Sustainability

Community living is one of the most sustainable lifestyles we can choose for our planet, enabling people to live, be sustained, work, play, share and grow in a low-resource impacting way.     

Bellbunya Community aims to model holistic sustainability through community, and be an inspirational teaching and learning centre for sustainable living. 

Holistic sustainability has regard to being ecologically, socially, economically and spiritually/culturally sustainable.  Whilst we are only beginning, we are making progress in modeling four (4) bottom line sustainable living and we are proud of our results from our first six months.

RESULTS OF FIRST SIX MONTHS:

Ecological Sustainability

• Waste reduction of 580%. 
• Reduced energy consumption through community living
• Reduced use of fossil fuels through car-pooling and food choices
• Gas savings of 75% on accommodation block and 50% on the homestead
• Organic food production
• Low toxicity
• Solar project - with the Association for Sustainable Communities Inc

Social Sustainability

• Mutual support and sharing of skills
• Labour saving
• Access to a variety of recreational opportunities
  
• Eating and sharing together
• Actively supporting relocalisation
• Healthier lifestyle

Financial Sustainability

• Affordable lifestyle, sharing expenses and resources
• Low food costs from $40pp/pw with ever-increasing community food production
• Developing collaborative enterprises to stop economic leakage

 Cultural Sustainability

• Learning & personal development opportunities and commitments
• Visioning
• Sociocracy as a collaborative model for decision-making

Ecological Sustainability

Reduction in waste disposal.   The community uses 1 wheely bin per week and 1 recycle bin per fortnight, to handle all refuse from community, conference and eco-retreat activities.  This has been achieved through:

Reduced packaging - growing organic food onsite, buying fresh, local and bulk foods rather than packaged and processed foods

Re-use of materials - such as paper and cardboard in vegetable gardens, composting of all plant based materials, using "green bags" rather than plastic bags, sharing of resources rather than multiple purchase of disposable items and fixing and re-using items.

Reduction in Energy Consumption.  By sharing meals and utilising community rather than private spaces, there is less energy required for lighting, heating, cooking and cooling.   

Fossil Fuel minimisation.  Food for the Bellbunya Community is primarily sourced with low food miles, such as local produce and foods from the Community's own, ever-increasing organic gardens.  Car-pooling has been initiated within the community.  The community is making choices for energy efficiency, for example purchasing a walk-behind slasher rather than a ride-on mower, as it has lower embodied energy and ongoing energy and maintenance requirements.  On the agenda is the replacement of grass areas with herb/food production areas, and introducing animals for produce, fertiliser and grass/weed control.

Gas Savings.  With very little money or time allocations, the Association has, in conjunction with the community, made extraordinary savings of gas through simple ca.  By putting the existing gas-furnace hot water systems on a timer, gas consumption has been reduced by more than 50% at no cost to the community.  For the cost of $30 in insulation to hot water pipes, an additional saving of gas usage of an estimated 30% has been achieved.  Rearranging of hot water piping under the homestead saves 2-3 Litres of hot water each time the kitchen taps are used, whilst increasing the temperature by 10-15 degreec C.  The combination of reduced hot water wastage and degreased need for hot water due to higher temperatures at the tap will result in gas savings of 40-50% for the homestead kitchen.

Organic Food Production.  The community has started organic gardens which supply much of the community's salad vegetables, and has chickens for its egg production.  Community members make yoghurt and kefir from fresh milk,  kambucha and are looking into bread making as well.

Low Toxicity:  The community aims to be organic/biodynamic, does not use poisons and uses eco-friendly cleaning products such as vinegar. 

Social Sustainability

Mutual support:  The Bellbunya community is an intentional community, with each member agreeing to work together as a community.  Informally and formally, community members support each other in a variety of ways, celebrating together events and successes, and teaching and learning skills from each other.  Each community member contributes individual skills and their own time for the benefit of each other and the whole community.  The breadth of skills shared by community members includes electrical engineering, catering, legal, IT, management of organisations, biodynamics, health, office-work, gardening, music and building. 

Labour Saving:   ABS data suggests that the average Australian spends approximately 22 hours/week in domestic chores.   Bellbunya Community members cook and clean as a pair or team usually one main meal per week, roster in pairs to clean common areas around once each 6 weeks and spend 8 hours each work sharing their skills and time to enhance and support the life of the community.

Access to recreation: Located in a rural environment, community members are able to enjoy a variety of social, recreational and developmental activities, including meditation, yoga, dancing, music, swimming, singing (especially during dishes), games (including Kelly Pool) and movies at the Bellbunya cinema.  Access to a wide variety of people and activities removes the feelings of isolation that are so prevelant in today's society.

Eating and sharing together: The greatest success is the nightly dinners where all community members gather for a feast, a laugh and fine company. Frequently a bit of singing, particularly while collectively doing the dishes leads to fun and and a general sense of "Isn't this just a great place to be". Eating together every night is one of the key components for staying together as a community. This is documented in research of many communities.  The weekly sharing and connection circle gives the opportunity to get to know more about each other and stay connected with what is important at this time for each community member.

Support for Relocalisation in the Sunshine Coast.  In January 2009 the community provided an Australian Day breakfast for over 60 neighbours, giving an opportunity for community members to meet neighbours and bring together the neighbourhood in celebration.  Five community members are members of the local Rural Fire Brigade, committing their support to the local community in the event of an emergency.  From attending local events, to networking with people in the area, to buying local produce, the community has been actively seeking to find the best ways to support the local community. 

Health and wellbing.  Increased access to healthy, freshly prepared and primarilly organically grown food and to community members as practioners of a variety of practices such as Ortho-bionics, massage and Reiki.

Financial Sustainability

Affordable lifestyle:  By sharing expenses and resources, the community has created an affordable lifestyle.  Sharing internet connection and phone connection costs decreases costs for each community member.  Sharing of facilities through community spaces reduces the overall use and therefore costs of energy.  In total, all services, including gas, electricity, telephone and internet for all purposes costs community members $20 per week.

Low food costs:  The Bellbunya community purchases fresh produce rather than packaged and processed food, makes bulk purchases of seeds, nuts and grains and grows and makes an ever-increasing range of produce on site.  As a consequence, the community disposes of less waste, supports the relocalisation movement and is healthier.  The added benefit is affordability, as Bellbunya is able to supply healthy, vegetarian meals for guests and community members from $40pp/pw.

Developing Co-operative enterprises:  Enterprise development at Bellbunya is at the very initial stages, with encouragement from the community and the Association for Sustainable Communities Inc (ASC) to develop collaborative sustainable enterprises.  Those currently in the start-up phases include a local-food experience restaurant and development of the eco-retreat and sustainability conference centre in conjunction with the ASC.   On the agenda is to form partnerships with local enterprises, eco-farming and utilising the commercial kitchen to value-add local and community farm products.

Cultural Sustainability

Learning and Personal Development.  Being in community can be exciting and challenging with many learning opportunities.  Members of the community have made a number of personal commitments regarding how they will respond to the challenges of community living.  Bellbunya community has been an enrichening and enlivening experience moving members beyond their comfort zones.  The community engages in regular meetings for their activities, as well as weekly connection circles and daily reflection opportunities. Carsten, a community member who is a Compassionate Communication mediator and trainer (www.joyoflifeconnection.info) supports members of the community to see different perspectives through facilitated communication and has conducted a free Compassionate Communication Foundation Training for all community members to empower everyone to mediate and communicate in ways that create connection rather than disconnection.

Visioning Process:  The whole of Bellbunya Community participated in a visioning process that identified the values that as a community are held most dear.  

Sociocracy:  Bellbunya community has decided to adopt and trial sociocracy as a form of governance, with decisions being made by constructive consensus.  Circles, and people within circles, take responsibility for an area of the community and bring well constructed proposals back to the community as a whole, with the process continually refining.