To what Max can people live with Min environmental impact?

Written for the class ‘From Industrial Ecology to Cradle to Cradle (0LM12)’ as an elective course taken during the master Urban Design and Planning at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

This report identifies living standards of the family home through the MAXergy environmental assessment tool. he MAXergy tool uses the concept of embodied land to assess the environmental burden of buildings. By translating the materials and the energy needed for the construction and use of a building into one single unit, it becomes possible to evaluate the relative impact of both energy and materials without the use of subjective weighting factors.

To review the tool three closely located countries were chosen (the USA: New Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala) displaying different ‘Human Development Indices’ (namely very high, high and medium), to put the tool into perspective. These countries are compared on their food consumption, housing needs and energy usage.

Food and housing have a relative minor impact on the amount of land used. Within these categories substantial improvements can be made however. The usage of fossil fuels in energy consumption have by far the greatest impact on the amount of land used per person. Considering that with an even distribution of land everyone in the world would have an approximate 2 hectares none of the examined countries live on a sustainable foot. Recommendations are made for possible interventions.

 

Location: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Date: June 2015
Project type: Master course
Institute: Eindhoven University of Technology
Team: Ellen Hoefsloot, Chris Steenhuis & Safee Hussain
Link to the publication