Are you down for an Eco-Town?
When asking this question, it is important to know what an eco-town actually is and how they are becoming increasingly popular all over the world. An eco-town is, ‘a new town designed to facilitate a lifestyle that has as little impact on the environment as possible.’ An eco-town has the aim to design an environment for those who stay there to “reduce their ecological footprint by two thirds and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent below 1990 levels.” Although it is great to be able to reduce people’s carbon footprint, the only way these eco towns are able to be successful is to make it attractive to live in. Lifestyle options need to be accessible with employment and leisure facilities being in close proximity for people to have a high standard of living.
A great example of this would be Punggol, Singapore. This town has been selected by the housing development board (HDB) to be the first eco town for the tropics. The initiative aims to create an environment whereby new technology and resident’s quality of life is able to thrive in the 21st century. This waterfront town has the ability to attract a lot of attention as it is planning to create a modern way of living. The town is designed with modern park landscapes and shown by the treelodge@punggol, this housing unit hosts smart solutions such as a rainwater harvesting system, solar energy-powered electricity, a community garden, an “eco deck” that creates cool air from the winds, and a centralized recycling chute. The initiative has already been seen to be extremely successful, with Punggol experiencing a decrease in energy and water consumption with improved recycling rates. Household energy consumption in the eco town between 2010 and 2018 have fallen by 18.8 per cent. With water consumption in household falling by 13.2 per cent and for common areas falling by 19.9 per cent between 2011 and 2018. This is not all, recycling has also become a massive success in the town, with around 1,285 tonnes of recyclables collected per year, this equates to 89 double decker buses! Punggol also has a 50km cycling network that is greater than the world’s densest cycling network which is in Helsinki.
In this town there is a river which snakes through the middle of residential buildings. This is called MyWaterway, the path which coincides with it is called MyWaterfront. The river is 4.2km in length and is Singapore’s first man-made waterway. The design was created to embrace the town’s coastal heritage and allow more opportunities for water-based activities. The town was once known for being a fishing village and also pig farming. However, the last of these pig farms were cleared in the 1980’s and the town remained a landfill site until the development emerged. A plaque on the waterway reminds those who pass, of the history of the pig farms and how Punggol has since replaced them with “non-pollutive” hydroponic farms.
Furthermore, a huge part of fighting climate change in Singapore is targeting solar energy. This is part of HDB’s plan to promote an environmentally friendly landscape for sustainable living. The HDB provide the greatest amount of solar photovoltaics panels, otherwise known as PV panels, these can be found on the roofs of public housing blocks. With the addition of these panels the target is to generate 540 megawatts from 2019 to 2030 this potentially means the carbon emissions are reduced by 324,000 tonnes per year. Which also means that the energy created could potentially power 135,000 four room flats a year!
Singapore has a high standard of living with a metropolis of high-rise buildings, this does not mix well with the “heat island effect where heat is trapped within our dense environments”. Therefore, the HDB have tried to combat this with a vision to ‘maximise natural ventilation, reduce heat gain, promoted shared facilities and communal spaces, and construction principles that leverage new technologies’ Using these design features has helped technology to continue to prosper. More examples of technology being modernised by the HDB is the addition of electric charging stations for cars as the prices of these electric cars are becoming more affordable allowing more people to reduce their carbon footprint.
More initiatives like the HDB across the globe could really help our environmental crisis, one eco-town at a time. So, after laying out this information it is now up to you to decide whether you… are down for an eco-town?
