCO district

heating system even though she is aware of the issues with the suppliers though she was not di-

rectly involved. However, she is very satisfied with her build.

“I am absolutely so pleased with my build ... I have no heating problems ... I am so please with

my builder (Aidan O Brien) ... he was very aware of the eco charter...”

She is also aware of planning permission issues at the start of the project but which were rectified

in the end.

“...when we were buying the land the planning permission took longer than expected...”

She is also very satisfied with her project designers, architects, builder and installers.

“My design, build and insulation and the type of timber seems to be so effective my space heating

and hot water only costs €400-€500 per year...”

35

Her only concern was the proposed reed bed system for the eco village sewage system which

could not be incorporated due to the number of houses. However, she does point out that some

members took proactive measures to combat this by incorporating compost toilets in their build.

“A slight disappointment for me was that there was supposed to be a reed bed system for the

sewage system but because there were so many houses that could not happen...”

Una expressed an excellent relationship with and high satisfaction with SPIL (Sustainable Pro-

jects Ireland Limited). It has done all it can to make the project a success in these difficult times.

“...satisfaction with SPIL is excellent, as the members are very involved in running the various

aspects of the project; we could say we ourselves are SPIL.”

She is generally happy with the organisation and structure of the eco village overall but is aware

that the effectiveness of same is dependent on the people involved.

“...we generally have a common vision and we want it to work (sic).”

Una is very informed about activities not only in the eco village but also the level of engagement

and integration with the local community. The eco village are actively involved in local activi-

ties such as Cloughjordan Community Development Committee, The Heritage Group, Wild Life

Ireland, bat boxes, Beara Breffini Walk - O Sullivan Beara Walk to mention some. She really

enjoys the Cloughjordan community spirit and felt at ease in the village from her initial move to

Cloughjordan.

“...I felt very welcome immediately when I moved to Cloughjordan...I am very happy with my life

here.”

She feels she has achieved not only a high quality house but great value for money in regard to

building her home in the eco village to environmentally high standards. As mentioned above her

heating costs are very competitive per annum and her house is warm, spacious and full of light.

“...With this timber frame house on the basic cost I nearly got twice the size of the house that I

had in Dublin, so we are not comparing like with like, the cost of our sites are high and our build

36

is high in relation to prices now...but with a timber frame you may be getting a bigger and more

efficient house...”

Una also highlights the fact that by buying a house in the eco village you get more for your mon-

ey than just a house. Eco village members have access to allotments, eco village amenities and a

community with a shared vision which offers great value for money.

“...if you buy into the eco village you are getting your house, you are entitled to 100m2 allotment

and all the amenities of the 67 acres as well as community...”

She is very happy with her choice to move to the eco village and adopt a more sustainable life

style and by doing so lead by example. All her expectations are fulfilled and her life is greatly

enriched by living sustainably in the eco village with her neighbours and community.

...“far out weighing my expectations...I love the timber house...I am now more aware of natural

products, water based paints and trying to live more sustainably...”

Influence of eco village and predicted impact on regional and national

level

Una feels that the eco village is having an influence at a regional and national level. She

acknowledges the behavioural changes she has witnessed personally in the locality and by the

amount of interest nationally for the eco village in regard to courses, tours and media coverage.

However, she also understands that change may be a slow process for some people.

“... It is very hard to know how influence works; I think we are probably part of a growing tide

or consciousness that we need to take more care of the environment... then sometimes I am sur-

prised when I speak to some individual of a certain age that never heard of it...”

Locally Una is actively involved in taking tours around the eco village and educating others on

the environmental principles of ‘The Village’. Since the eco villages establishment the local

37

primary school has installed solar panels and various local and national secondary schools and

third level institutions visit the eco village on educational courses and tours.

“...about influencing into the local community a local primary school has got solar panels on

their roof, I think they have rain harvesting.”

Some behavioural changes in local businesses are adopted for example the local cabinet maker’s

research has incorporated environmentally friendly non toxic products into the wooden work-top

in Una’s kitchen.

“... the local cabinet maker has become aware of not using varnishes... he uses water based

paints. In time I think when we have more personnel ... we will have more courses and more

children may be coming on school tours... we are building the enterprise centre and green indus-

tries will be located here, Cultivate’s Convergence Festival, The CSA Farm’s food seminar and

The Green Businesses at the recent Cloughjordan Festival were all means of learning, change,

cooperation and spreading the word.”

Some members envision the eco village becoming a place where people may come to celebrate

weddings, birthdays and other milestones in life.

“...the cabin may be a place where people come to celebrate milestones in life and develop skills

and crafts related to sustainability.”

She is happy with the media coverage. The visit of the Irish President (Michael D. Higgins) on

6th

June 2012 gave the eco village additional publicity on the national stage. There have been

many national television programmes dedicated to the eco village as well as local and national

newspaper and radio coverage.

Una feels that the eco village’s membership with GEN (Global Eco-Village Network) has given

Cloughjordan eco village great contacts and publicity in Europe. Through GEN, and its educa-

tion programmes, eco villages throughout Europe share their experience. Cloughjordan will host

a European education course in October. European engineers and local government representa-

38

tives have visited the eco village in Cloughjordan. The eco village actively promote themselves

however Una is respectful of the power of advertising.

“...we have a website, we use facebook and other social media ...you cannot advertise it enough

but also you have to be careful of overkill...”

She very firmly believes that the eco village could and should be replicated either within the

SERVE region or outside the region. She highlights that replication is one of the main objective

of the eco village remit along with integration.

“...it is a model to be replicated...a lot of what we are doing has trickled into the local community

particularly with the SERVE project...we have got an award for the greenest community in Ire-

land just a few weeks ago.”

Suggestions on improving the eco village’s structure, organisation and

activities.

Una acknowledges that the eco village is a very complex project and a much bigger project than

people originally thought. Therefore one organisational suggestion Una put forward is to possi-

bly shorten the length of time it took for the houses to be completed by using a set number of

building templates.

“...maybe in the design and building the houses there could have been 6 templates for the design

of the houses... to some that would be limiting but it might have got the building done quicker...”

The structure of the eco village is evolving all the time and a ‘Navigation group’ has been estab-

lished within the community to help identify and mitigate the risks and challenges to the future

viability of the project.

“.... ‘Navigation group’...it is preparing for the future and the challenges it will bring.”

She believes that the eco village is working toward improving its structure continuously. She

feels that the proactive leadership in the community would benefit if all the members were re-

sponsible and accountable for the amount of voluntary time they contribute to different village

39

projects. For example each member must volunteer 100 hour per year to complete various tasks

within the eco village.

“...Voluntary work is carried out on the ‘self organising’ basis, where initiative and cooperation

are more important than the ‘command and control’ mode of operation...a little bit more struc-

ture may be necessary in the accounting system...”

Una feels that the development of a wind farm for the eco village would be of great benefit fi-

nancially for the community.

“...in the future wind farms will be developed for own electricity...”

She is interested in the farm and its development. There is discussion of the use of horse power

as a replacement for tractor power in the future and she would be very happy to see this kind of

innovation.

“...instead of using a tractor on the farm I think they may use horses on the farm...”

Suggestions on improving the promotion of the eco village

She is currently very happy with the eco village’s efforts to promote themselves and their project

externally through media and educational programmes. She feels they avail of every opportunity

possible and is very happy with their activities.

“...I think people are making every effort they can and taking every opportunity...”

Conclusion

Una is deeply concerned with the global social, environmental and economic equity challenges.

She moved to the eco village to live a more sustainable life style and to bring balance to her life.

She is an advocate of the eco village ethos of sustainable development and resilient communities.

She actively and willingly shares her knowledge and skills with visitors and promotes the eco

village model for sustainable living in the 21st century.

40


41

Table of Contents










Conclusion 52

42

Background to SERVE







The name of the householder interviewed for the purpose of SERVE eco village case study no. 2

is Pa Finucane.

Pa has been involved in the eco village project since 2006 and he lives in and operates the ‘Djan-

go’s eco hostel’ in the ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary. His hostel is constructed

to a very high standard and consists of 11 en-suite rooms which accommodates 36 beds in total.

Django’s is a four storey building constructed to maximise solar gain through a souther-

ly/westerly orientation and minimise heat loss through innovative out-sulation (external thermal

insulation) of the building. His hostel is surrounded by a garden of native plants which were

planted with the help of his eco village neighbours through a communal work session known as

‘meitheal’ (Irish). The hostel is full of light and reflects Pa’s interest in art and music and in par-

ticular Pa has a keen interest in the music genre of ‘Gypsy Jazz’ which has influenced both the

naming of his dog and his hostel.

He is a 60+ hostel proprietor who has a background in law and many years management experi-

ence in retail, pubs and hotels. He is originally from Dublin and since his move to the eco village

he has been kept busy with the daily running of his hostel while also being an active member of

the Village Education, Research and Training (VERT) programme. Pa is a director in the Ser-

vice Company and is involved in the community building. He describes himself as ‘light green’

when it comes to environmental labelling however he is very passionate about his membership of

both the eco village and the village of Cloughjordan. Pa enjoys the social cohesion and commu-

nity that he found in this rural setting.

43

6

7


Pa decided to make a change to the life style he had in Dublin which was in part due to the urban

stresses of long hours, daily commutes and the repetitiveness of his daily urban life. This spurred

him into action and the exploration of alternative life style options. He sold his house, handed in

his job and bought a campervan and set off to discover a new beginning.

“...I sold the house and a lot of things came into perspective – what are we doing, what is it all

about...”

While on his travels around Ireland Pa came across the eco village project through word of

mouth and various advertisements. He came to ‘experience weekends’ to learn more about the

project and was very happy with the eco village’s ethos and with the collaboration of the other

members he set out to develop his hostel as part of the village facilities.

“...I came down and did a couple of experience weekends and just learned more about the pro-

ject and suggested I would consider building a hostel here if they were up for it...”

44

The project resonated with Pa’s own interests and what was important to him in life.

“...I realised that I was very interested in what was going on here and I had some green creden-

tials in that I was interested in the environment and sustainability...”

He was also aware that he wanted to live and be a part of an integrated community system rather

than a disconnected urban society, and the subsequent lack of community that can prevail in large

urban centres.

“...I always felt quite strongly that the traditional village life is really what it is about, is what

man is about, we can handle it at a village level and when get into this urban conglomerates we

have lost the whole meaning of life – the breakdown of family – the nuclear family, I don’t feel

it’s a natural family, I think family is an extended family...”


For Pa one of the main benefits of being part of the eco village is life style and the ability to min-

imise it as much as possible. This is someway due to the relaxed atmosphere and the shared vi-

sion of the community. “...I’ve never been more relaxed, I just love it every day here, I love it

when I get up, I get out, and I walk and it’s really that. I don’t have any stress, I make my own

stress, and I’ve learnt over the years that stress is something to be avoided (sic)...”

He also enjoys running his eco hostel and providing this service to the general public.

“...I like meeting people; I don’t mind that – it’s easy to deal with people when you give them a

good class of accommodation...”

His integration into the eco village also clarified another aspect of life fundamental to Pa, and

how he lives and enjoys his life. This is the community and sense of place he has found since he

moved to the eco village: “...I realised the one thing I hadn’t really being looking for was a sense

of community and that’s what I found here...”

It is apparent from the way he speaks of the locality that he really appreciates not just the eco

village but also Cloughjordan village community and its environs.

45

“...it’s not just the eco village community, it’s the whole community around here, there is a great

sense of community in Cloughjordan itself – just look at the recent Irish Times Best Place to Live

articles...we have been shortlisted in Cloughjordan for the best place to live in Ireland...through

submissions that were made by the whole community not just the eco village- that was a great

thing to see...”

He feels that the eco village project must fully integrate into Cloughjordan village and the com-

munity to reach its maximum potential to regenerate the area.

“...to me this project fails if it doesn’t fully integrate, there are hurdles to that from time to time

in that I am going to be a blow in any way for at least a generation or until I win a hurling

match...but the integration does happen in the schools, the kids are going to school and that’s

where the integration is, they are growing up together...”

Pa feels the consensus is an integral part of the eco village success and acknowledges it can be a

slow process but feels it produces more robust solutions to issues or challenges faced by a com-

munity. He like the way the eco village works through their decision making process iteratively.

“...I like the way we do things here, I like the whole approach, sometimes it is very slow – it is

frustrating especially with the consensus decision making but with consensus there is a responsi-

bility for you to inform yourself of all the facts. If you are uncomfortable about something and if

you are really uncomfortable about it then nobody wants to force you to do it but you do listen to

all sides and you take that responsibility...the decision is made and goes forward in a much bet-

ter way and it’s a stronger decision for the whole community...”

He also highlights that consensus is to some degree basically part of everyday life for most peo-

ple and is a familiar decision making method within families. It is, therefore not such an alien

concept and is workable within a community.

“...we actually lead a lot of our life on consensus anyway particularly family and relationships

and that sort of thing, we go along or we don’t go along but we do most stuff on a consensus

basis and it’s a good way work a community (sic)...”

46

Pa also appreciates the energy savings that he has gained since moving to the eco village. The

cost of heating his hostel in Cloughjordan is much less than what it cost him to heat his house in

Dublin.

“...it’s cheaper to run this hostel than my house in Dublin so obviously it’s a great benefit...I pay

for heat at 3 cent per kilowatt hour and its 19 cent per kilowatt hour from the ESB (Electricity

Supply Board) so it’s a big incentive.”


community member

There were some issues for Pa in regard to the building of hostel and delays in completing it.

“...the build was very frustrating...it took me at least six or eight month longer to do the build, I

found that very frustrating, I had some very frustrating delays with capital and that kind of thing

but eventually I made an application to LEADER to finish off the hostel and that application was

successful which left me in a position to finish it off to a standard that I really wanted to so that

was fantastic...”

He designed his own project plan and build in collaboration with an engineer and builder, he did

find the build works initially slow but still would rate his overall satisfaction very high.

...it was a tiny bit slow so I’d have to take marks off so it was 7 on a scale of 10 for that but still

in the honours department (sic)...”

Upon moving to the eco village Pa did not experience any real difficulties with the transition into

the community. He attributes the ease of his transition to having a high level of personal and

public awareness.

“...I didn’t have any community frustrations really I’m fairly stoical and I’m fairly laid back...I

understand where people are coming from and another thing I would say is that we all know

each other’s quirks and foibles before we even moved into the estate, which is quite a unique

thing. Because I have been stuck beside neighbours in Dublin that I didn’t know for ten years...”

47

He does understand that moving home is a traumatic experience for any one however in his case

the move to the eco village was worth the inherent stress of any relocation.

“...it’s traumatic to up your sticks and move anywhere (sic)...but just to be down on the ground

floor with the growing community and what we are doing – it’s an exciting project – it way out-

weighs any trauma. I have said it’s the best decision I have ever made in my life and I still think

it is!”

48


Pa, like all the other members of the eco village experienced operational difficulties with the dis-

trict heating system (DHS) for the first year or so. This was mainly due to lack of consistency

and support from the suppliers of the services. However, the issues have been rectified and now

the operation of the DHS is very satisfactory.

“...I was very disappointed with it initially but now I’m at a stage where I am very pleased with it

both financially and from a running point of view – hot water at the showers level which is de-

pendable now...”

He is very happy with his engagement with Sustainable Projects Ireland Limited (SPIL) and en-

joys getting involved and putting forward his viewpoints.

“...My overall engagement with SPIL, I have no problems with that, I have what I would consider

I have a very good relationship with SPIL...We are all members of SPIL so it up to ourselves to

engage or not engage as much as we can but I would be an engager and I would be very satisfied

with SPIL.”

He is very happy and positive with the eco village structure, organisation and activities, Pa

acknowledges the community naturally faces challenges from time to time however he feels they

work through them as proactively as possible.

“...there are challenges from time to time, of course there are challenges, that’s part and parcel

of what we are; in a way we’re a fledging community but I would still be very positive about it

and very pleased about the way it’s going...the organisation and structure is build on principles

that are very sensible.”

49

Pa classifies himself as ‘light green’ and is aware that some individuals within the eco village

that would like to see the community move towards greater emphasis on a greener community

which Pa would be happy with it. He would like to see more cob housing and self builds in the

eco village. He also is enthusiastic about the idea of less conventional designs for future eco

village builds however he is very happy with what the eco village has achieved so far. He feels

that the quality of the community and their remit to integrate and regenerate the existing village

is very successful.

“...part and parcel of what we are doing is that we are showing that we can build this eco village

attached to a traditional Irish village, that this can be successful and can regenerate in a way the

village (sic) and from that point of view I think the project is first class! It’s an example to oth-

ers particularly the technical end of it – the building, the skills that have been learned and are

being developed on site here...and the energy saving... ”

In comparison to buying a house elsewhere Pa draws no correlation, he feels he has achieved

better value for money in the eco village, not only with facilities, innovation and services but also

access to a supportive community.

“...you are not just buying a plot of ground, you are buying into the whole of the 67 acres, an

entitlement of an allotment...it’s not in the conventional sense that people buy a house in an es-

tate; it’s value for money – I think so.”

Overall, Pa is very happy with his change of life style and relocation to the eco village which he

sums up perfectly.

“...I wouldn’t be saying it’s the best decision I ever made in my life if it wasn’t!”

50

Influence of eco village and predicted impacts on regional and national

level

Pa’s hostel is already busy with visitors who wish to learn more about the eco village’s sustaina-

ble community on both a technical level and a social level. He sees the impact that they have

already made on sustainable awareness raising and feels it will continue to do so into the future.

“...I think it going to have a major impact; in fact I think it already has had an impact. We’re

about raising consciousness on renewable energy use and sustainable building and technology

that anybody in their right mind should be considering if they were building nowadays and al-

ready a lot of people come and stay here with me just to experience the village...we are being

influential...”

He believes that the principles of the eco village could be replicated elsewhere and possibly

should be. Cloughjordan’s eco village has learned a lot through trial and error and Pa believes

they have a lot of knowledge and skills to share with anyone who wanted to undertake a similar

project.

“...I would like to sit down with anyone who would be considering it and really hold their hand

because there are a lot of uphill battles with a project like this. We have learned a lot our-

selves... so we would love to share our experiences with others...”

However, he does recognize that if more eco villages were established then their regeneration

effect on the existing traditional villages would be diluted as the novelty factor would reduce.

“...can it be done in every village in Ireland, I don’t know really, I don’t know - certainly it has

regenerated this village and put this village on the map and it’s done a lot for the village and

brought a lot of business to the village. The more projects like this that would be around the

country then the more diluted they are going to be – every village can’t be the first eco village in

Ireland...I do think it could be replicated and should be replicated in fact.”

Pa is very happy with the work the eco village had done to promote itself through media and is

overall very satisfied with the level of media cover nationally.

51

“...we’ve spent of a lot time trying to promote ourselves; I think we do it pretty well. I think most

people in the country now would know of an eco village, they would not necessarily know where

Cloughjordan is but they would have heard of Cloughjordan (sic)...and we have had good di-

verse coverage...and that’s important for my business.”

On a personal level Pa can’t put an exact evaluation how much influence his change in life style

has had on his family and friends. Nevertheless he knows that it definitely has given them food

for thought and expanded their knowledge and experience of sustainable development.

“...I think it has had an influence, I’m not sure if it had a life changing influence...and any of

them that have come down - they all enjoy the project and are quite fascinated by what has been

done and what we are doing (sic)... a lot of them would go along with the green agenda, not po-

litically but from the point of view of being aware of the environment and ecology, recycling and

energy conservation and all of that. It’s what most people are drifting towards anyway (sic). ”


activities.

Pa is very pleased with the structure and organisation of the eco village and sees it as a work in

progress which is developing and growing day by day with the help of everybody in the village.

“...I am please enough the way we run it and in our own way organically growing and getting on

with it and doing it and there’s a great enthusiasm and a great drive to get things done. Some-

times it slow and frustrating but we keep working at it...I won’t be suggesting any great chang-

es...”

52


He feels there is a lot of talent with the eco village that in future can and needs to be utilised and

promoted. For instance, the self builders in the village will have specialised knowledge on their

chosen sustainable design and building methods and Pa feels this knowledge and skill will be

invaluable for future visitors and learners coming to the eco village. He feels there needs to be a

definite drive to combine all the expertise together for the promotion of the eco village and its

sustainable ethos.

“...we’ve a lot of talent here in the village and we’re slow to tap into that from the point of view

of offering that talent,...in facilitating courses or whatever that is...particularly with the self

builders at present when they will have finished they’ll have produced a house, they’ll have uti-

lised whatever sustainable method they are using and they are expert then at that. They should

then be able to share that and would want to share that...”

By sharing the expertise in the eco village with others, Pa believes this will add to the sustaina-

bility of the local community both in the eco village and Cloughjordan itself by giving employ-

ment and bringing business to the area. “...you talk about sustainability, a job, an income is real-

ly what sustains people...really it is about creating our work locally here for ourselves...”

Pa feels that SERVE was not just beneficial to the eco village but that it also was great incentives

for area of north Tipperary as a whole to reduce energy costs through retrofitting their houses.

“...we couldn’t have afforded to put up what we did without the core funding we got from

SERVE...the money that went into the area was hugely beneficial to the area...there must be a

huge saving in oil because of what the grants have encouraged people to do here.”

Conclusion

Pa is very happy and content with his choice to join the eco village and feels it can and does pro-

vide guidance and education to like-minded people who want to make a change to a more sus-

tainable life style. Future challenges such as climate change and peak oil will require a more re-

silient and support community structure. The eco village organisation provides relevant skills

and knowledge that Pa and his fellow eco village members benefit from and share with others.

53


54

Table of Contents










Conclusion 65

55

Background to SERVE




renewable energy heating systems, development of an eco-village in Cloghjordan and the devel-

opment of a district heating system.


The name of the householder interviewed for the purpose of SERVE eco village case study no.3

is Brendan Power.

Brendan lives in ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Ireland in a two storey detached

house. His family home is constructed of a timber frame with cast hemp and lime walls. The

attic space is unoccupied and has cellulose insulation. The area of the house is 165 square me-

tres. The family grow vegetables, herbs, fruit bushes and strawberries in their onsite garden.

He is a 40+ energy consultant and is the proprietor of ‘Acorn Energy’. His wife is a self em-

ployed book keeper/business administrator. His wife and himself first found out about the eco

village project on the internet in 2004 and then took part in an experience weekend in Cloughjor-

dan later that year before joining the community. As a busy couple with young children they are

actively involved in the project. Brendan is involved with a working group gathering infor-

mation on district heating for SERVE and for monitoring purposes. He is also involved in direct

activities on site such as organising and maintaining a green play area for children, planting trees

and maintaining car park areas. His wife is a book keeper for the community farm and an admin-

istrator for Oxpark Construction Management Limited which oversees the construction of the eco

village for Sustainable Project Ireland Limited (SPIL).

56


Brendan and his wife, Nicole decided to move to the eco village as they both wanted to develop a

more self sustainable life style. Brendan comes from a technical background in energy efficiency

and wanted to put his expertise into a new low energy design and build. Nicole on the other hand

was interest in a more sustainable and self sufficient life style. Therefore when they came across

the eco village it seemed to be the perfect solution to their needs with the added benefit of a sup-

portive and like minded community.

“...we were quite impressed with what their plans were and the people behind it...I work in ener-

gy myself and Building Energy Rating (BER) and all that sort of stuff and I looking for an oppor-

tunity to try and put a lot the theory into practice...but to do it in a community was a kinda (sic) a

nice bonus with the whole initiative that was going on in that area...”

57

For Brendan and Nicole the fact that the eco village is integrated into an existing village with

facilities and services was also an attractive for them to relocate in Cloughjordan. Brendan had

planned to move into a self employed role and the fact that Cloughjordan is centrally located in

the country, was logistically attractive and allowed him to fulfil this plan.

“...I prefer the fact that we are in the village here, you can walk to the shops, to the schools...and

Cloughjordan is central enough as well, you are only an hour and half from Dublin and an hour

from Limerick or less...”


For Brendan becoming part of the eco village gave him the opportunity to get involved in the

design and build of other homes within the project. He used his expertise to help other home

owners to maximise their energy efficiency within a workable budget. It also gave him valuable

experience in working with different building materials and structures.

“...for me work wise it been very good... and gave me a lot of experience in lots of different types

of buildings...”

He also feels the community is a major benefit for his family. Cloughjordan has many services

and facilities, within a rural setting that Brendan feels are ideal for young family. They have

built up a good network of friends since moving here.

“...the community side is really good...there are schools here and a crèche, there is a really good

community here to help you out; it is great...we built up a good network...”

Brendan’s current work mainly involves retrofitting existing houses in the area and this has given

him the opportunity to actively build connections with the larger community of north Tipperary.

“...through my work I’ve got to know a few plumbers, contractors and various people around the

area. I do a lot of retrofitting of existing houses so most of my work is outside the eco vil-

lage...that been a good way for me to get to know the community here so I don’t feel we are in a

separate enclave as such...”

58

The community farm is also a benefit for the Power’s with a weekly supply of fresh vegetable

and milk. “...it is great to have a supply of vegetables...it’s an interesting project to be involved

in...”

They also grow their own vegetables as well. “...we have a good bit of stuff growing this year

hopefully this will be our best year...we hoping to set it up to be as maintenance free as possi-

ble...so we have a few raised beds outside.”

Overall he is very happy with his quality of life in the eco village for himself and his family.

This is in part due to the availability of local services but also the support his neighbours and

friends provide each other.

“...our quality of life here is quite good, you know for the kids the schools are local here, they

can cycle to school every day, so from the point of view it’s great. The supermarket, post office,

all the services you need, doctor and everything like that is here locally. Because we don’t have

immediate family here for things like babysitting or you need something in a hurry...we have our

internal email network and just shoot out an email and you usually get what you need, someone

will bail you out...”


community member

Overall Brendan and his family don’t have any major issues since moving to the eco village. He

is aware that a lot of the work done in the eco village is done on a voluntary basis and he does

feel that as he is self employed he does not get to help out as much as he would like. The eco-

nomic downturn has impacted on his family like many others and the challenges of meeting

mortgages and bills must take priority.

“...because I’m working five to six days a week generally, I just don’t get the time to contribute

as much as I’d like too...you kinda (sic) feel conscious about that because others are probably

saying they are not doing a whole lot...but we have a young family to mould- five, ten years time

that will be very different and having built a house and the challenges of mortgages and things

59

like that you have to keep the shoulder to the grind stone especially in the last two years with the

downturn...”

The family’s transition to Cloughjordan was generally smooth; however, there was the usual up-

heaval that goes with any house build on a technical and logistical level. The Powers managed

their own build which helped overcome any issues.

“...it wasn’t that huge a move as I was doing some work up here with North Tipp county council

anyway before I came, obviously when we built that was a stressful time because we managed it

ourselves – that was a tough six or seven months. Luckily we got the house built pretty quickly...”

They built their house in 2009 which was a year that had very heavy rain and a lot of flooding so

Brendan had to be careful with the building material he was using and strived to only build in dry

weather. This obviously led to some delays which may not have been encountered if he had been

building an ordinary house of block and cement.

“...because of the nature of the material we had we felt we had to get it plastered and protected,

if it were block or whatever you would have just left it alone...”

He had lived in South Tipperary for a good few years and upon reflection he feels that it took a

while for him to settle into a new area but after nearly three years in Cloughjordan now – it is

home.

“...I lived in Clonmel for years so I definitely missed Clonmel and had a network there...so it took

a while to settle down from the point of view...once you get into the day to day, you get over

that.”

The district heating system (DHS) also proved problematic but since has been rectified and is

running fine now. However, he feels that it requires operational/maintenance expertise that can

be difficult to find in the country.

“...so we had problem initially with getting a connection with that and then just controlling it, I

remember at one stage we couldn’t stop it, it just kept running all the time...the district heating is

probably the biggest challenge overall...probably it is still a issue on going sort of rumbling

away...I suppose the fact there isn’t a whole lot of expertise in the country...”

60

1.


Brendan is conscious that some members’ district heating system (DHS) costs are higher than

others which seem to stem back to a plumbing issue and maybe in consistencies in connection

techniques to the system.

“...some people usage seems to be way higher than ours...because there is different plumbers

and electrician coming in and that sort of thing, it has been a big issue and some of them are

trying to bypass the controls and putting in more basic controls...”

He is also aware that the system does not have commissioning expertise on hand but the commu-

nity is working together to overcome such issues and for most people including the Powers it is

sufficiently reliable at present.

“...the fact we have no one properly commissioning I think has been a big fall down in it...... for

most people it is pretty reliable and the last two winters it has been fine for us...”

61

He was overall very satisfied with his build and trade persons. “...the house construction went

reasonably smoothly...I used mainly local...because I want to support local so it was mainly local

carpenters, contractors...most went smoothly enough there was a few little things...”

Brendan like some others in the eco village experienced hold ups in relation to planning regula-

tions at the early stage of his build. He had to go back to his drawing boards and amend his

house design. However, looking back he is still happy with the outcome.

“...eco build did our house plan...we had problems with planning a lot of us had soon after we

moved up here in 2008 where our plans got rejects...because there was not enough cohesion be-

tween the houses...in some ways it worked well because we simplified our design maybe in hind

sight it was good in terms of cost...”

However, because of the delay with planning of nearly a year and a half the building project be-

came quite costly due to the economic downturn. Brendan was very happy with the master archi-

tect, ‘Brian O Brien,’ who worked to get the planning approved as quickly as possible. However,

the time taken did affect some prospective members as they had to pull out of the project due to

the economic recession. “...we probably lost quite a few members or people who were hoping to

build were lost through that...”

He is very happy with his engagement with Sustainable Project Ireland Limited (SPIL).

“...overall I am quite happy...”

Brendan is very happy with the village structure and organisation however he is aware of the dif-

ficulties of making the consensus system work and at times can find it time consuming.

“...at times is can be a bit bureaucratic, sometimes to get decision made can take for ever...there

can be hold ups...we have consensus process so if we have one or two people objecting at all it

can take months to get over that...”

Brendan feels he has achieved his expectations as he has a good quality of life in Cloughjordan.

However the only challenge for his family is the economic downturn which has affected them

financially like so many others in Ireland.

62

“Overall for us I’d rate them quite highly, we’ve got a house we are very happy with, and we are

living in a good community, that way its working out well, the schools is working out very well. I

can’t think of too many down sides, obviously in general the downturn, the squeeze on work...but

luckily my wife has picked up some part-time work...its particularly in the last year since the

SERVE grants has finished here, thankfully I’ve picked up some work with the council which is

really keeping us ticking over – that is proving challenging...”

Also he thinks that by being based in rural Ireland this may put limits on their accessibility to

work opportunities.

“...I think maybe the area we’re in, because it’s a very rural area that opportunities are limited,

maybe if we were closer to Limerick it could be easier...so we are doing a bit of soul searching

about how we keep things going forward, that’s the biggest challenge. If we could sort that eve-

rything would be fine.”

Brendan had experienced major problems with dampness in the house he had bought in South

Tipperary prior to moving to the eco village. Even though it was a modern house which was built

in 1989/1999, he had to invest a lot of time and money in rectifying poor building techniques.

He really appreciates his house in the eco village both for its structure and efficiency. Overall he

is feels he has got value for money invested in his house.

“...the house we have now is very warm, it very easy to heat, our heating bill is about 75% less

compared to that house...it’s comfortable, it holds heat...we don’t have any more problems with

damp...”


level

He feels that the eco village has brought a lot of outside interest to Cloughjordan and revitalised

the village. There is also a lot of interest in the buildings within the village also.

“...I suppose locally here, the impacts in Cloughjordan are really positive...the festival has

grown out the eco village as such...Cultivate are down here now and they run a lot of courses,

workshops and seminars and getting people in here...the president was here last week Michael

63

D. Higgins, this weekend there a food festival on and ‘Totally Tipperary’ will be on here at the

end of the month...I think locally there has been quite a good impact.”

Brendan feels the data that the eco village houses can provide will be invaluable information for

future reference and could prove influential for future building techniques.

“...at the moment now we have got a few students here doing a lot of data gathering on the hous-

es, I am helping out one student who is compiling data on each house on the way they were built,

how much energy they are consuming, their BER results...all our houses are being monitored for

energy consumption...”

He does believe the eco village could be replicated but it would need strong organisation and

possibly develop more gradually. However he feel the lessons learned in Cloughjordan would

prove invaluable to anyone wishing to replicate part of the project or the entire project.

“...it could but you would need a few people to drive it...it is a huge commitment...a lot of what

we are doing you would love to see it replicated...I think probably if we were doing an eco vil-

lage again I think rather than starting with a big site like what we have...maybe you would start

on a smaller scale and grow it more organically.”

He is very happy with the media coverage of the eco village and feels that they do their best to

maintain its profile both locally and internationally. “...Cultivate in particular has very good

contacts...sometimes I feel the pressure is on us to keep it going because we have had a lot of

coverage...I think we have a good website...we’ve been featured regularly on ‘About the House’

on RTE1 with Duncan Stewart, in ‘Permaculture’ magazine and Construct Ireland on a number

of occasions...We also did a feature with the Sunday Independent in 2010 and we were featured

on a special report on RTE’s Six One News. There have also been a number of features in the

Irish Times.”

Brendan finds overall that his family and friends are quite impressed with the eco village pro-

gression. “...they were very impressed...my family unit have been quite positive about it.”

64


activities

Brendan is concerned that sometimes the consensus process can be costly and maybe in certain

situations needs to streamline. “...I think we are doing a reasonable job...sometimes decisions

that should be made quicker and sometimes it costs money where we are deliberating over them

and for a long time...”

In regard to activities onsite he feels sometimes there is too much going on and it can be daunt-

ing. “...there is so much to do not only building, but also landscaping, district heating monitor-

ing, setting up educational activities, sorting out infrastructure, and so on, that it can be difficult

to keep on top of things and to have enough time available to put in to these areas...”

One of his main suggestions would be that the eco village maintains a focus on keeping the

community viable in terms of providing work for members. He hopes that the enterprise centre

will help the situation and prevent the village from becoming a commuter base to larger cities.

“...one of challenges here is that we don’t end up as a commuter town, one or two have ended up

taking jobs in Limerick and that is one danger here with the downturn that people have to travel

for work...hopefully the enterprise centre will give that a push...but there is no easy answer.”


He is very impressed with the how the eco village actively promote themselves and feels they

make every effort to use new forms of media such as facebook to attract interest. He is equally

happy with the courses and activities that they run at present.

“...I think we do a good job and get a lot of coverage between all the national and local pa-

pers...we get more than our fair share...social media wise; the website has been revamped which

needed to be done that was done probably about a year or two ago and the likes of facebook...”

Brendan has one suggestion for the eco village promotion and that is the establishment of an in-

formation centre. This would provide visitors with general information on each house, its design

65

and build. He feels this would be a great opportunity to develop the eco village image and avail-

ability to the general public.

“...it would probably be good to have some sort of centre here; a visitor centre...we get a lot of

people driving here on the weekends if you had a centre here with what is going on with more

information on what’s going on and the house types. Now when you look around a lot of the

houses are finished...you don’t know what they are made of...something like that could even be

an attraction for people coming here and you would never know what could spin off from that...”

The SERVE project has made a big difference to Brendan and his business. It gave him the im-

petus to be self employed.

“...it probably one of the reasons I went self employed...it focused people on getting a BER

done...it has been very useful to keep people focused.”

He feels that the SERVE project managed to keep focus on energy efficiency. With SERVE now

coming to an end hopefully it can be used to show the benefits of getting upfront specifications

and provisional BERs completed on house plans to ensure they meet Part L Building Regulations

with regards to energy consumption and meets the requirements of the Eco-charter. It would be a

concern if members are not putting together properly evaluated specifications for their homes

when they go out to tender for builders.

“...they are cutting corners...and not meeting regulations...”

Conclusion

Brendan is very happy with the quality of life his family has in the eco village. He enjoys the

supportiveness of his community in this well serviced and friendly rural village. With a back-

ground in the energy industry and energy efficiency the eco village project gave him the oppor-

tunity to build an efficient house while also providing a sustainable and integrated community.

With a young family he is aware of the financial pressures of the economic downturn but hopes

that with continued innovation the eco village will overcome these challenges and flourish.

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Main issues/challenges encountered experienced as an eco village community member72





Conclusion: 77

68

Background to SERVE








is Annemarie Nugent.

She lives in ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Ireland in a two storey closed wall

timber construction, kit house. This type of house construction gave Annemarie and her family a

fast track build and early completion. Annemarie’s mother heard about the eco village project on

the radio. The family decided to attend some meetings from which they decided to get involved

in the eco village. Annemarie and her family were one of the first families to move to village.

The family are members of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme and also have

some vegetables growing outside their house.

Annemarie is 40+ and is originally from Dublin where she worked as a librarian. She now teach-

es Irish to students from her home. Her husband is a writer and her father who lives with them is

a retired cabinet maker. Her involvement in the eco village structure is limited at present due

mainly to work commitments and raising her two young children.

69


For Annemarie the main motivation to move with her family to Cloughjordan was an inherent

sense of the unsustainable pattern of modern lifestyles. In the contemplation of the possible fu-

ture environmental, social and economical changes she felt that a resilient environment such as

the eco village was ultimately the best option for her family.

“…a big reason would be the ecological side of things, I felt and still do feel that there are mas-

sive changes coming in the economy, society, the whole ecosystem – climate change and all of

that. I do feel that these things are going to happen and I feel that the handiest, safest and best

place to be is somewhere like here. Where you are cushioned against that kind of thing because

there is so much knowledge here, there are so many people who know how to handle certain

things that I don’t know how to handle, the expertise...”

70

For her the community aspect of the village was also an important factor along with her desire to

move to a rural setting.

“…the community was very important to me as well…I always wanted to move to the coun-

try…there were family connections with north Tipp as well...”

She had lived in the country for a few years in her childhood and was naturally drawn to it.

Along with an awareness of environmental issues and a desire to reduce their environmental im-

pact the family made their transition to Cloughjordan.

“…I would have cared about the pollution and the greenery around me…”


When Annemarie and her family moved originally to Cloughjordan they rented in the area and as

they mainly rented older houses her experiences were bad. When they built their own house in

the eco village she was delighted to have a warm, comfortable house.

“A warm dry house…I had a reasonable house in Dublin…but since I came to Cloughjordan I

spent four years living in damp, cold, draughty places…by god it is nice to be in a dry house...”

Annemarie enjoys the sense of community that exists not only within the eco village but also

within the village of Cloughjordan. Once the family made the move to Cloughjordan, she con-

sciously made an effort to actively involve herself in the community and really enjoys the com-

munity spirit of the village.

“…when we moved down here, there weren’t that many people – eco villagers here already -

there were maybe one or two families here before us. So I joined Irish Countrywomen’s Associa-

tion (ICA), joined the choir and a couple of other things so I got to know a lot of local people

fairly well…”

71

She also appreciates the support within the eco village and between its members. As the mem-

bers share common values and objectives for their community there is a sense of interdependency

between the members and a shared reliance.

“…There is quite a good deal of community possibilities within the eco village itself of course,

there’s the community dinner…you can drop over for something if you need it, clothes get

swapped around between all parents for the kids and sometimes for themselves, people know

they can ring me if they need a lift to bus or the train…there is a lot trust there and a lot of coop-

eration…”

She equates the neighbourliness of the eco village to her childhood experiences of growing up in

Dublin. There was a greater sense of community which she feels has been lost throughout Ire-

land in the last few decades possibly due to more affluence and thus a more independent society.

“…Like when I was a kid in Dublin I knew everybody on the street, I don’t think the people living

on my street now know everybody, the older people do but not the new people…

Annemarie attributes the friendliness of the eco village to the fact that the members share a

common goal for sustainable development and resilience which bring cohesion to the community

“…mainly because we have to work together…”

She is aware that there are times in everyone’s life when they need to deal with personal issues

and cannot give as much time to the project as they may like to. However, she feels that the

community work together to support each other during these times and that this is a great benefit

to living in the eco village.

“…I have observed it over the years that there are times when people are very engaged and

times when something happens – babies, parents whatever – and then they’re not and I am in

one of those not phases now and I feel people trust me to come back from that. I don’t feel de-

mands being made of me that I can’t live up to. I think the feeling of responsibility is there that I

should get back to it but I don’t feel too stressed about it…”

72


community member

As the community work together in close contact and under a consensus structure, conflict is an

integral part of decision making for the eco village. This obviously can be contentious and trou-

blesome for some members. Annemarie feels that even though conflict can alienate some mem-

bers from each other, the group is large enough to cushion such issues.

“…some people have become a little isolated here because of rows but not completely in any

case I don’t think; there is always someone who talks to somebody. With eighty households there

is bound to be someone you really can’t stand but there are enough people. There are enough

73

people you really get on with and you may find your best friend here, a lot of people are really

good friends…”

She acknowledges that the consensus making process has its challenges but overall she thinks it’s

a good decision making system. “…consensus is practically impossible with eighty something

families, it is really very difficult, I mean we do our best and a lot of people say we should aban-

don consensus because of that - I wouldn’t say that because it makes for slower decisions but I

think maybe they are sometimes better decisions. Everything has its flaws – everything – I prefer

the flaws of consensus making than other systems…”

Annemarie has experienced financial difficulty and hasn’t had a full-time job since 2009. How-

ever she returned to study various courses in Irish and teaching in order to improve her teaching

ability and opportunities. She now teaches classes from home and gives grinds to secondary

school students which give her the flexibility to work from home. “…I have my own little class

here and I have a few grinds…”

She has a love of the Irish language and culture, which gives her the motivation to send her eldest

son to a Gaelscoil (Irish speaking school) in Nenagh. However, as Nenagh is a busy provincial

town and approximately 15km from Cloughjordan with no school bus service the daily commute

does add stress and expense. However, she is happy with her choice and her son’s progress in

the school and as she had done most of her own schooling through Irish, she wanted to do the

same for her children. “…it is a bloody nuisance to have to drive into Nenagh to get a Gaelscoil

though, very, very (sic) awkward, the petrol in and out, the time, I do find that very stressful…if

there were seven kids going there, there would be a bus but there aren’t...I don’t regret it I think

he has done very well there but it’s bloody far away”


Annemarie is sufficiently happy with the district heating system (DHS), as she was one of the

first members on site she has witnessed its development over the years.

“…It is not bad, I’d be adequately satisfied with it, when it is working fine – it’s great! There is

still some settling in problems and things go wrong but it is fine…”

74

In regard to her build, recently she has found a gap that the builders had left in the external wall

of her house. This has allowed mice access into the wall cavity which is a problem that needs to

be rectified.

“…we have found a hole lately in the side of our house which is why we have mice in the

walls…the insulation is newspaper waste so I am sure it is nice to burrow into if you’re a

mouse…”

There were also some items that were not completed to the family’s satisfaction however the

building company is no longer operating and any rectification will need to be carried out by the

family now. Annemarie and her family opted for a kit house as it would be constructed quickly.

Thus they have accepted that they may not have got everything they wanted but still they have a

warm, dry, comfortable home.

“…there were a few things they didn’t finish properly and they don’t exist anymore so I can’t get

at them, it’s fine for what it was, we knew it was a kit house, we knew it wouldn’t be quite what

we wanted in some ways but that was the price you paid for the speed…”

However, with some finishing issues outstanding she would still rate her house build highly “…

seven out of ten…”

Annemarie tends to be pragmatic about her satisfaction with Sustainable Project Ireland Limited

(SPIL) as it depends on what topic is under discussion and how it is resolved. Her satisfaction is

“…on/off it depends on the subject…”

However she is aware that eco village project is very unique and that it will be through trials and

tribulations that the community will grow and develop.

“…I would tend to take a long view of it that it is a twelve year old organisation. So much set-

tling in, so many corners had to be cut for financial issues, things we didn’t want to do we did

because we had to because we had no other choice. Planning issues that were forced on us that

we didn’t want to do and that we had to as we had no other choice. I think they could handle

rows between us better but then is that our fault for getting into rows?”

75

She is very content with many of the activities of the eco village in particular the farm enterprise

and the research garden which is working to develop more sustainable ways of growing food.

“…you see everything we do we should be handling ourselves…I reckon what we are doing is

fairly unique and could be very important and it could be an example of what not to do…I think

the food thing is very important…the farm, the RED (Research/Education/Development) garden

and just the expertise that is here is great…”


level

Annemarie is not sure on a personal level whether the eco could or should be replicated else-

where as she feel there are already a lot of houses in Ireland and adding more may not be benefi-

cial. “...I’m not sure I see the point of doing another eco village it is kinda (sic) an artificial con-

struct – how many people would want to do it?”

However, she does feel that the eco village could provide great learning for people who want to

develop more sustainable and resilient lifestyles.

“...but I think it could be somewhere people could come to learn more about making a transition

town or village out of what is already in their area...the transition movement could take a lot

from here not that we are a transition town...for example they could learn about food, things that

can be done...”

Annemarie feels that Cloughjordan was not a wasteful society and that the eco village members

would share common ground with many of the locals.

“...actually they were never wasteful here, because they never had the Celtic Tiger to make them

wasteful, there may have been individuals maybe...it was never a throwaway society here...but

from a waste point of view they would not have been a wasteful type of community...”

She feels that the eco village members have contributed to the regeneration of the village and an

appreciation of its uniqueness.

76

“...I think we have helped with revitalising Tidy Towns which isn’t a bad thing it makes people

think about the look of the place...and what is here...it just revitalises the physical fabric and

physical fabric of a village can be just as important as the more esoteric stuff...”

Annemarie feels that there is not as much media coverage as there could be mainly, because the

eco village has experienced the same financial issues as the rest of the country since the econom-

ic downturn. There are still many sites for sale and building works have slowed down substan-

tially in the last few years as people struggle to find the money to buy sites and build.

“...I mean we are in the Nenagh Guardian often enough but I don’t think there has been enough

media coverage. I don’t think people were interested before the crash and then I think since the

crash we are limping along – people kinda (sic) look it and say ‘you still don’t have everything

built...what’s to look at? So it’s kinda (sic) hard that we haven’t lived up to what we had hoped

to have lived up to by now because people have to find money to build a house...”

Annemarie feels she does influence her friends and family and they are interested in and will

discuss issues such as climate change and sustainable development with her.

“...I think I have a bit...sometimes people will say ‘oh no not the eco village again’ but some-

times people will listen to what we are saying, friends, family, cousins...”


activities

As she has been out of the organisation of the eco village for a few months she felt she won’t be

able to comment effectively on necessary improvements. However the only issue that she was

aware of was that of computer literacy and the possible need for the introduction of relevant

courses for members.

“...I don’t think I currently know enough about it, I’ve been out of the loop for months...there are

certain subsets of people that are not comfortable or happy with computer communication...”

Upon reflection she also felt that facilitation courses would be helpful with conflict management

issues that arise from consensus decision-making within the community.

77

“...I think facilitation skills would be pretty good too because of interpersonal conflicts...”


Again as Annemarie admits she is not up to date on the organisation and structure of the eco vil-

lage due to personal commitments however she is aware of the power of social media.“...possibly

we have to use things like Facebook a bit more...social media, Twitter that kind of thing...”

SERVE has made a big difference to Annemarie and her family in that it gave both financial

support and guidance to the eco village project.

“...they made a huge financial difference and I think having the partners to go and make the ap-

plication probably helped a lot, there is a certain amount of validity that comes from a whole

bunch of you doing something...it was so together as an application... that we had everyone with

us I think we might not have got as good a deal as we got without it being the big project of

SERVE...”

She also feels SERVE objectively highlighted tasks and data collection that would be beneficial

to the community at a later date.

“...to have SERVE there to reminded us every so often that we got to do this and we got to do that

is, I think probably that has been a good thing too...when we have so many priorities and it’s so

practical on the ground sometimes we forget the information that should be gathered, that is

precious information...”

Conclusion:

Annemarie and her family enjoy the supportive and resilient ethos of the eco village. They also

enjoy the support and neighbourliness of the village of Cloughjordan and feel greatly at home in

the community as a whole. Annemarie loves the knowledge and expertise that is at hand in the

eco village and is inspired by the exploration of new innovation, research and educational pro-

grammes conducted there. She feels that the knowledge available within ‘The Village’ will

prove invaluable in the future.

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80

Background to SERVE








is Elaine Kelly.

She lives in ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Ireland in a two storey passive de-

sign house with her husband and two children. Her home was constructed by Scandinavian

Homes Limited and is a Swedish pre-manufactured timber framed passive house. The area of the

house is 2,200square feet (204.4 square metres). The family do not have an allotment but have

developed their own vegetable garden at the front of their house this year.

Elaine is 40+ and is an Amatsu practitioner and music teacher and her husband is an electronic

engineer. The family heard about ‘The Village’ project on the national RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís

Éireann) news in December 2007 and took part in an experience weekend in the eco village in

2008. They moved from South Tipperary to the eco village in 2009. Elaine is a voluntary tour

guide for weekend excursions to the eco village.

81


Elaine’s main motivation to move to the eco village was primarily a need to be part of an inclu-

sive and safe community where her family could interact and contribute to a viable neighbour-

hood.

“...the social motivation, we wanted to be part of a community more so and I wanted somewhere

to raise the children that would be safe and we would have lots of friends and a social network

as well...”

82

The family decided to move from a rural location in South Tipperary as the community around

them began to lose its neighbourliness. This was due to many families in the area selling their

houses and relocating elsewhere. The houses in turn were bought for the purpose of renting,

which resulted in fewer family units in the area and a lack of social cohesion.

“...it was fine but my husband was travelling to work every day and I didn’t see him until he was

back at half six and at that stage I would be teaching music. But it was getting to a stage where

the people who had bought the houses around us were selling up and moving and I was feeling a

bit isolated and there was no community spirit really as such even though we did try...”

The family decided that they would need to make a change and sold their house with the inten-

tion of building somewhere else with an established community and social network.

“...we sold the house five years ago and moved to Limerick with the intention of building some-

where else but then we saw something about this (eco village) on the news and that’s when we

came to have a look. We thought this sounded brilliant, it’s a readymade community...everybody

is in it together...”

The Kelly’s were very aware of the issue of oil scarcity and the subsequent rising costs. They

had decided that the most proactive measure to reduce energy usage was to build a passive house.

“...we were going to build a passive house anyway, we had been up to Galway to Scandinavian

Homes before we came here and we had been a few times looking at this kind of design and

thinking this is what we would like because of the future. We could see the oil prices getting

higher and we knew it would be easier to heat. So it all just fitted in nicely, we could build our

passive house in the eco village with the community...”

When they visited the eco village they found that their personal aspirations fitted perfectly with

‘The Village’ project.

“...we would have been quite environmentally aware...”

83


Elaine and her family have overcome a settling in period and have found that one of the main

benefits of the eco village is the energy efficiency of the district heating system (DHS).

“...it was difficult at the start really but I have to say, now two years on it’s a lot better because

there is a lot more houses going up around us and the district heating system is working very

effectively. We have really good cheap heat and hot water on tap (sic)... our energy bill for the

month is on average €30-35...”

The Kelly’s experienced very little problems with the district heating system from the start and

are very happy with its operation.

“...to be honest we really hadn’t much bother with the DHS (sic)...my husband has a lot of tech-

nical experience...and we had a really good plumber...”

Another benefit is that Elaine’s children have lots of friends in the area and the family share simi-

lar values and ideals with their neighbours in Cloughjordan.

“...they have a lot of little ones to play with...they have lots of company here and the nice thing as

well is that everyone is like-minded...we have more in common with people here...”

There is a strong sense of community in the eco village and Elaine likes the opportunity the vil-

lage gives her children to interact with different age groups.

“...there’s some retired people living on their own and there’s a good few families...so there’s a

good mix and everybody mixes well, the small people mix well with the older people...”

84


community member

One issue experienced by Elaine related to direct access to the eco village complex but this was

eventually rectified by SPIL.

“...there has been a few issues alright that has came up but there has been a change in the board

(Sustainable Projects Ireland Limited) and that has helped make some of those other issues go

away...technical issues really that could become social eventually, it was to do with site ac-

cess...direct site access for the main street...lots of us were not happy with it because we had

bought and paid for our site, paid a community development charge, paid a construction charge

and paid a fee to the council....”

Initially the move to the eco village and their build project put financial strain on the family.

“...the first year was difficult because money was tight because everything had gone into here so

that was difficult, so there wouldn’t have been much to play around with...”

85


Elaine wasn’t very satisfied with some of her suppliers particularly in relation to the heat ex-

change pump for their house which arrived late and with very little expertise on how to install it

correctly.

“...I won’t have an awful lot of good to say about them (suppliers)...they weren’t good...to be

honest they were the weakest link...”

She was however very happy with the quality of work of her builders and architect. “They were

perfect, they were brilliant...”

Her contentment with SPIL was poor and states that her initial level of satisfaction with the board

as “...not good up until now, that there has been a total change...”

Other members shared Elaine’s apprehension. Thus she addressed her concerns directly with the

board. This community action led to a reorganisation of the board membership and greater grass-

roots satisfaction.

“There were people on the board and I really didn’t know what they were on the board for, they

hadn’t paid their membership fees, some of them have sites and some of them don’t have sites...I

used to be giving out about them here, who are they to be making legislation over us when they

don’t physically own anything and I felt that some of them had their own personal agenda and

that was why they were on the board...I wrote a letter, I won’t be one for writing but I did write

to say that I wasn’t paying membership to an organisation where some of the directors hadn’t

paid their own membership and I wasn’t happy with it...”

She is very happy with the village structure and activities “...that is pretty ok there’s a lot of stuff

going on here.”

In regard to value for money, Elaine is very happy with her passive house and the opportunities

that are available to either substitute the family’s income or improve the community space.

“...it is absolutely, it’s not that you would be looking to make money back on your home because

it’s your home, it’s not an investment like it was years ago. If there are conferences going on or

86

activities there is always requests if you want to rent out a room. Or if the WWOOFers (World

Wide Opportunity on Organic Farms) are working on the farm if you put them up, they might do

a bit of work for you or they might do a bit of work on the common land, which is good because

it benefits everybody...”

She is very happy with her lifestyle in the eco village. However when considering whether her

expectations for the eco village have been achieved, she feels that it is still developing and it will

only be when the project is complete that its full potential will be appreciated.

“...yes definitely but I think it is still a work in progress. I think it won’t be all realised until the

place is finished.”


level

Elaine feels that initially there may have been local concerns about what the eco village may in-

volve. Nevertheless the locals now realise that the eco village offers many an opportunity to

maximise social, economic and environmental gains.

“...definitely it’s starting to get out there now, I think initially people were a bit nervous about it,

that the local people would have been considered; are they hippies or are they strange people.

But now there’s a lot more people like us – a bit more conservative, that are here for the com-

munity, the social side and run their houses cheaper...”

She feels that the eco village contributes to the local community and has brought both financial

and social benefits to the neighbourhood. She feels it has a definite influence on the locality.

“...definitely...there was as conference here in February to do with the community farm...the hos-

tel was full, there was something like €6000-€8000 generated in all the shops and pubs locally in

that weekend which won’t have come to Cloughjordan only for the eco village. I think the local

traders are happy to have it here...and it’s a benefit to the schools as well, both schools, as the

numbers are up and we’ve got a new teacher in our school and we’ve got a new school as well

since we moved here...”

87

In relation to whether the eco village could be replicated Elaine feels that a possible avenue for

investigation may be the retrofitting of an existing housing estate.

“...I don’t know unless a ghost estate could be retrofitted, that is attached to a village...”

Most of Elaine’s family and friends are already committed to their own lifestyles however she

does feel that they are very interested in the eco village and its ethos. This she feels influences

some of them in regard to social, economic and environmental opportunities.

“...they like it but a lot of them have their own set ups...they are some who would say they would

love to live like this...”

She thinks that media coverage on the eco village is good but that more possibly needs to be

done to encourage both interest and investment into the project.

“...I think there is a lot more to be done in regard to publicity and getting it out there more. I

called to somebody last week in next village ‘Shinrone’, she said that they don’t hear much about

Cloughjordan only when they see something in the local paper...”


activities.

Elaine feels that the SPIL board would benefit from some professional training in regard to their

professional roles and responsibilities. This she feels would give more structure to the organisa-

tion.

“...I think there should be some training given to the board of SPIL, proper training by a busi-

ness coach on how to run a board. I think this is very important...this is the role of a PRO (pub-

lic relations officer), this is the role of a secretary, and this is the role of a treasurer, so I think

this is really important. There is definitely training needed because you can’t just take on these

roles especially when you have a big budget to be managing as well (sic), there’s a lot of

branches springing off the one tree. It needed to be run more professionally...”

88


She feels that more promotion of the eco village is required through social media networks such

as facebook and twitter. She also feels that local newspapers need to be utilised more.

“...so I was thinking that the facebook page and twitter should be used more...they need to be

updated a bit more, maybe every week just to say such a thing has happened and here’s the pho-

tos for this event...I think the local papers need to be used more...”

Elaine feels SERVE has been beneficial for the eco village in regard to getting the district heating

system installed and operational.

“It has in regard to the district heating system it provided the funding for the boilers and the

barn...”

Conclusion

The eco village’s sense of community was initially what drew the Kelly’s to the area. Since

moving to the village they have overcome the initial settling in challenges and now enjoy their

supportive and evolving community. Cloughjordan and the eco village offer the family a safe

and well serviced neighbourhood where they can actively participate in the development of their

community.

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Conclusion 100

91

Background to SERVE








is John Jopling.

He lives in ‘The Village’, Cloughjordan, County Tipperary, Ireland in a detached two storey

hemp-lime constructed house.

His house was designed by Dominic Stevens. In a measure to reduce waste John and his builders

used the whole of the hemp plant rather than the usual practice of using just the hemp hurds. The

external walls are 400mm lime-hemp which gives a provisional U-value of 0.17 W/m2K. John

has a 10m x 10m allotment where he grows some vegetables and he also has a number of fruit

plants and vegetables growing around his house. He is also a member of the Community Sup-

ported Agriculture (CSA) scheme.

John is a 77 retired barrister who is originally from London, England. He became aware of the

eco village from friends in Dublin that were involved in the project. He is heavily involved with

numerous legal structures, sales of sites and legal issues relating to the eco village. He was for-

merly a member of the Service Company board and Oxpark. He founded the Process Group and

coordinated it for several years. Recently he has joined the Sustainable Projects Ireland Limited

(SPIL) board and the Fundraising Group.

92


John’s main motivation to join the eco village in 2004 was the desire to be part of a community.

He was living in Kerry after retiring from work in London and even though he enjoyed the com-

munity spirit there he felt apart from it. The eco village offered him an opportunity to live in a

community with like-minded individuals.

“Community – that would be the main one because I was living alone in Kerry and whilst every-

body there is very neighbourly I’m not part of the community there. This project was about cre-

ating a new community; of course there is a very strong community in Cloughjordan amongst the

people who have always lived here. But we are bunch of people mainly from Dublin and but

several other countries as well and the idea is to create our own community...”

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He understands that the members of the eco village have a common goal to build a sustainable

and resilient community. Nevertheless he is aware that there are many different viewpoints on

what sustainability really means and how to achieve it.

“...sustainability is the distinctive thing about the community but people have extremely different

understandings of what sustainability really is. Some of my co-residents are content to build a

huge, very eco, well insulated house and think this is what the project is all about – at one ex-

treme. And then at the other extreme, people like me think the whole world needs to be changed

in all kinds of way and we need to work as cooperatives and all kind of radical change needs to

come. So we are a very diverse lot of people and the word ‘sustainability’ would be something

we would all subscribe to but we all have very different, varying opinions of what that actual

means in practice.”

As John is retired he felt that the village would help him put into use some of his skills and ex-

pertise while at the same time achieving his social and environmental objectives. “...Ideal for

retired person, useful work and community - suited my stage in life.”

He appreciates that the eco village provides a community where individuality is welcomed and

supports exist. This inclusive environment supports the community’s work to establish a frame-

work for sustainable development.

“...a lot of the eco-villagers are more spiritual, they are people who feel they are on a spiritual

journey together and whilst there are obviously people amongst us who feel strongly in that kind

of way, a lot of us don’t. It’s not typical, it’s much more main stream this project...it sets out in

our constitution to be a model of how development could and should be in the future, a model for

which people can learn...”

For John the transition into the eco village was an easy one as he already had a deep awareness of

social, economic and environmental issues. He was actively involved in promoting a greener and

more sustainable culture in London where he lived.

“...it wasn’t a big change for me it was a progression for me, I was already extremely active in

London, well I helped to create something called the ‘London Sustainability Network’, the ‘Sus-

tainable London Trust’ which I started and ran. I started and ran for something like nine years

94

the ‘Camden Green Fair’ which was an annual community green fair, which is now the ‘London

Green Fair’ which is a two day event. It aims to be the largest city green fair so I had already

started down the road of green activism and community activism...”


An important benefit to being part of the eco village for John is the community and the oppor-

tunity to put his knowledge, skills and expertise into useful work. The village keeps him in ac-

tive and useful retirement and he loves it.

“...the main benefit is community, is the first answer...I am a retired single man so the two things

you miss when you retire - one is the work, you know, you’ve been used to feeling you are mak-

ing use of your talents and your work and the other is your chums, your friends, your community

at work. So when you retire you lose both of those things. But here there is plenty to do, you can

make yourself useful whether you are an engineer, or a lawyer, or a gardener, or whatever you

are. There is a huge variety of people here, who are making use of their own skills and talents.

So there is plenty of work and plenty of organisation work as well, which I am interested in...”

He also enjoys the sense of community and the neighbourliness of the village. He is part of a

supportive and caring neighbourhood which is built on a solid social foundation.

“Secondly, there’s good company, it’s not like having neighbours that come and go. It’s people

who are here to be part of a community and if something happens to you, you will be looked af-

ter. We have had several examples of people who needed help and they have had it from other

people in the community and that will always be so...I know I will be looked after here and that is

wonderful, you can just forget about the worries of retirement...there really is nothing to worry

about here.”

He also appreciates the community spirit of the Cloughjordan environs which the eco village is

part of. This gives him a sense of place and belonging.

“...in the surrounding district there is a lot of support actually for elderly people...So there is a

lot of community here and I think we fit into it very well...”

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His house which is very energy efficient is an obvious benefit.

“...certainly, on the amount of energy used in this house because it’s a very well insulated house

and it holds the heat very well, it’s a lovely warm house, being heated with very small amount of

heat, I got under floor heating...I am sure energy wise it is very good.”

Another benefit for John is to experience the practical application of sustainable governance that

the eco village implements in the form of a cooperative. He feels that the project has great poten-

tial for both hands-on learning and development. As a member he can participate in its future

progress.

“...I think there is a huge potential which is already being realised with our educational projects

of various kinds, the organisations which have been attracted to come and be part of this like

‘Cultivate’. So I think the potential is absolutely huge for this project, we have an enterprise

building just going to go up, which has huge potential. There is the farm which is working out

how a community farm can work, it’s the main one in Ireland and it’s owned by the members.

There are projects for learning about sustainable agriculture and sustainable food growing and

I think there will be many more, there is huge diversity, I think there is a good feel to the place

because it has got such huge potential...I am a very active member of FEASTA (The Foundation

for the Economics of Sustainability), where we are thinking of new ways of sustainable econom-

ic and sustainable governance so to be based somewhere like this where all these kind of things

are being explored is in itself very interesting.”

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community member

The only challenge for John is the time it is taking to complete the project, approximately only 1/3

of the site is developed and with the economic downturn further development has been limited.

This means that the completion of this extensive project is extended indefinitely.

“...the main challenge is simply the time it takes, its taken 7/8 years since I’ve joined. It has tak-

en an inordinate time and it is still going to take a lot more time. I don’t think anybody foresaw

how long it was going to take, well we assumed the economy was booming and would continue to

boom and that the whole place would be re-developed in a couple of years. Instead of a couple of

years it’s already been 5 years and its going to be 10 years or more before we do it. The sheer

size of the undertaking has been massive and the problems – the engineering works was huge, far

larger than anticipated, cost far more and ran into all kinds of technical difficulties...”

In hindsight John feels that it may have been wiser to undertake the project in phases.

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“...I think if we were to do it again, we would as many other eco villages have done, is take it in

gradual steps, gradually build it up...”


He is unsatisfied with the installation of the district heating system (DHS), he feels the expertise

of the installation company was very poor, which caused delays and extra expense.

“...I can’t say we have had a satisfactory service in relation to the district heating system ...there

has been massive technical problems with the district heating system so this is one thing when

you do a project of this size you put yourself in the hands of people who are holding themselves

out as experts and its only after you have employed them that you discover that they weren’t re-

ally experts or have done their jobs expertly or efficiently, no we have had massive difficulties...”

The eco village had to invest additional funds and time into the district heating system to get it

operating to its current satisfactory standard. However, the on-site solar panels are still non op-

erational and this is a major disappointment for John.

“...it’s working, we have had to spend a vast sum which we haven’t yet recovered and may not

recover from anybody – an extra sum to make it work but the solar panels are not working and

it’s dubious to whether it’s worth spending the money that would be needed to get them up and

running when the existing facility is perfectly adequate for the size of project we are at the mo-

ment. So all that has been extremely unsatisfactory...”

He is content with how his build progressed and with the suppliers, project designers, architects

and builders involved in the building process. There were no unusual or costly delays or issues

incurred by him.

“...no abnormal problems...”

He rates his engagement with Sustainable Projects Ireland Limited highly as he does the struc-

ture/organisation of the eco village as a whole. “...it is all good...”

He feels he had got value for money and is confident in his ability to pay for his home however

he is aware that this is not the case for some members and potential members. The cost of build-

98

ing in the eco village is beyond the scope of many interested individual especially in the current

economic climate.

“...no its fine, it was within my budget, I am fortune to have a pension, an annuity which enabled

me to get a loan from the credit union which I am able to repay...so for me it was fine...This is

one of the major problems with the whole project. It assumed you’ve got considerable financial

resources well that is all wrong because we shouldn’t have assumed that because most people

don’t. So this is our main problem, that the thing was designed to sell sites to people who could

afford to buy the site and build and there is just not that number of people around so that was

deeply flawed...”

John feels he is actively achieving his expectations as an eco village member.

“...personally yes, well I am in the process of...”


level

John feels that the eco village has had an impact on the regional and national public. It has at-

tracted a substantial amount of publicity and he feels it will be a learning source for individuals

that wish to make the transition to a more sustainable and resilient lifestyle.

“...it has great potential and I think it has attracted a lot of publicity and the publicity 99% of it

has been very positive. It’s pretty unique in Ireland and as its becomes more and more obvious

to more and more people that Ireland was on a completely unsustainable course in the eighties

and nineties and part of the naughties (2000’s), you know, there is an interest that wouldn’t have

been there 30 years ago but there is now, that we need to discover other ways of carrying on, on

this planet and in Ireland...more self sufficient...we are working in a sensible direction...”

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He strongly feels that the eco village project has a lot of invaluable knowledge, expertise and

learning to impart to interested parties in regard to building sustainable local communities. He

feels that the principles and expertise of the project should be implemented by others.

“...yes sure, it could and should, absolutely! But I won’t use replicate because we’ve made a lot

of mistakes but I think cooperative, self sufficient ways are the future. It may not be new build

that’s the future maybe local communities will be interested in learning from us, not just about

the new build side of it and all the development which has been costly and basically unsustaina-

ble but in terms in how we are actually living, in terms of food production and energy use and

local jobs and all those kind of issues. It definitely, I think, will need to be copied and learnt

from...”


activities.

John feels that the eco village’s structure and organisation is gradually developing all the time.

The members are continuously learning and developing new ways to deal with daily challenges.

Therefore he feels that there is no one item he can identify off hand but that the project is evolv-

ing organically around its core ecological principles.

“...well there are a hundred and one things, we are learning how to do it and we are gradually

doing things better, so nothing jumps to mind. It’s very much a learning process, we haven’t got

there yet and it will be a continuous learning process because we have to handle the changes.

Originally it was a small group of people needing to a buy a piece of land, then it was a larger

group of people developing that land now it’s this larger group of people needing to establish

sustainable livelihoods in relation to this land. That’s not something that can be done by that

group...It involves relationships with a huge number of other players that don’t want to be con-

trolled and be part of our eco village. They want to be part of the wider project...we have basic

ecological principles...we are developing ways of ensuring that there is this shared ecological

ethos and that people that have licences to use part of our land are bound by the ecological

charter in the same way we are. We will be gradually developing that. It a process of gradual

development and learning how to do it.”

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John is very happy with the eco village promotion and is content with the work done by the Vil-

lage Education, Research and Training group (VERT).

“...I’d rather leave that to VERT...”

He feels that SERVE has been invaluable to the eco village project both financially and in rela-

tion to the guidance they provided the project.

“...SERVE made it possible; I don’t think we could have done it without SERVE. I think both

from a financial point of view and from a discipline point of view, it required us to be more dis-

ciplined to comply with the terms on which we were able to get the grant.”

Conclusion

John is living a dynamic and productive retirement within the eco village project. His social and

environmental ideals are combined with his legal knowledge and expertise to assist the project’s

development. He is surrounded by supportive neighbours, a flourishing garden and vibrant life-

style. His participation in the eco village project gives him purpose and a sense of community

which is extremely important to him. He is aware of the challenges that the project faces but is

confident that it will overcome these challenges and by doing so will provide invaluable learning.

He believes that the eco village has important knowledge, expertise and skills that are crucial for

anyone wishing to build a sustainable local community.

deliverable report deliverable no.: d6.11.c work … deliverables report_d6.11c.pdf · the...

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