A vision of a world in which people enjoy happy, healthy lives within their fair share of the earth’s resources, leaving space for wildlife and wilderness.
A vision of a world in which people enjoy happy, healthy lives within their fair share of the earth’s resources, leaving space for wildlife and wilderness.
One Planet Living is an initiative of Bioregional and its partners to make truly sustainable living a reality. One Planet Living uses ecological footprinting and carbon footprinting as its headline indicators. It is based on ten guiding principles of sustainability as a framework.
The concept of One Planet Living builds on sustainability work carried out over the past few decades but specifically grew out of Bioregional’s work to build the BedZED eco-village in south London. Living and working at BedZED and analysing its impacts drew us clearly to the conclusion that to achieve sustainability, we need to make it easy, attractive and affordable for people everywhere to lead whole sustainable lifestyles – not just green buildings, but wider infrastructure and products and services as well – all wrapped up in a simple and clear story which people can understand.
Since its creation in 2003, One Planet Living and its ten principles show in practice that a simple way for us to plan, deliver, communicate sustainable development and a green, circular economy is possible.
Rooted in the science and metrics of ecological and carbon footprinting, 10 One Planet principles are used to structure thinking and inform holistic action. These principles stemmed from Bioregional’s experience of working on BedZED, a pioneering eco-village in South London, UK. Together, the principles provide a holistic framework to help organisations and project teams examine the sustainability challenges faced, develop appropriate solutions and communicate the actions being taken to key stakeholders such as colleagues, the supply chain, clients, customers and local and national government.
Encouraging active, sociable, meaningful lives to promote good health and well being
Creating bioregional economies that support equity and diverse local employment and international fair trade
Respecting and reviving local identity, wisdom and culture; encouraging the involvement of people in shaping their community and creating a new culture of sustainability
Protecting and restoring biodiversity and creating new natural habitats through good land use and integration into the built environment
Using water efficiently in buildings, farming and manufacturing. Designing to avoid local issues such as flooding , drought and water course pollution
Supporting sustainable and humane farming, promoting access to healthy, low impact, local, seasonal and organic diets and reducing food waste
Using sustainable and healthy products, such as those with low embodied energy, sourced locally, made from renewable or waste resources
Reducing the need to travel, and encouraging low and zero carbon modes of transport to reduce emissions
Reducing waste, reusing where possible, and ultimately sending zero waste to landfill
Making buildings energy efficient and delivering all energy with renewable technologies
One Planet Living is happening all over the world.
One Planet Living Endorsed PartnershipEvery project or organization in the One Planet Living initiative – One Planet Program - develops a ‘One Planet Action Plan’ based on the 10 principles. The Action Plan outlines the strategies, actions and targets to achieve One Planet Living. This provides a pathway for implementation that can be monitored and adapted over time. The Action Plan is made public so everyone can see the commitments being made. As well as an Action Plan, every project or organisation reports annually on progress and publishes the results.
