During No Impact November, you can look at your lifestyle anew.

MARA Chambers has decided to change the way she shops – and she’s starting with a weeklong challenge. From November 11 to 18, Ms Chambers, from Altona, will skip the supermarket altogether.

“I’ll buy what I need from organic shops or farmers markets,” she says. “I’ll also have to nut out what to do if I need things like toilet paper or washing liquid. I’m hoping to change my habits for the long-term, so I need to look for something else that’s achievable.”

She’s avoiding the well-trodden aisles as a part of No Impact November, run by the Ethical Consumer Group.

In the lead up to the challenge, participants have been meeting to devise their individual goals. The ideas for action range from switching off electronic gadgets to using a composting toilet.

Ms Chambers chose a supermarket-free week because she’s become increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of transparency in the provenance of house brands in the large chain store where she’s been shopping. “I feel like there’s a lot of greenwashing with their organic produce, and they don’t seem to stock many smaller suppliers anymore,” she says.

“I’m really conscious that my power is where I spend my dollar. There are lots of things I can’t control, but I do have freedom over where I spend my money.”

No Impact November is the third annual household action challenge run by the Ethical Consumer Group. In previous years, the participants sought to eat from within one hundred miles, and to produce no waste for a week.

Nick Ray, from the group, says the hard work of changing habits is made easier by doing it together. The people taking part are planning to gather for a meal at the start and end of the week to share their experiences.

“We all have impacts in our everyday life,” he says. “Often people are unable to minimise them because they feel overwhelmed, or because they’ve tried and burnt out. The idea of our household action challenge is to choose something that’s manageable. It pushes us hard for a week, but then we can digest it.”

This year, Mr Ray and his family have come up with a three-pronged challenge: to bake their own sourdough bread, to forgo driving their car, and to cut their electricity consumption by one-third.

“The average Australian citizen consumes an amount of energy equivalent to nearly 50 people pedalling bicycles non-stop, day and night,” he says. “That statistic makes me think twice about our energy use. Do we want to be dependent on oil, or on slaves when oil runs out? Or is there another way?

“We need to really pioneer new ways of living that aren’t fossil-fuel dependent, and that’s why we’re not going to get into the car for the week,” he says.

If you’d prefer to start with a shorter challenge, November 27 is Buy Nothing Day, an international day of protest against over-consumption.

Alternatively, to find out the facts behind your regular buys, check out the Ethical Consumer Group’s Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping. The fourth edition will be available shortly, as both a booklet ($6) and an iPhone application ($4).

“It’s great for people who are looking for something with an ethical edge for Christmas stockings or to buy for their friends,” Mr Ray says.

Better planning controls can add to household sustainability.

From next May, new houses and renovations must reach six stars. Even so, our building standards will still be full of gaps, according to Alan March, senior lecturer from the Melbourne School of Design at University of Melbourne.

“The current star rating system measures the performance of buildings. That’s good – it means they don’t let heat pass through windows or walls as badly as in the past. But there’s a whole range of opportunities to make them perform even better,” he says.

In a forthcoming research paper, co-authored with Christina Collia, Dr March found that the building code skips over bigger picture concerns, including the location and materials used in the home, as well as waste production and links with public transport and bicycle paths.

Even simple things, such as clotheslines, are left out in the cold. “If people want to dry clothes outside, it’s no good if the backyard or the balcony never gets sunlight. They’ll buy an electric dryer instead, and all the building technology goes out the window very quickly when you start using electricity from Hazelwood Power Station,” Dr March says.

He believes it would be simple to peg extra features onto existing planning controls. Those guidelines could encompass native habitat, rainwater tanks, fixed heating and cooling systems, lighting and daylighting, and even food growing and composting areas.

“We could go beyond a technological view of individual houses and start to create whole communities,” he says.

The Moreland City Council is already hoisting homes above the average with STEPS, a web-based tool that assesses residential sustainability. It covers five areas: greenhouse emissions from operating energy, peak energy use, water use, stormwater and building materials. The program also considers bike storage and space for waste and recycling.

Shannon Best, from Moreland City Council, says STEPS predicts household energy use more accurately than the star ratings. “If you install a lot of lights or an inefficient hot water service and air conditioner in a five-star house, you can end up with a much worse result than an existing home. It’s important to look at the whole product, not just the thermal efficiency.”

A group of 14 Victorian councils – the Council Alliance for a Sustainable Built Environment – is now promoting STEPS as a voluntary measure for residents submitting planning applications.

Mr Best says the tool’s key benefit is to begin conversations about sustainable design. “If you’re going to build a house, ask your architect or designer to put it through STEPS to see how it performs,” he says.

“Last year alone, we calculated that the savings were equivalent to one-third of council’s greenhouse emissions and water use. That comes from getting people to talk about sustainability initiatives in their buildings – people can and do learn.”

Dr March says that while STEPS opens up a path to greener homes, a more comprehensive, compulsory scheme would be easier for local governments to enforce. “It’s a simpler and better outcome if the process is standardised across Victoria,” he says.

“Whether it’s sooner or later, we will do these things – and we as a community will be better off. People will be happy not to have to switch on their lights. Developers will enjoy the certainty that it provides, and they’ll have a better product to sell.”

A place making conference draws a new map for the city’s public life.

WHAT makes a “good” place? It could be a street where kids can safely chalk their hopscotch squares, a neighbourhood where you walk to the locally owned baker, or a public square that fizzes with action.

According to Gilbert Rochecouste, from Village Well, vibrant places such as these often connect high quality of life with low environmental impacts. They’re likely to reduce private transport and consumption, and encourage food production, green building and socially responsible business practices.

“The biggest thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint is to create affordable, accessible, amazing places,” he says.

The Melbourne Place Making Series conference will be held from Wednesday 27 to Friday 29 October. It is hosted by VicUrban, together with Village Well, Fed Square, City of Melbourne and the Department of Planning and Community Development.

The series has been running six months, including online discussions and forums for developers, financiers and the community sector. It aims to engage government, industry, planners and international experts on how we can make our city and our suburbs better places to be.

Mr Rochecouste says development too often focuses on hard infrastructure, such as roads, buildings and utilities, at the exclusion of less obvious necessities.

“Place making brings in the soft infrastructure, like the gathering places, the culture, the walk-ability and the daily rituals of living,” he says. “All the things that we yearn for and take for granted when we visit great places, like Europe.

“But we don’t get them here. We’ve taken our model from America and delivered it to disconnected places. We’ve separated living, working and entertaining. Place making brings it all together,” he says.

VicUrban CEO Pru Sanderson says the idea differs from normal urban design in its scope and holistic vision. “Place making cuts across a whole range of disciplines. It is about more than just design,” she says.

“It’s about creating places that are resilient and can grow and respond in a climate-challenged future. We want this to be the mindset for new developments and for revitalising older areas in Melbourne.”

The agency has brought a place-based approach to its Revitalising Central Dandenong initiative. It is transforming the main road, Lonsdale Street, into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard and creating areas for people to congregate. It’s also running community arts programs with the local council. “It is about nurturing the economy, culture and physical place all at once,” Ms Sanderson says.

Mr Rochecouste says the best changes are resident-driven, rather than design-driven. “We run participatory democracy sessions, so people are deeply engaged in the process. When you do it well, you get much better places – you get the x-factor,” he says. “People say what they want and how they want it, and we end up with a much more informed and inspired citizenry.”

In that forthright spirit, he says we shouldn’t wait for good places to fall upon us: place making begins at home. “The first physical structure is our household, and then our footpath, street and local shops. All these things are our daily narratives – the more beautiful they are, the more connected, the more people feel like they can say hello to their neighbour. They feel safer,” he says.

“Neighbourhood renewal, street parties and celebrations. All these details add to people’s quality of life. That’s place making.”

Community-ownership could herald a gust of green power.

CONSTRUCTION is about to begin on Australia’s first community-owned wind farm. The Hepburn Community Wind Park Co-operative held its official groundbreaking ceremony last week at Leonards Hill, 10 kilometres south of Daylesford.

Vicki Horrigan, a director of Hepburn Wind, says the turbines should be ready and rotating by mid-2011. “It’s over five years since the local community here had the idea. And now we’re building a project worth just under $13 million.”

The wind farm comprises two turbines with a combined capacity of 4.1 megawatts. They’ll be built by German company REpower Systems AG and connected to the grid.

“The turbines are estimated to produce about 12,200 megawatt hours each year,” Ms Horrigan says. “That’s enough to power 2300 homes, which is more than the number of households here in Daylesford and Hepburn Springs.”

Hepburn Wind was set up as a co-operative. Membership is open to all Victorians, but there’s a lower minimum investment threshold for locals. All members get one vote, regardless of the size of their shareholding. Once they’re whirling, the turbines will generate a return for members and contribute funding for local projects.

“The structure has been a real bonus for engaging the local community, because they can see the idea came from here and they can participate in it easily,” Ms Horrigan says. “It’s a good financial model, but it’s also a good philosophical model – it’s socially responsible investment.

“People often feel powerless about climate change on a global scale. This project shows that local communities can set up systems that really go towards making ourselves sustainable.”

Precinct-scale power generation can also be much more efficient than a house-by-house approach. The Hepburn Wind turbines will cost far less per household in the area than a comparable roll out of rooftop solar photovoltaic panels.

The group’s success has turned heads. “We get a couple of requests every week from other communities wanting to find out about what we’re doing and how they could start something similar,” Ms Horrigan says.

There’s a lot of advice to pass on – among the thorniest impediments have been raising the capital, estimating costs and gaining planning approval.

For this reason, a spin-off organisation, called Embark, has been founded to support other communities through the process.

Embark’s executive director Mary Dougherty says the organisation is already in contact with about ten groups, including some working on proposals for mini-hydro and solar schemes, as well as wind turbines.

“We’re trying to break down the steps involved and provide practical advice and templates, like business plans, financial models and landholder lease agreements. It’s much easier than starting with a blank slate.”

There are scores of articles on Embark website, covering everything from the ins-and-outs of the energy market, to how to run effective public meetings, together with case studies from both here and abroad.

In Denmark, co-operatives own over a quarter of the country’s wind farms. “In the European countries where these community projects started out, they have a far greater uptake of renewable energy overall. These small projects lead to large ones,” Ms Dougherty says.

“In ten years, we’d love to have started 100 projects. Through all the investors, that translates to about a million people who are exposed to the benefits of renewable energy first hand. That’s really powerful.”

When you’re building or paving, put concrete alternatives into the mix.

IT’S hard to get away from concrete. According to Dr Peter Duxson, from eco-concrete company Zeobond, it’s the second most used commodity in the world, behind only water. It also accounts for about five per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

“Wherever there is human activity, there is concrete. It’s versatile and cheap,” Dr Duxson says. “It just turns out that the base ingredient that makes concrete go hard is bad for the environment.

Conventional concrete is made up of sand, rock and water, bound together with Portland cement. Although the cement comprises only 10 to 15 per cent of the substance, it accounts for about 70 per cent of its carbon footprint.

The high greenhouse gas emissions come from burning limestone to create lime – from both the energy required to heat the kilns and the chemical reaction in which limestone releases carbon dioxide. “One kilo of carbon dioxide is emitted per kilo of cement,” Dr Duxson says. “So every concrete truck equals about two tonnes of CO².”

Among the material’s plusses are its extremely long lifespan and usefulness as thermal mass in appropriate solar passive design – it can help to even out day and night time temperatures.

For example, an exposed concrete slab floor, positioned by the window in a north-facing living room, will receive direct sun in winter. It absorbs heat and warms the house into the night. With appropriate shading, the sun won’t hit the slab over summer, so the chill of the concrete will help the home stay cool.

Even so, you can significantly reduce the emissions caused by concrete in your home by opting for lower-carbon concrete and choosing other materials where you can, especially outside.

Look for products with reduced Portland cement content, such as TecEco’s magnesia-based Eco-Cement, Boral’s Envirocrete or Independent Cement’s Ecoblend. Up to 30 per cent of the cement in conventional concrete can be directly replaced by fly ash and slag (by-products of burning coal and smelting iron ore, respectively) without compromising quality. “Once you get beyond that, it starts to take longer to go hard,” Dr Duxson says.

There are also many products that use recycled crushed aggregate. Be aware that although it’s a good way to save virgin resources, it doesn’t significantly reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the product.

Dr Duxson’s business, Zeobond, makes Ecrete, a kind of concrete that completely replaces Portland cement with fly ash and slag. Known as a geopolymer or alkali-activated concrete, Ecrete produces two-thirds fewer carbon dioxide emissions than the conventional product. It uses other chemicals to kick-start the binding process and ensure the curing time is fast.

The first Ecrete supplier is located in Epping, in Melbourne’s north-east. Zeobond also manufactures pre-cast panels and pavers. “The cost premium on Ecrete is about ten per cent, but as we get to scale, we expect that price to come down quite significantly,” he says.

The other alternative is to minimise your use of concrete altogether. Inside the home, there are other materials that can provide thermal mass, such as earth or brick. Outside the home, the sustainable design guide Your Home recommends only paving where you sit, stand and walk. Too much paving will make your house and garden hotter and reduce the amount of rainwater that soaks into your soil.