Sending you our best wishes for your holiday season! Please find the project update of Kobunaki Ecovilllage in 2009 below ...
TOPICS
1. New Community Growing
2. Government-subsidized Eco-house Project
3. Guideline for Sustainable Use of Timber
4. Media Coverage
* * * 1. New Community Growing * * *
Currently, there are already about 120 families living in Kobunaki Ecovillage, an average of 5-10 families per month moving in. Here is a list of events happened in this new growing community.
[March] Residential Committee for Kobunaki Ecovillage was established. It can be a platform for residents to share information, solve problems, and challenge new things! G-Project has been helping to start up this committee since the end of last year.
[May] Construction of the Community Center was completed. This center
was designed by Prof. Matsuoka, University of Shiga Prefecture, with the
concept of passive design, using local timber, wood stove and so on. At the end of May, G-Project held opening party and present this building to Kobunaki residents.
(Kobunaki Community Center)
(One of the residents baked a chocolate cake
with the message "Hail to the Ecovillage" for the party)
[July] Residential committee organized its first clean-up event around the community center.
(Weeding)
(Curry for lunch, using vegetable harvested at each kitchen garden)
[October] G-Project and Residential committee held Woodstove Workshop at the community center. By using local thinned out timber for firewood, we can maintain local ecosystem in forests and mountains, as well as reducing CO2 emission from the use of fossil fuel.
(Learning how to use wood stove)
(Cutting firewood)
[November] G-Project invited residents to plant local trees in the park, hoping those trees to grow into community forest in near future.
(Families planting small seedlings.)
[December] Not only official residential committee, but some of women in Kobunaki also started voluntary activity group to make Kobunaki a better place to live.
(Wreath made by the residents’ voluntary group,
using materials for basement and ornaments
gathered at the nearby riverbank)
We hope more and more events and activities to be happen in Kobunaki Ecovillage by the residents next year!
* * * 2. Government-subsidized Eco-house Project * * *
Despite having world-leading technologies, the Japanese housing construction performance lags far behind from other industrialized nations. To improve the situation, Japanese Ministry of Environment has launched the "Eco-house Promotion Project." This project involves 20 municipalities including Omihachiman city where Kobunaki Ecovillage located. The design of each model eco-house constructed will itself improve and promote eco-house construction technologies.
Omihachiman city has already held several seminars on passive design or energy saving technologies etc, and an architect for its eco-house model has been chosen though proposal competition program.
Omihachiman city eco-house model is designed as a "propagate" prototype. The concepts are passive design, proper insulation, use of local materials, energy saving and intermediate space between outside and inside.
The environmental dwelling performance rating is estimated as "class S", the highest rating obtainable within the Japanese building assessment system "CASBEE", with a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Construction of Omihachiman city eco-house model is scheduled to be completed at the end of March with and opening for the public. The model house will be used as an "eco-house promotion center" to provide wide range of information about "eco-house" development in Omihachiman city.
* * * 3. Guideline for Sustainable Use of Timber * * *
G-Project has been trying to tell our customers the importance of using locally grown timber for their houses to improve the conditions of the forest environment. In 2008, we hold study meetings on "Fairwood" to learn about the current situation of timber procurement in Japan and
illegal logging in timber-producing countries, with the assistance by International environmental NGO Friend of the Earth (FoE) Japan and the Global Environmental Forum.
We realized that many woods used in Japan are sourced from natural forest around the world in unsustainable manner, and as a result, the natural forest in timber exporting countries continues to decrease. Especially, developing countries depend on exportation of timbers from
its rich natural forests: some governments promote unsustainable logging to obtain foreign currency, and other shady organizations ignore the conservation plan of forests and keep logging illegally.
In May 2009, G-Project developed the Fairwood procurement policy, which promotes to use local man-made forest for its maintenance, and prohibit to use illegally logged timber from world natural forest. We are now taking the process item by item to investigate the timber source,
evaluate its risk, and look for alternative timber if needed to ensure the legality and sustainability of the timber at the end source.
We plan to add more efforts featuring biodiversity conservation toward the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) scheduled for October 2010 in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture.
Reference: Fairwood Partners (in English) http://www.fairwood.jp/eng/
[Media Coverage]
As community grows, Kobunaki Ecovillage has been getting lots of media
coverage from local and national newspapers, magazines, and TV programs.
In English, Japan for Sustainability wrote about our work as below.
Please take a look at the article!
“Carbon-Neutral Housing Lots Go on Sale in Japan”
