{"id":50792,"date":"2018-07-06T16:08:33","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T20:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=50792"},"modified":"2018-08-28T16:17:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T20:17:40","slug":"langouet-the-100-green-little-gallic-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2018\/07\/langouet-the-100-green-little-gallic-village\/","title":{"rendered":"Langou\u00ebt, the 100% green little Gallic village"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mathilde Golla, Le Figaro<\/a>, France<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSmall is beautiful\u201d would be an ideal slogan for the village of Langou\u00ebt in Brittany, northern France. This community of 600 inhabitants, located near Rennes, is well on the way to energy autonomy and is aiming for food self-sufficiency, too. Over the past 20 years, Langou\u00ebt has been developing a whole host of green projects, designed to meet these objectives: since 2004, a canteen that serves 100% organic and local produce; passive social housing (no active heating used, or very little); a hamlet of \u201ckitchen-garden houses\u201d; a garden used for teaching permaculture; a community caf\u00e9; a solar power plant; an activity hub focused on the social and solidarity economy; a shared electric car\u2026 Daniel Cueff, who has been mayor of Langou\u00ebt since 1999, has been the driving force behind the transition.<\/p>\n

Cueff, who admitted he ended up chief administrator of Langou\u00ebt \u201ca bit by accident\u201d, can rely on the commitment of the residents to get these projects off the ground – to such an extent that, even in a context of shrinking public coffers, the village was able to count on its residents to fund its experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything we can do locally, we go for it!\u201d Cueff said. So why shouldn\u2019t that apply to funding? Mission accomplished! This year, the town council borrowed 25,000 euros (USD 29,642) from locals. The initiative was even a victim of its own success: the funds were raised in just two days, from a handful of residents. Admittedly, this wasn\u2019t the first time that Langou\u00ebt\u2019s council had attempted such a feat. In 2016, they had already taken a loan of 40,000 euros from the villagers to finance part of the village\u2019s redevelopment. In both cases, the council\u2019s bankers were able to lend between 200 and 2,000 euros at a two percent gross interest rate per year over a six-year period.<\/p>\n

The second loan will be used to create a communal learning garden where villagers can study permaculture, which focuses on gentle and natural agricultural methods. \u201cThrough this project we also want to create intergenerational bonds; the elders will be able to teach their cultivation techniques to the new arrivals,\u201d Cueff explained. His dream is to see every one of the villagers get involved in the projects. \u201cI wanted to contribute to the development of the village and to invest in making a reality the numerous ideas that have come out of our citizens\u2019 workshops,\u201d H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, a Langou\u00ebt resident who lent 2,000 euros said. \u201cThe project proposals do interest us as well; we would definitely like to live in a passive house,\u201d the Brittany native added, while getting out of the village\u2019s shared electric car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From a very early stage, the local council has been active in building sustainable social housing. Langou\u00ebt boasts two hamlets composed of energy-efficient wooden houses that are equipped with solar panels, built in 2005 and 2011. Cueff has been involved in eco-activism from a young age. \u201cWe\u2019re working towards a social ecology model,\u201d he explained, gesturing towards the 15-or-so wooden houses, located at the entrance of the village and nestled against a backdrop of greenery. \u201cOur local council buys land that we make viable and resell at a low cost so that sustainable housing can be built at an affordable price.\u201d Each of the homeowners did 30 days\u2019 work on the building site, assisted by Compagnons B\u00e2tisseurs(Building companions), a nonprofit that fights for decent housing solutions. \u201cIt\u2019s a way of reducing the cost of housing, but it also enables us to get to know our homes, and our neighbors, a lot faster,\u201d explained S\u00e9bastien Longechaud, owner of one of the houses, which are adorned with brightly colored shutters and topped with large solar panels. \u201cWe are sensitive to environmental issues and we chose to come and live in Langou\u00ebt, in one of these wooden houses,\u201d another homeowner, J\u00e9r\u00f4me Gimenez, said. \u201cOur energy bill is low, around 200 euros per year for an 80-sq. meter property,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The local council wants to take things even further by building a hamlet of \u201cTriple Zero\u201d houses (Zero energy, Zero carbon, Zero waste). Designed by a research laboratory, a first prototype named BioClim House was unveiled this spring and currently presides over a vast plot of land at the entrance of the village. Each house will host a greenhouse on its roof for growing vegetables using permaculture techniques, or to produce energy. Langou\u00ebt could soon come closer to its dream of food self-sufficiency, thanks to these \u201ckitchen-garden houses\u201d, along with the direct farm sales shop, which links up with producers of organic chickens.<\/p>\n

Langou\u00ebt is still a hub of ideas for new projects. \u201cWe\u2019re aiming for energy autonomy within the next ten years, thanks to solar panels and trackers (pivoting structures that ensure solar panels are oriented towards the sun, thus increasing their productivity),\u201d the mayor said. He discusses plans with neighboring local authorities, so he can \u201ctake inspiration from what\u2019s being done elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the village has gained a solid reputation for being a pioneer in the green transition. As a result, inquiries from would-be residents are flooding in. \u201cA resident of Florida, United States, wants to come back to France and asked us if any houses were available,\u201d Langou\u00ebt\u2019s mayor said proudly. But not every demand can be met. Future residents \u201cwill be chosen according to their level of willingness to get involved in the project,\u201d Cueff explained. Those who wish to make this little Breton village their home will need to prove their green credentials!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This article was written for Impact Journalism Day 2018, a collaborative programme initiated by <\/em>Sparknews<\/em><\/a>\u00a0gathering over 50 prestigious media outlets worldwide whose combined readership reach out to 100 million readers. On Impact Journalism Day (16 June), these outlets published stories about innovative solutions that help achieve the ±¬ÁÏÍø Sustainable Development Goals. Discover all Impact Journalism Day stories at <\/em>http:\/\/impactjournalismday.com\/read-our-stories\/<\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mathilde Golla, Le Figaro, France \u201cSmall is beautiful\u201d would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":50795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}