Making Settlements More Sustainable Today

Let's start with a question

In 1996, the city council of Växjö, a small city in southern Sweden, made a bold decision: the city would aim to become free of fossil fuels. Today much of Växjö is heated by a plant that burns wood waste from the region's forestry instead of oil, and the city calls itself "Europe's greenest city". What can other communities, including yours, learn from places like this?

In the last lessons you saw how settlements affect the environment and how future hazards may affect settlements. Now let's look at solutions people are already using.

What is sustainability?

In 1987, a United Nations commission described sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In other words: live well now, but leave enough for the people who come after us.

A sustainable settlement balances three things:

• Environmental: clean air, water and soil; healthy habitats; less waste and pollution.
• Social: people are healthy, safe and included, with homes, services and a say in decisions.
• Economic: people have jobs and the community can afford what it builds and maintains.

Many First Nations, Métis and Inuit teachings express a similar idea: people have responsibilities to the land, the water and all living things. The Haudenosaunee teaching of considering how decisions will affect the seventh generation to come is one example. Anishinaabe Grandmother Josephine Mandamin began walking around each of the Great Lakes in 2003 to raise awareness about protecting water, and Water Walks continue today.

What individuals and families can do

• Use less water: shorter showers, turning off the tap while brushing teeth, fixing drips, running full loads of dishes and laundry, collecting rainwater in a barrel for the garden.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle, compost: buy less packaging, repair and reuse things, use the Blue Box and Green Bin where your municipality has them, or compost at home.
• Travel sustainably: walk, cycle or roll (active transportation), take public transit, or carpool.
• Save energy: turn off lights and devices, use LED bulbs, keep the house a little cooler in winter.
• Plant and care for trees and native plants, which give shade, homes for birds and pollinators, and soak up rain.

What communities do

• Public transit and bike lanes so people can get around without cars.
• Green Bin organics programs that turn food scraps into compost or energy.
• Green roofs: in 2009, Toronto became the first city in North America to require green roofs on many new large buildings.
• Deep Lake Water Cooling: Toronto uses cold water from deep in Lake Ontario to help cool many downtown buildings in summer, using much less electricity than standard air conditioning.
• Growing the urban forest: planting street trees and protecting ravines and natural areas.
• Limiting housing on farmland: for example, Ontario's Greenbelt, and building more homes on land that is already developed.
• Managing stormwater: rain gardens, permeable pavement and stormwater ponds that slow runoff and clean it.
• Renewable energy: solar panels, wind turbines and systems like Växjö's that heat a whole city with wood waste.