What sort of things make a building sustainable?   There are a lot of improvements that we can do to make the buildings that we already have more sustainable.   If we were to build a new building from scratch, then there are imaginative ways of building that are squeakily sustainable.   But at the very least there are many ways that DIY can be done in a sustainable way

We can be environmentally friendly when we DIY !! We can be positive with paint sustainable with shelter environmental with energy and wonderful with wood!   What can make a home more sustainable? Well, the single most influential thing you can do in your house is quite simply to insulate it! It takes more energy to make heat than anything else - so if you are preventing heat loss, then you are saving bags of energy and helping to cut down climate change. Energy efficiency is an extensive topic in itself and is covered here.

Other things that can be done to an already existing house to make it more sustainable are;   Installing a system that reuses grey water and collects and reuses rainwater.   Installing a renewable energy system of some kind - to heat water with the heat of the sun, or heat radiators with the heat from a biomass boiler (wood burning stove to you and me!)   Doing loads of things to conserve heat (look at the energy efficiency section)

Well obviously the vast majority of us are not going to build our own houses, but if, just if, you, or your school, or your community were to want to build an extra room, or an extra classroom or build a shed or something, then did you know that you can build fantastic environmentally friendly buildings? When a building a place for the first time, a huge range of sustainability measures can be installed at the very beginning.   You could build the building out of straw! Which doesn't burn down! And doesn't rot  and keeps in loads of heat (remember that insulation thing at the beginning of the page).

And, best of all, what could be greener and more renewable than using leftover fields of straw for building houses?

(Of course, loads of things are greener and more renewable - it is better to use local materials, whatever they happen to be). But if you are going to build a house, we suggest that straw is a grand building medium if you live in an area where straw is produced and we recommend that you throw in loads of double glazed windows so that you get lots of light in there (that's passive solar) and then chuck up solar water panels to heat your water!

Getting a bit carried away here, but if you want to see a great house design, Bed Zed did wonderful things in London. Although not from straw...

And there are all sorts of other things like...

Using environmentally friendly paint! Yes, even the paint we use is full of chemicals and plastics that are bad for the environment... Eco paints are all right though - and lots of them come with natural pigments that you can mix in yourself. Eco paints are better for your house because they don't have plastic in them, so they let your house breath. They don't have any harmful solvents in them either.

Also carpets! You can have sustainable carpets !

Try buying a natural carpet.. (or one made from recycled plastic).
Nylon and PVC are made from oil.

Did you know that not only can you get

	wood floors
	wool carpets
	cork tiles (particularly warm and fantastic)
	but also sisal carpets
	jute and coconut fibre!
	Oh and linoleum, (not lino) which is made from powdered cork in Scotland...

All these floor coverings are made from renewable and - if farmed properly - - environmental sources.

Talking of farming.. Trees are farmed in this country and lots of the woods are carefully managed so that the woods support loads of mini-beasts and birds and animals. When the trees are cut down, the people that manage the forests are careful to replace them with the right new trees so that the local wildlife still has places to live. <-- These forests are given a mark that looks like this. It stands for the Forest Stewardship Council Certification Mark and buying wood with this stamp is the best way of doing damage free DIY. And last - but definitely not least - there are crummy chemicals. Crummy chemicals are all over the place!! In practically everything!! And completely unnecessary. What an amazing thing! Why develop loads of nasty chemically things when we don't really need them? We use a lot of them for cleaning our homes and schools and halls. But you can do something about this and you don't need to spend loads of money!

Because anyone who wants to can use good old soda crystals, lemon juice and vinegar - they will do the job nicely and won't muck up the environment!

However, if you like your bottles of cleaning stuff,  you can buy environmentally friendly stuff too, in some places you can even re-fill your bottles! - our Green Shop for example! double whammy!! Look for Ecover or Down to Earth - there are other brands too - remember, the word you are looking for in all your cleaning products is BIODEGRADABLE

If you want more information about

	Environmentally friendly school building
	Basics on sustainable buildings
	Possible funding sources for .......
	Where to find environmentally friendly products
	Organisations that may be able to help you - in many different ways

Then come on further into our web site...