Sustainability and Your Home – 101

      “保护环境，人人有责”——这句从八零后学生时代就在倡导的口号，时至今日仍不过时。随着十九大上习近平主席提出治理空气污染，我们可以看到，今年冬季北京天津等华北地区的空气污染状况已经得到了明显的缓解。这成果的背后，少不了人民群众的努力配合。很多对空气污染有影响的企业都搬出城区，限号措施也在持续发力中。可持续发展不是一个单纯的口号，需要我们每个人行动。本期我们将介绍可持续性发展如何融入到我们的家居设计里。

      太阳能在节约用电方面帮助很大，比如太阳能热水器，太阳能电热板等，都可以为我们节省很多电力，满足人们的日常生活需求。墙体保温做得好也可以大大节省能源消耗，在冬天保障您的室内温度，在夏天隔绝室外的热空气。生活垃圾无疑会对环境产生巨大的影响，但正所谓“垃圾是放错的资源”，很多生活废物都可以二次利用。此外，洗脸洗衣水等也可以进行二次利用，比如冲马桶等。另外，现在人工智能大大提升了人们的生活效率，为大家节省了很多时间。人工智能的家庭系统可以根据室内温度对空调进行调节，帮您节省空调用电，又可以感应人的位置，自动开关灯，节省照明用电等等。这些信息都可以实时传递到你的手机终端，让你了解家中的情况。

      保护环境其实不一定要在住入新房后才开始，在你的住房材料方面，其实就大有可为，比如一些环保新型材料，可以使建筑减轻对环境的污染和影响。当然我们也要避免使用打着环保的旗号，但实际在生产过程中对环境造成了很大的破坏的材料。

      下一期我们将介绍更多有关住宅方面的小知识，欢迎持续关注本栏目哦。

One of the biggest topics in recent years is sustainability and energy efficiency, especially when thinking about one of our biggest challenges, namely climate change. The need for an adequate response to this situation has implications both on the macro-scale and on our homes. Although the debates regarding our global response to this issue are public and people tend to be more or less aware of them, what each and every one of us can do individually or as a family is less detailed. Thus, in this article, we present a series of different types of choices you can make and technologies you can adopt in order to make your home sustainable and energy efficient, thus reducing the impact on the whole system.
 

In this article we will lead you through a crash course of sustainability reduced to suit the scale of your own home! Other articles detailing each important topic will follow and build upon this one. So here we go: Sustainability and your home – 101!

According to the online Oxford Dictionary, the definition of sustainability is “The ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level” and “Avoidance of depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance”. This means at least two things for your home: construction of the building and of all the objects and technologies used within should as best as possible avoid the use of materials or technologies which have a negative impact on our environment. Regarding this aspect, we should also consider the source and methods of producing the materials, as it is well known today that some materials which are presented as not having an impact on the environment themselves are produced in ways which negatively impact the environment. Taking these thoughts to a very practical level, if you are going to build a new home from the ground up, try to document yourself not only about the financial and technical aspects of the materials and construction methods, but also determine their production background, source and environmental impact before making a decision.
 

Although this before-mentioned step has a very big influence on our environment, there are situations when you cannot affect it directly, for example, you already own a house or apartment, where you were not involved in the construction thereof. Don’t worry, as there are quite a lot of methods which will help you to still pay your respects to Mother Nature and, in the process, help you to increase the energy efficiency of your home, leading also to financial benefits in the long run.

Solar roofs

Some of the main sources of ecological problems facing a modern day household maintenance are electricity, use of water, heating and waste management. Some of these depend normally on fossil resources, which have a strong negative impact on the environment. Investing in different sustainable technologies is the way to go, according to research in this field. For this same reason we see nowadays a boom in the electrical cars industry, solar and solar thermal panels, wind turbines, recycling and so many more alternative methods of solving these common necessities. As we will discuss in the last issue article “Solar roofs”, one very efficient method of solving electricity and/or heating problems can be by using solar panels. There are already a series of complete systems available nowadays, and other cheaper solutions which also use even more sustainable production methods are being developed and will be available in the near future. Having a very well thermal insulated home is also a must, as it will reduce energy loss, thus optimizing your heating consumption, while also significantly saving you money in the long run.

Waste management

Waste management is also a topic for the whole of society, as we see the effects of mismanagement on our cities, oceans and even nature. While recycling is already established in a lot of countries throughout the world, for each of us to actively and efficiently recycle is a must. Further waste management can actually have large benefits, as in the permaculture example of using biological waste as compost, or reducing your personal waste, through different very practical methods ranging from reusing shopping bags to consciously buying low waste products. It definitely makes sense to take time to further research all the different shopping and waste management ideas available online, and implement them one at a time. Taking into consideration water management is also very important. Harvesting rainwater and including it in your internal water cycle is a strong recommendation. Also, filtering and reusing the used water from different installations of your home can save a lot of resources, especially when used as grey-water.

Water Management

More advanced sustainable technologies are also available nowadays to further optimize energy-related management of your home. Thermostats, movement, light, humidity and many other sensors can be integrated with self-adjustable systems in your home, centralized and interdependent. In this way, your lighting, ventilation, heating and sun-shading all adjust themselves according to conditions and use of space, and are correlated with other intelligent systems like security, your solar roof and so on. And all are accessible through a central panel or even at the touch of your smartphone. We further detail all these systems which constitute the basis of the Smart Home, in our upcoming article titled “Smart homes”.

Net Zero Energy Homes

So there you have it, a crash course into the most important issues and directions of possible solutions facing a new or already built home. Stay tuned for upcoming articles mentioned here, where we detail the specifics of each domain.