Sustainable Patterns of Living Based on an Investigation of Footprint in Hanoi-Vietnam, Welllington-New Zealand and Oulu-Finland

Abstract

Modern cities are now bigger than the area they physically occupy in the sense of the land they need for their resource consumption (food, water, materials, energy) and waste discharges. However, the Earth is the one planet available for humanity and its resources are finite while human demand is increasing rapidly. The pressures of resource depletion and growing human population are making clear the need for new design and wider disciplinary approaches. What might be the future of living without conventional oil? The current practice focuses on carbon-neutral solutions due to the climate change challenge caused by burning fossil fuels. However, on a global scale there is insufficient land area available for producing zero carbon products and to absorb carbon emissions, and ultimately fossil fuels are a finite resource that will run out. Land is the basis of living: land for growing food and biofuels, producing materials, building houses and generating renewable energy.

Therefore, this thesis considers the issue of living sustainably within available finite resources. The ecological footprint is a technique that can examine and compare the amount of land needed to sustain existing and proposed patterns of living in the context of a “fairearth- share” of available land per person, suggesting that the current available biocapacity per person is barely 1.8 global hectares. However, the question addressed in this thesis is whether sustainability means the same thing in terms of the concept of living within a fair share of the globally available resources, as it means in terms of living within national boundaries and the resources these contain.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate sustainable behaviour and lifestyle and how this relates to measures of sustainability, in this case the ecological footprint, by adopting a comparative approach. The three chosen case study cities with which to examine the idea of “fair-earth-share” resources are: Hanoi in Vietnam, Oulu in Finland, and Wellington in New Zealand. The three cities differ in terms of lifestyle, level of development and climate. The aim is to see what drives the ecological footprint (climate, technology improvements or lifestyle), and hence the impact of people on the natural environment in these three locations. The thesis focusses on the core aspects of ecological footprint as well as the basic needs of, energy, housing, transport and food. It calculates the relevant footprint for each aspect using the same method for each location.

The thesis then shows how change in patterns of living would reduce the footprint of residents in the three cities, but that what needs to be done is different in each place. Comparing the results of total current footprint based on fossil fuels and the reduction in footprint based on use of renewables indicates shows it is possible to achieve a basic lifestyle using only 1.8ha/cap/year in Hanoi and Wellington but not in Oulu. The thesis thus demonstrates the need to look for local solutions to local environmental problems as what drives the footprint is different in the three locations. It also suggests that what is required is for everyone to live a basic lifestyle, as in some places even this will exceed a fair earth share ecological footprint.