Sustainability Productions is a series of short video reports that showcase a number of cities and neighbourhoods – particularly European ones – that are trying to improve citizens’ quality of life while reducing their impact on the natural world.

There is much talk about climate change and its effects, the rapid loss of biodiversity, the increasing scarcity and price of fossil fuels, the growing gap between the world’s rich and poor, soil erosion and the loss of fertile agricultural land, social justice and human rights issues, and the list goes on.  These issues are all connected directly and indirectly, and seem to be getting worse by the day.  The world community has come together on a number of occasions, particularly under the auspices of the United Nations, to tackle these pressing issues and move towards sustainable development, a holistic approach to planning and development that integrates four dimensions: social, economic, ecological and cultural.  Its goal is to improve quality of life for all—meeting basic needs such as access to health, food and shelter—within the carrying capacity of the Earth.  Change is admittedly very slow, and to many, sustainability is still a fuzzy concept, or simply “all talk and no action”.  Sustainability Productions would like to dispel this myth, and show a hopeful, more positive and inspiring side to the sustainability debate, and highlight the fact that a great number of examples already exist, and need to be shared with a wide public.

Sustainability Productions features initiatives that cities have taken to reduce energy and water consumption, promote social diversity and intergenerational mixing, decrease the emission of greenhouse gases and increase the production of renewable energy, improve the quality of urban life of residents and provide engaging and fulfilling job opportunities.  In these short video reports, architects, city councilors, planners and project coordinators are interviewed to get their personal and hands-on perspective on the efforts and policies that have been carried out, with details given on how the projects came about, the purpose they serve, their various phases, the obstacles that had to be overcome as well as the solutions that have been imagined.  Technicians, educators, policy makers as well as citizens will find invaluable information and ideas in these video reports to help them implement their own sustainable-development projects and programs.

Click here to watch a short demo video of the Sustainability Productions series (2 min. 30 sec.).

Average time to download: 30 seconds with an ADSL connection