Ecovillage Boekel was named the Netherlands' most sustainable organisation in 2021. With its own 'food forest' and a pioneering César heating system, this European project is setting the standard for green living.
From the sky, it looks like a flower house. The Ecovillage Boekel is an almost self-sufficient housing community and was voted the most sustainable organisation in the Netherlands in 2021.
In a world beset by crises, war and climate disruption, this European project offers concrete solutions for social, economic, and cultural regeneration.
"The United Nations said that in 2030, half of all humans will have problems with climate change. We are trying to be self-sufficient for food and water and a lot of our energy," said Ad Vlems, the project manager of Ecovillage Boekel.
"Ecovillage Boekel is part of a worldwide project of eco-villages searching how to be more resilient to climate change."
The Ecovillage Boekel in the south of the Netherlands is made up of 36 pioneering sustainable flats. These climate-positive round buildings retain 800 tonnes of C02.
Forty-eight adults - fervent campaigners for the circular economy - are involved in this European project where nothing is wasted, not a drop of water, not a kilowatt of energy.
"The fun thing is that most projects have a lot of problems with laws and regulations. That makes it difficult for them," Ad Vlems explains.
"But our ministers and ministries were so happy with us that they granted us to be part of the law and the Crisis and Recovery Act. "Only sustainable, innovative projects [can come under that law]. If what you do works, then they change the regular laws. So in the Netherlands, over the 26 projects, laws have been updated by experiences from the projects in the Crisis and Recovery Act."
Annemarie Wilhelmund Hendriksen has been living in this community for a year and a half. The houses are built with bio-sustainable materials such as wood and hemp, and this is one of the reasons why she decided to up sticks and move to Boekel.
"The values were that they are building with hemp. I thought it was a beautiful material and they make very good insulation and healthy homes," Annemarie told Smart Regions.
"These houses have absorbed more CO2 than they have put in the air, and not only that, this beautiful garden here where we try to grow food for all of us, the 50 people that live here."
The residents are growing a so-called 'food forest' in which they have planted fruit and vegetables among the trees and shrubs - making the garden more resistant to heavy rain, drought, and heat.
The total budget for the project is €10 million, €2.5 million of which has been provided by the province of Noord-Brabant in the form of loans and grants, €1 million by the EU's cohesion policy and half a million by the Dutch Ministry of Energy and Climate.
Boekel is a testing ground for all kinds of innovations, such as the César heating system, which stores the energy produced by the ecovillage's 600 solar panels.
"The [storage unit] will reach a temperature of 450 degrees and then, afterwards the heat is provided for the floor heating of the houses here. It's a circle, a CO2 emission-free system," said Gonnie van der Vorst, from the public relations department of CESAR-energy storage.
Ecovillage Boekel has won several awards for the sustainability of its buildings and is leading the way on the path towards a greener future.