Ecovillage
An ecovillage is a human scale, full-featured settlement which integrates human activities harmlessly into the natural environment, supports healthy human development, and can be continued into the indefinite future.
After 30 years of development, Twin Oaks Community in Central Virginia is well on its way toward achieving this ideal. Join us in our endeavor to lighten our impact on nature, evolve sustainable systems, and model a better way of life.
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Twin Oaks as Ecovillage
Twin Oaks fits the contemporary definition of ecovillage in numerous ways. In many ways past and present we have tried to consider what might be sustainable for the long term. Photos here show some of the ways this manifests in the physical realm: examples shown include food, fuel, recycling, transportation, etc.
Energy Conservation
Conservation aka resource/energy efficiency takes many forms. In some ways how we live is inherently more resource efficient than the way most people live--shared vehicle fleet, shared equipment, shared living space, etc.
We do a lot of recycling and reducing. We also reuse and salvage a lot of stuff including through dumpster diving.
Alternative Energy
We heat most of our buildings with locally harvested firewood.
Besides passive solar heat for some of our buildings, we also have a number of solar water heating installations and some photovoltaic (electricity) developments.
Agriculture
Since the early years of Twin Oaks we have grown and raised much of the food we eat, naturally (in fact organically) though we're not certified as organic, except for our tofu business.