Source
https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2017.1348342 — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Daly 2017 — ecovillage/cohousing environmental-footprint systematic review (LIT_064)
The empirical backbone for I09 — with an honest twist
The largest systematic review of measured ecovillage/cohousing environmental impact. Ecological footprints are consistently lower; carbon footprints are mixed (rural remoteness can push them above the mainstream). Housing, food and transport dominate.
Summary
Daly compiles the quantitative evidence on the environmental impact of intentional communities — 16 studies, 23 communities, 30 footprint measurements (2000–2014) — focused on the two most-reported indicators, ecological footprint (gha/person) and carbon footprint (tCO₂/person/yr), each against a “mainstream” comparison. Ecological footprints are consistently lower (~34–76% of the comparison). Carbon footprints, however, are mixed — several rural ecovillages exceeded their mainstream baseline, driven by transport. Overall the compiled evidence gives “strong support for claims of greater environmental sustainability,” while flagging that resource/land efficiency and carbon performance do not always move together.
Key claims
- claim: "SCOPE. A systematic review of the quantitative environmental-impact evidence for intentional communities: 16 separate studies covering 23 communities and 30 footprint measurements (publication dates 2000-2014), focused on the two most-commonly-reported indicators - the ecological footprint (gha/person) and the carbon footprint (tCO2/person/yr), each compared with a relevant 'mainstream' community. The largest such review to date; motivated by the scarcity of actual measured evidence behind community sustainability claims."
source_location: "Abstract; Methods (search + inclusion)"
- claim: "ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IS CONSISTENTLY LOWER. Across the compiled cases, intentional-community ecological footprints run ~34-76% of their mainstream comparison (i.e. ~24-66% BELOW): e.g. Findhorn (UK) 2.7 vs 5.4 gha/pp = 50%; a Japanese ecovillage 1.7 vs 4.9 = 34%; an English ecovillage 2.1 vs 5.3 = 39%; a Hungarian ecovillage 1.5 vs 3.6 = 42%; Tir y Gafel (Wales) 1.5-2.6 vs 4.4 = 34-58% across 2010-14; Toarp (Sweden) 2.8 vs 3.7 = 76% (the weakest reduction). Taken as a whole these studies 'provide strong support for claims of greater environmental sustainability within these communities.'"
source_location: "Results — ecological footprint table (gha/pp, % of comparison)"
- claim: "CARBON FOOTPRINT IS MIXED - THE HONEST CAVEAT. Unlike EF, carbon footprints did NOT uniformly improve: several rural Finnish ecovillages scored AT or ABOVE their mainstream comparison - Ekolehtila 3.7 vs 3.6 tCO2/pp = 102%, Pellesmaki 87%, Puutosmaki 4.4 vs 3.6 = 121%, Vuonislahti 4.8 vs 3.6 = 133% (against a Finnish urban-small-house baseline) - driven by transport in remote rural locations. So an ecological-footprint (land/resource) advantage does not automatically translate into a carbon advantage."
source_location: "Results — carbon footprint table (tCO2/yr/pp, % of comparison)"
- claim: "DOMINANT FACTORS. 'The consensus amongst the studies was that the most significant contributing factors to the EFs and CFs of the communities were housing, food and transport' - with food 'much more significant' in intentional communities (greater land area / on-site production contributes to their footprint accounting)."
source_location: "Discussion (contributing factors)"Neobiome Intelligence / thesis relevance
The primary empirical benchmark for I09 (Environmental Sustainability) — it upgrades the ecovillage-sustainability claims previously carried only via CR_002 / LIT_012 / LIT_020 to a verified systematic review.
The mixed-carbon / rural-transport finding is directly Neobiome-relevant. The NI engine computes resource self-sufficiency (energy/heat/water/food), not ecological or carbon footprint — and Daly shows these two axes can diverge: a remote off-grid community can be highly resource-self-sufficient yet carry a higher carbon footprint from transport. This is a framing caveat, not a calculation input, and a candidate declared limitation for the model. Feeds i09_environmental_sustainability.
Research targets
Documents to retrieve
- None. This resolves RT_050 (the ecovillage EF/CF systematic-review benchmark).
Research gaps
- The reviewed footprint measurements are 2000–2014 and mostly Northern-Hemisphere; no NZ intentional-community footprint study is in the set (a standing NZ-specific gap, not opened as a new RT here).
Notes
Primary — the peer-reviewed accepted manuscript, read verbatim. data_quality: verified. UTS green-OA author copy; retrieved manually. context: both — a thesis evidence benchmark that also grounds the I09 framework dimension, with an explicit model-side caveat.
Connections
Links to
Sources (3): CR_002 · LIT_012 · LIT_020
SSI indicators (1): I09: Environmental Sustainability
Referenced by
Sources (3): LIT_066 · LIT_070 · LIT_082
SSI indicators (1): I09: Environmental Sustainability