The Unicorn Ecological Foundation Ethos:
General
The world commission of environment and development defines the term sustainable development as; “providing the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. We live in a world where the needs/greed of the few outweigh the needs of the many. Our mind set when it comes to the work we are doing is the “we do not inherit the land from our fathers we borrow it from our children”. Definition of the word sustainable, when related to the environment, is the same for every human being on this planet: don’t override nature’s natural balance. When you relate the word sustainable to our homes and our lifestyles, the definition will differ between geographical locations and personal environment. Certain guiding principals should be used by everyone; use locally sourced materials, produce and energy whenever possible, reduce, reuse, recycle whenever possible. We believe that local communities have a better chance of living sustainably than one household.
Buildings
The Unicorn Foundation’s methodology in trying to achieve its goals is by using sustainable building processes that balance Co2 emitted by materials during the construction process, with materials that will lock up and store Co2 for the lifetime of the structure or at least 100 years. As with all structures there should be an equation of “embodied energy” and embodied CO2 release /uptake calculation. An equation that must take into account the energy consumed by all processes involved in the production/construction of a building. This must include the Co2 cost for raw materials like timber felling or mining, manufacturing or conversion process, handling and transportation etc. for all materials used. It is this equation which we believe would determine whether one building is more environmentally sound than another per M2.
We believe that there is no standard for the ecological/environmental assesment of buildings in Ireland, Europe or even world wide. An organisation recently set up in Ireland called “Sustainable Energy Ireland” gives advice to the building industry and homeowners with regard to the methodology and appliances usage in low energy homes and the energy efficiency of buildings etc. They could go a lot further, however, by giving advice and guidance on the most energy efficient and most enviromentally friendly materials etc. that consider a range of enviromental impact issues. These would include; resource depletion, fresh water usage, energy use, greenhouse/Co2 emissions, waste generation, annual energy usage for lighting and heating etc. which would weigh up one product against another and would end up giving you a Certificated figure that one could put against a finished house or building. This would give a clear indication to the new homeowner of just how environmentally friendly their new “low energy home” actually is!
We believe that a house should stand for at least one hundred years, if not, then it should be classified as a temporary dwelling and be subject to a different set of environmental equations.