Intentional Living

But, let’s start with the home.

Home is the environment you create around you, it helps define you, speaks to your values; it provides both physical and psychological comfort, and, of course, shelter.

As shelter, your home needs to be both sustainable and to provide a healthy environment within which to live. For comfort, health, and cost effectiveness, your home’s “envelope” (four walls, floor, ceiling, and roof) should be air tight, with quality indoor and outdoor air.

How do I live in my home?

The choices you make in the way you live within this home contribute to its integrity and to maintaining an atmosphere that promotes personal health and structural durability.

Is my home energy efficient?

Is your home as air tight and energy efficient as possible? What do you still need to learn to make it so? How do you manage the systems that heat and cool your home? How can you be a more conscious steward of existing and potential resources? Ask yourself the same questions about water usage and how to increase stewardship of this precious resource.

What is my home’s carbon footprint?

What is the most economical use of water, and of fossil fuels for heating and cooling, for cooking, and heating water? What about the economy and the health and environmental impacts of the products that come into the house and the waste that goes out? How do my choices play out in the short term . . . and as a long-term legacy?

How do I give back?

Are there ideas I’ve learned about living intentionally that I can share with my children, my community?

Looking at your home, business, or property intentionally is about deepening the “green,” establishing a threshold for higher performance, air quality, and health, inside and out. And it is about looking at the impact of your home and your lifestyle on the finite resources upon which all life depends. It is a journey of continual progress toward building sustainable health within a sustainable home and community, and striving for a sustainable world.

Resources

We each have the ability—for ourselves and our families—to choose the food we eat, the way we use resources, such as power and water, where we shop, and the businesses we support. These choices empower us as consumers to help strengthen our families, communities, and the larger world.

Here are just a few of the many local resources available to help you navigate creating a healthy home in the areas of:

• Food
• Energy
• Water
• Waste
• Facilities maintenance
• Chemicals, cleaners, pesticides
• Pets
• Public Transit
• Landscaping
• Natural resource conservation