Creating a ‘Whole Home’ means looking at a house, the garden and the residents as a single system — there’s no point just looking at the building without looking at what goes on inside! By exploring the links between the building and garden and the way residents live in them, we can see new ways to minimise their environmental impact and maximise their benefits. To do this we need to look at:

• -What goes in; where it comes from, & what happens where it’s made

• -What comes out; where it goes to & what happens when it gets there

The total effect of all these ‘ins & outs’ makes up the home’s ‘ecological impact’. This can be difficult to keep track of, stretching far across the world to the countries which supply us with goods, or far into the future, to the time when our descendants will have to deal with the mess we’ve left behind. So the first thing we learn is that it’s generally a good idea to make our impacts as small, local and in the present as possible — so we can keep an eye on them!

The key to reducing our impacts is to complete as many cycles as possible within the home, failing that, to keep the cycles as local as possible. There’s no need to achieve total perfection in any one area: try the quick, easy, cost-effective things first, then move on to something else. You can always come back later for improvements. So let’s have a look at what flows in and what flows out.

food flows

Food makes the largest single contribution to our ecological footprint. The energy we use in cooking is only part of the story: our impact begins when land is cleared for agriculture. Poorer countries who are heavily dependent on cash crops to repay international debt often have to clear marginal land and use intensive agricultural methods; using large amounts of artificial chemicals, to which workers, land, rivers and the food are exposed. Genetic modification is also giving widespread cause for concern, as the long-term effects on our bodies and the ecosystem cannot be predicted.

Nowadays much of our food is airlifted halfway around the world before it reaches our plates. Even food grown in the UK may travel from the farm to a processor, to a wholesaler, to a central distributor before finally coming back to the local supermarket! For example, consider the humble potato: add up all the miles travelled by a ‘theoretical’ lorry delivering the spud and you get an indication of the impact of your mash.

• Local potato from farmers’ market 15 miles

• British potato from supermarket 200 miles

• Egyptian potato 700 miles

Choosing our food is a maze of dilemmas where the arts of compromise and common sense are always useful. Is it better to buy organic strawberries from Cyprus, or non organic ones from Cornwall? Locally grown organic produce is of course a winner every time!

It’s also worth thinking of where the leftover bits go: many can be recycled within the home, garden or local area.

garden flows

Our ancestors were dependent on their local environment: food, building materials, even clothes and medicine, all came from land within a few miles of where they lived. The locality produced foods and dealt with waste: nutrients were cycled again and again.

Until relatively recently, our houses and gardens were still quite closely linked. But in our modern lifestyle, despite its many benefits, we tend to see them as separate systems. We use a lot of fossil fuels driving things long distances to and from our gardens — even our grass and hedge cuttings are often driven many miles to landfill sites. Fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides can cause environmental damage in their production and use. Water which has been made fit to drink and then piped to our houses (again, at a high energy cost) is used to water plants.

Re-joining natural cycles and watching them at work is a fascinating process, and one that we can enjoy even without a garden of our own. Community gardens, allotments, and local composting schemes are run in most areas. By composting our food scraps, we reduce the problems organic waste causes in landfill sites and prevent them from producing greenhouse gases such as methane while they decompose.

Gardens are wonderful places for unwinding, for children to play, and for us all to learn more about the natural world. Leisure time spent in the garden offers doubled benefits — it saves on the fossil fuel we’d burn driving for a day out, and it’s free!

material flows

We can follow the flow of all materials from where they originate, through the home to their eventual destination. Once we know what’s going on, we can choose where we get things from, and where we will send them next.

All sorts of different components make up the ‘material flow’ through our homes — in fact, everything we bring into our home is part of it — from daily newspapers to very occasional purchases like furniture. This includes the packaging on goods, the food scraps we throw away, and even the water that we use.

By thinking carefully about what comes into our home, we can begin to see ways of reducing its ecological impact. We need to consider products that cause as little environmental damage as possible in production, transportation and use. Some things are not really needed, some are useful but don’t last because they are designed to break down. Others contain materials which are bad for the planet or bad for the health of the residents. Wherever possible, we should use renewable materials as these do not use up irreplaceable resources. They tend to be safer, have low embodied energy, and create less pollution in their extraction and processing.

Again, as well as thinking about what comes in, we can also make a big difference by sorting the things we throw away. No wonder landfill sites are smelly if we all send them mixtures of plastic bags full of pizza crust, old batteries, rotting sandwiches and broken glass.

energy flows

Whenever we use any form of energy, it creates some kind of environmental impact, and as we cannot stop using energy altogether, we need to use it efficiently and choose the sources with the least impact.

The less energy we waste, the less we need to produce to keep our homes doing what we need them to do. The first system for a health check should be the one which uses most energy.

As space heating is clearly the biggest domestic use of energy in the UK, it deserves a closer look. Insulation is obviously the first step, as the more we can prevent heat escaping from the home, the less heat we need to put in to keep it at a comfortable temperature.

Apart from space heating, remember that you can now buy almost any domestic appliance in a version designed with energy efficiency in mind, so look for the green energy labels.

Choosing where your energy comes from is also important. Electricity from fossil fuels is the most polluting because so much is wasted during its production. Mains gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and also one of the cheapest.

financial flows

The flow of money through a household can have far-reaching effects. We have the choice to spend a little extra on a green product or service — these can often work out cheaper in the long run. Also supporting new green products will increase the economies of scale, making them cheaper. ‘Fair trade’ products are now becoming more widely available, offering a more equal share of profits to overseas producers.

There is also a wide range of ‘ethical investments’ which offer ways in which you can gain a good rate of interest and at the same time ensure that your money is used specifically to support businesses or organisations that you agree with. Of all of the aspects of greener living, this is the part where personal ethics come into play the most, so it is the most complex — each of us will have different priorities and will make different choices.

people flows

A home is often a busy place, with people regularly flowing in and out of it. With some planning, the impacts of these ins and outs can be greatly reduced.

By locating your home a sensible distance from your work, schools, shops and other places you regularly visit, you can make an enormous difference to its environmental impact. Reducing time spent commuting can greatly improve your quality of life.

If you need to live away from work or school, try car-sharing or use public transport whenever possible. Cycling is fun and keeps you fit — regular cyclists enjoy equivalent health to someone ten years younger!

conclusions

Examining the ‘metabolism’ of the home is a useful tool for helping us and our kids to see what’s going on in a slightly different way. Hopefully this will then reveal new ways of doing things. The results will be different in every case — however, a few general trends seem to emerge.

• -Look at the house, the residents and the garden as a single system

• -Watch what flows in, how it’s used and what flows out again

• -Try to set up as many ‘complete cycles’ as possible within the home.

• Failing that try to keep it local

• -Buy a notepad and record it all — playing around with the numbers can be fun, particularly on a computer

• -Tackle the big things first, as they may show the easiest places to make improvements.

• -Go as far as is cost effective, then move on to something else

• -Experiment and explore — involve the whole family

• Have fun!