Source
https://doi.org/10.2148/benv.38.3.413 — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Marckmann, Gram-Hanssen & Christensen (2012) — Sustainable Living and Co-Housing: Evidence from a Case Study of Eco-Villages
Peer-reviewed Danish study (Built Environment 38(3)) testing four common "co-housing is more sustainable" claims against evidence from eco-villages — a survey of 506 residents in 18 Danish eco-villages, 4 expert interviews, and a 9-month participant-observation case study of one prospective 12-household cluster ("Cluster 7"). Headline: the sustainability advantage of co-housing is "not as straightforward as presented in much of the literature" — co-housing's social organisation genuinely enables active technology choice and mutual support of green practices, but cultural ideals of large living space defeat the "smaller/denser houses" claim even inside a committed eco-village, and eco-villages under-attract the one- and two-person households whose growth is the emerging sustainability problem. The strength of co-housing is its social organisation, not a guaranteed environmental outturn.
⚠ Raw is the author’s early version / pre-print (U. Copenhagen repository), not the publisher’s version of record. Findings are qualitative and Danish;
context: thesis,feeds: []— no NZ, cost, or technology-performance data for the NI model.
Summary
This article examines the widely held assumption that co-housing is environmentally more sustainable than individual housing, structuring the analysis around four claims argued to be decisive: (1) co-housing enables the adoption of more sustainable technologies; (2) co-housing means smaller and more compact (denser) houses; (3) co-housing’s social organisation supports pro-environmental everyday practices; and (4) co-housing offers particular environmental advantages for the growing number of one- and two-person households. The empirical base is a Danish study of eco-villages — a survey of 506 residents across 18 Danish eco-villages, four expert interviews with figures in the Danish eco-village movement, and a detailed 9-month participant-observation case study of “Cluster 7”, a group of 22 adults planning to build a new 12-household cluster in an existing eco-village. Eco-villages are treated as a “critical case” (Flyvbjerg 2006): the sustainability-most-committed subset of co-housing, so that if the claims fail here they are unlikely to hold for co-housing generally. The findings add nuance and are, on balance, sceptical: the choice of sustainable technologies is co-housing’s clearest and most direct advantage (the social organisation “enables and forces” collective involvement in technology decisions), but there is a risk that technology deliberation consumes disproportionate time/energy; the “smaller houses” advantage is undercut by residents reproducing mainstream cultural ideals of large living space; pro-environmental practices are supported through mutual discussion and legitimacy but the residents are a self-selected, sustainability-aware minority; and eco-villages under-attract one- and two-person households (over-attracting families with children and single parents). The authors conclude that co-housing does not hold the “critical potential” to challenge the general growth in consumption that has kept Danish residential energy use flat for three decades — but that co-housing’s social organisation is nonetheless its most important strength and could, in a future of resource scarcity, become the foundation for more collective changes in consumption. Retrieved for RT_048, this is the governance–sustainability evidence for eco-villages specifically; it sits alongside the NZ eco-village ethnography in LIT_030 (“sustainability is not possible”), the cohousing-cooperatives bibliometric LIT_009 that flagged it, and the NZ intentional-communities record LIT_015.
Key claims
- claim: "The article structures its analysis around four claims for the relative sustainability advantage of co-housing over other housing: (i) more sustainable technologies built into houses; (ii) smaller and more compact houses; (iii) pro-environmental behaviour of residents (mutual support of sustainable everyday practices); and (iv) environmental advantages for one- and two-person households. The aim is twofold — to question the widespread assumption that co-housing is more sustainable than most other forms of housing, and to discuss how co-housing could be more sustainable."
source_location: "Arguments for Co-Housing and Sustainability, pp.415-416 (four-claim list) and Methods/intro, p.416 (twofold aim)"
- claim: "Empirical base: a PhD study of eco-villages in Denmark (Marckmann, 2009) comprising a survey among 506 residents in eighteen Danish eco-villages, four expert interviews with key persons related to the Danish eco-village movement, and a case study of a group of individuals working to establish a new residential cluster in an existing eco-village."
source_location: "Methods and Data, p.417"
- claim: "Eco-villages are treated as a 'critical case' in Flyvbjerg's (2006) sense: eco-villages are the subset of co-housing most focused on sustainable living, so if this case of co-housing does not provide evidence of sustainability it is unlikely that other types of co-housing will. Most Danish eco-villages in the study fit the McCamant et al. (1993) definition of co-housing on six criteria: (1) participatory processes; (2) neighbourhood design; (3) common facilities; (4) resident management; (5) non-hierarchical structure and decision-making; and (6) no shared community economy."
source_location: "Methods and Data, p.417"
- claim: "The case-study community (anonymised) consisted at the time of study of five clusters, each home to about twenty adults and a number of children, with two more clusters in progress. The prospective residents of Cluster 7 decided on a design of twelve privately owned detached houses. During the observation period the group consisted of twenty-two adults: seven two-parent families with one or more children at home, one single-parent family with one child, three couples with no children, and one single male. The group met monthly to decide issues ahead of construction; meetings were followed over 9 months, with the researcher present but non-participant, and were recorded on video for transcription."
source_location: "Methods and Data, pp.417-418"
- claim: "The eco-village population is skewed to high socio-economic status: 72 per cent of Danish eco-villagers have 4 years or more of tertiary education compared with 23 per cent of Danes in general (Marckmann, 2009). This mirrors North America, where Graham Meltzer (2005) finds co-housing residents are predominantly white, middle-class, well-educated professionals, 80 per cent of whom have a college degree compared with 30 per cent in the population."
source_location: "Sustainability Advantages of Co-Housing (socio-economic composition), p.419"
- claim: "CLAIM 1 (sustainable technologies) — evidence: the topic of heating technologies was discussed at length at four consecutive meetings, taking up 30-90 minutes of a typical three-hour meeting, with no final decision reached before the end of the observation period. Options ranged from joining the existing collective 'Energy Central' (wood-chip district heating) to individual solutions (passive solar, biogas, stoker). The bylaws required all houses to be equipped with solar panels for hot water. Finding: the co-housing format 'enables (and forces) residents to be actively involved in decisions regarding the technologies built into their homes', but there is a risk the discussion of alternative solutions takes up time/energy out of proportion with the actual advantage of the best technology — especially as insulation and daily routines may matter more for total energy use."
source_location: "Sustainable Technologies, pp.419-420 (4 meetings, 30-90 min); Discussion, p.425 (enables-and-forces; disproportionate-effort risk)"
- claim: "A resident (David) states the existing collective district-heating system loses about 30 per cent of the heat in the ground/pipes ('about 30 per cent of the heating we pay for is used to keep the ground warm'), arguing against extending the pipe network. NOTE: this is a resident's in-meeting assertion reported verbatim by the authors, not an independently measured study finding."
source_location: "Sustainable Technologies (David's quote), p.420"
- claim: "CLAIM 2 (smaller/denser houses) — finding: even in a group committed to sustainable living, cultural ideals of large dwelling space defeat the small-house advantage. Proposed house sizes ranged from small (Anders 40 m² to start; Olga 75-80 m²; Birgit 80-90 m²) to large (Else 140 m²; Niels above 150 m²; Tine 170-180 m² over two storeys; Hans about 180 m² over two storeys), against a Danish single-family average of the period of 140 m² for all houses and 155 m² for new houses. The reasons given for small houses (consideration for others, taste, economy) and for large houses (number of people in the household) did NOT invoke sustainability — the sustainability theme, so prominent in the heating discussion, was 'conspicuously absent' from the discussion of house size."
source_location: "Small and Compact Houses, pp.421-422 (house-size quotes; 140/155 m² averages; sustainability absent)"
- claim: "Local planning regulations limited built area to 35 per cent of the total lot; the space requirements of the families wanting large houses forced the group to admit only eleven families instead of the twelve originally planned, increasing the economic and practical burden on the remaining families."
source_location: "Small and Compact Houses, p.422"
- claim: "CLAIM 3 (mutual support of practices) — the question of sustainable daily practices was almost completely absent from Cluster 7's group discussions, but survey responses from established eco-villages partly support the claim: residents value that 'we can do a lot more together than each could do on his own' and that alternative technologies (separation toilets, sand filters, shared freezers) create a legitimate occasion to discuss and control even intimate household habits. Finding: co-housing 'to some degree furthers sustainable routines and practices' — its most important effect being that it becomes legitimate in the community to discuss and challenge each other's everyday behaviour."
source_location: "Mutual Support of Sustainable Practices, pp.422-423; Discussion, p.425"
- claim: "CLAIM 4 (small households) — Table 1 (household composition in eco-villages, n=489, vs Denmark): I live alone 101 (20.7%) vs 24%; I live with spouse/partner without children 107 (21.9%) vs 33%; I live alone with one or more children 42 (8.6%) vs 4%; I live with spouse/partner and one or more children 207 (42.3%) vs 27%; I live with others 32 (6.5%) vs 12%. Families with children are over-represented and one-/two-person households (adults living alone 21% vs national 24%; couples without children 22% vs national 33%) are under-represented, while single parents (9% vs national 4%) are over-represented."
source_location: "Including Small Households + Table 1, pp.423-424"
- claim: "Context for CLAIM 4: the demographic transition to smaller households drives rising energy consumption, so co-housing could be a sustainability answer for small households — but eco-villages do not attract them. Almost 40 per cent of all Danish households in 2008 were occupied by only one person and the number is growing, particularly among people aged 30-60 (Gram-Hanssen et al., 2009). Among adults aged 30-60, 30 per cent of those living alone are not employed (vs 12% of other household types) and 18 per cent are on early retirement (vs 5%), so a considerable proportion of one-person households may lack the economic/social resources to be accepted into a co-housing community."
source_location: "Arguments for Co-Housing, p.415 (40% one-person, 2008); Including Small Households, p.424 (30%/12% employment; 18%/5% early retirement — cited from Gram-Hanssen et al., 2009)"
- claim: "Table 2 (summary of the four claims and findings): 'More sustainable technologies built into houses' — cohousing format furthers active involvement with technology; risk that choice of technologies takes up a disproportionate amount of time/energy. 'Smaller and more compact houses' — strong cultural ideals work against small/compact houses; explicit focus on housing size from the beginning of design is needed to counter this. 'Mutual support of sustainable everyday practices' — co-housing seems to challenge and inspire individuals' everyday practices; so far dedicated, self-selected individuals dominate — uncertain how it would work in the broader population. 'Environmental advantages for one- and two-person households' — so far these households are under-represented in eco-villages."
source_location: "Table 2, p.426"
- claim: "Overall conclusion: the choice of more sustainable technologies is the most important and direct advantage of co-housing; the smaller/denser-housing and small-household advantages are NOT reliably realised. Co-housing does not succeed in addressing the general growth in consumption — consumption growth 'gradually outweighs the gains from increasing energy efficiency', the main reason Danish residential energy consumption has been constant (not falling) over the last three decades (Christensen et al., 2007; Røpke, 1998). Co-housing therefore does not hold the 'critical potential' for profound changes in consumption; but its social organisation is its most important strength and could in the long run enable more collective changes in consumption under future resource scarcity and rising energy prices."
source_location: "Conclusion, pp.427-428"
- claim: "Background framing: in most European countries approximately one-third of all energy is used directly in the housing sector, with another third for transport (Eurostat, 2011); efficient technologies are only part of the answer, since everyday routines are as important as physical/technical design (Gram-Hanssen, 2011). The authors note that few studies measure the actual environmental performance of co-housing/eco-villages, and existing results are ambiguous — a Finnish study found eco-villages had HIGHER CO2 emissions once construction, use and transport were included (Harmaajärvi, 2000), and location (car dependence) is decisive."
source_location: "Introduction and Arguments for Co-Housing, pp.414-416"Key thesis insights
This is the governance–sustainability evidence for eco-villages that RT_048 was raised to obtain (from LIT_009). Its thesis value is three-fold.
- Governance is the mechanism, not the outcome. The paper’s central and most transferable finding is that co-housing’s social organisation “enables (and forces) residents to be actively involved in decisions regarding the technologies built into their homes” — collective, participatory, non-hierarchical decision-making (the McCamant six-criteria definition) is what makes green technology choice and mutual behavioural support possible. But governance is a mechanism that can as easily entrench mainstream values (large houses) as green ones. This is a sharper, evidence-grounded version of the thesis argument that community structure — not individual will — shapes sustainability outcomes, and it directly complements the NZ ethnography in LIT_030 (where even a high-capacity NZ eco-village found “sustainability is not possible”) and the “community scale > individual behaviour change” finding in LIT_014.
- A calibrated corrective to eco-village optimism. Where much cohousing literature treats sustainability as an intrinsic property of the format, this study shows the four canonical claims are only partly borne out: technology choice yes; smaller/denser houses no (defeated by cultural ideals of large living space, even among the committed); pro-environmental practice partly (but only among a self-selected, sustainability-aware minority); small-household inclusion no. For the thesis this is a useful, credible source of nuance that guards against over-claiming what intentional-community governance delivers — and it names the rebound dynamic explicitly (efficiency gains “gradually outweighed” by rising consumption standards; residential energy flat for three decades). Pairs with the degrowth/sufficiency framing and with LIT_064’s systematic review of ecovillage footprints.
- Who intentional communities include and exclude. The demographic finding — eco-villages over-attract well-educated families with children and single parents but under-attract the one- and two-person households whose growth is the emerging sustainability problem, partly because a large share of one-person households lack the economic/social resources to be accepted — is directly relevant to the thesis’s equity/access and social-capital lines (SSI human-development/social-capital and governance themes) and to the NZ intentional-community record in LIT_015. It cautions that a community-scale self-sufficiency model is not automatically inclusive.
Scope caveat: all evidence is Danish and qualitative (survey + one 9-month case study), from a self-selected sustainability-aware population; the numbers are demographic/observational, not performance measurements, and are not NZ-specific. Use as governance/behavioural evidence for the thesis, not as a quantitative input.
Research targets
Resolved
- RT_048 (RESOLVED → this page): Marckmann, Gram-Hanssen & Christensen (2012) — the governance–sustainability link for eco-villages specifically. The paper delivers exactly this: a qualitative Danish study of how eco-village social organisation (collective, participatory decision-making) relates to sustainability outcomes across four claims, held and read verbatim.
Potential future work (not opened as targets): two candidates were considered: (a) a synthesis question of whether this paper’s central nuance replicates in NZ (does co-housing’s social organisation enable active technology choice while cultural ideals of large living space defeat the “smaller/denser houses” advantage, and do eco-villages under-attract one-/two-person households?), to be cross-checked against the NZ ethnography LIT_030 and the NZ intentional-communities record LIT_015 — a synthesis task for the thesis, not a document to retrieve; and (b) the Danish-language parent PhD (Marckmann, Bella, 2009, Hverdagslivets kritik: Økosamfund i Danmark, Sociologisk Institut, Copenhagen), which carries the full survey instrument and the 506-resident dataset behind Table 1 but is in Danish and unlikely to add NZ-relevant value. Retrieve/pursue only if the thesis later develops a dedicated eco-village-demographics strand.
Notes
Peer-reviewed article — Built Environment 38(3):413-429, doi:10.2148/benv.38.3.413 — read in full via pdftotext -layout. The raw is the author’s early version / pre-print deposited in the University of Copenhagen research repository (the cover page states “Document version: Early version, also known as pre-print”), not the publisher’s version of record; figures should match but exact pagination/wording may differ from the printed journal. Every quantitative figure in the key_claims is traceable verbatim to this document → data_quality: high (reserving verified for a check against the version of record).
context: thesis, feeds: [] — the study is qualitative and Danish, providing governance/behavioural evidence about cohousing sustainability; it carries no NZ-specific, cost, or technology-performance figures usable in an NI calculation cell, so it does not feed any entity page. This matches the routing of the sibling NZ eco-village ethnography LIT_030 (thesis, feeds:[]).
⚠ Survey N (not an error): the methods report a survey of 506 residents in 18 eco-villages, while Table 1 totals 489 valid responses to the household-composition item (item non-response). Both figures are reproduced verbatim from the source; the difference is not a transcription error.
⚠ One reported figure is a resident quote, not a study measurement: the “~30 per cent of district heat lost in the ground/pipes” is David’s in-meeting assertion (quoted by the authors), flagged as such in the key_claims — do not cite it as an independently measured value.
Text-percentages vs Table 1 differ by rounding only (e.g. text “21 per cent” living alone vs Table 1 “20.7%”; text “9 per cent” single parents vs Table 1 “8.6%”) — both are faithful to the source.
Connections
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