Vereniging Aardehuis Olst (‘Olst Earth Home Association’) in the Dutch village of Olst is a cluster of 23 self-sufficient ecological dwellings known as Earth Homes, designed to have a minimal ecological footprint in both the construction and residence phase. One of the European PROSEU project’s ‘living labs’ is following these homes and it was within this framework that this study was conducted.
The study analyses the CO2 footprint (energy consumption) of the average Earth Home in the use phase, comparing it with that of typical new-build. With a CO2 footprint of 13 kg/m2, the average Earth Home has a lower footprint than a comparable EPC-0.4 dwelling (20 kg/m2) or BENG (Near-Zero Energy Building) new-build (19 kg/m2). A mutual comparison of 23 Earth Homes was also made. This showed a broad range in annual CO2 emissions in 2018: from 390 to 2,972 kg.
This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 764056.
Thijs Scholten and Sjoerd van der Niet