As one of the first ecovillages in the U.S., and one of a dozen of the most well-known ecovillages in the world, EcoVillage at Ithaca (EVI) is a bold experiment that has inspired many people. Co-founder Liz Walker will give an overview of the project’s many facets, including its innovative land use, three organic farms, and three cohousing neighborhoods. EVI’s third neighborhood, TREE, was completed in 2015, as a DOE award-winning, all-electric, housing development. Some of the TREE homes operate at Net Zero Energy. This neighborhood has been a teaching tool for regional energy engineers, architects, and planners, and has helped to inspire Ithaca’s Green Building Ordinance.
From the beginning, EVI was designed to be a working model of social and ecological sustainability. Residents have a carbon footprint of just a third of average U.S. citizens. They practice non-hierarchical decision-making, and strive to be a welcoming, inclusive community. Living in a tight-knit community is not necessarily easy, and over time they have developed ways to help resolve conflicts, and also ways to celebrate fun, community-building events. There is a lot to learn!
Liz Walker co-founded EcoVillage Ithaca (EVI) thirty years ago, and dedicated her full-time work for the next three decades to bring this internationally acclaimed project from vision to reality. She’s written two popular books: EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture, (2005, New Society Publishers) and Choosing a Sustainable Future: Ideas and Inspiration from Ithaca, New York, (October, 2010, New Society) which have been translated into several languages. Two years ago, Liz was interviewed about EVI for a YouTube video, which now has 1.8 million views. People are hungry for community! Liz lives with her husband at EcoVillage Ithaca. Whenever she gets a chance, she loves to go biking, or hiking in the beautiful gorges in the Finger Lakes region of NY.
Meeting ID: 958 6631 3240
Passcode: NYRocks