Sustainable Living and Co-Housing:Evidence from a Case Study of Eco-villages

In this article we examine aspects of the different arguments for the environmentaladvantages of co-housing compared with individual households. The analysis isstructured around four main questions, which are argued to be decisive for thequestion of co-housing and sustainability. The first is whether co-housing offersbetter opportunities for choosing and using more sustainable technologies, whichalso relates to the question of whether co-housing offers better opportunities forbuilding smaller and denser and thus more energy efficient buildings. The secondand third questions are socially oriented; one relates to the claim that co-housingcan support pro-environmental behaviour among residents as they can supporteach other’s norms and practices. The fourth and last claim relates to a discussionof co-housing as a more sustainable opportunity especially for people living alone,as the growing number of small households is an emerging sustainability problem.The empirical analyses are based on the results from a Danish study of eco-villagesincluding a survey, interviews with representatives of the eco-village movementand a detailed case study of a group of people in the process of establishing a newcluster in an existing eco-village. The aim of the article is to contribute to thegeneral discussions about co-housing and sustainability. The study adds nuances tothis discussion and shows that the answer is not as straightforward as presented inmuch of the literature