• is at the heart of the largest single intentional community in the UK • links the spiritual, social, ecological and economic domains • a pioneering ecovillage since 1985 • a major centre of adult education serving 9,000 visitors a year from over 50 countries • ecological footprint is half the national (UK) average • 55 ecologically-benign buildings • 4 wind turbines • biological Living Machine sewage treatment system • UK's oldest and largest Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) system • numerous solar water heating systems • comprehensive recycling scheme • publisher of UK's first technical guide to ecological housing • own bank and community currency
The Findhorn Ecovillage is a tangible demonstration of the links between the spiritual, social, ecological and economic aspects of life and is a synthesis of the very best of current thinking on human habitats. It is a constantly evolving model used as a teaching resource by a number of university and school groups as well as by professional organisations and municipalities worldwide.
We are a founder member of the Global Ecovillage Network(GEN) a non-profit organisation that links together a highly diverse worldwide movement of autonomous ecovillages and related projects, and we work with intergovernmental agencies both educationally and in the creation of policy guidance for sustainable development and delivery of village-scale sustainability programmes.
Preliminary results of the ecological footprint study for the Findhorn Ecovillage confirms what we have guessed for some time that ecovillages tread significantly more lightly on the Earth.
The Findhorn Foundation Ecovillage Project has received Best Practice designation from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat).
Findhorn Ecovillage - History
Beginnings
The Findhorn Community was begun in 1962 by Peter and Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean. All three had followed disciplined spiritual paths for many years. They first came to northeast Scotland in 1957 to manage the Cluny Hill Hotel in the town of Forres, which they did remarkably successfully. Eileen received guidance in her meditations from an inner divine source she called ‘the still small voice within’ and Peter ran the hotel according to this guidance and his own intuition. In this unorthodox way - and with many delightful and unlikely incidents - Cluny Hill swiftly became a thriving and successful four-star hotel. After several years however, Peter and Eileen's employment was terminated, and with nowhere to go and little money, they moved with their three young sons and Dorothy to a caravan in the nearby seaside village of Findhorn.
Feeding six people on unemployment benefit was difficult, so Peter decided to start growing vegetables. The land in the caravan park was sandy and dry but he persevered. Dorothy discovered she was able to intuitively contact the overlighting spirits of plants - which she called angels, and then devas - who gave her instructions on how to make the most of their fledgling garden. She and Peter translated this guidance into action, and with amazing results. From the barren sandy soil of the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park grew huge plants, herbs and flowers of dozens of kinds, most famously the now-legendary 40-pound cabbages. Word spread, horticultural experts came and were stunned, and the garden at Findhorn became famous.
A community is born
Other people came to join the Caddys and Dorothy in their work and soon the original group of six grew into a small community, committed to their spiritual path and to expanding the garden in harmony with nature. A slim volume of Eileen's guidance entitled God Spoke To Me was published in 1967 by the community's newly formed Findhorn Press and word of this strange but wonderful community spread yet further. Significant friends and supporters of the community in these early days included English new age pioneer Sir George Trevelyan, scottish esotericist R Ogilvie Crombie and Richard St Barbe Baker, ‘the man of the trees’. New community members lived in caravans beside Peter and Eileen's and in specially built cedarwood bungalows which still house guests and workshop participants today. In the late 60s the Park Sanctuary, the largest of our meditation sanctuaries, and the Community Centre, where the community still eats and meets, were built by Peter and community members in accordance with Eileen's guidance.
In 1970 a young American spiritual teacher named David Spangler arrived in the community and with his partner Myrtle Glines helped to define and organise the spiritual education processes that have been a central pillar of the Findhorn community ever since. A curriculum was established and the work of the ‘University of Light’ began. David and Myrtle lived in the community for three years, during which Findhorn Press published many of David's visionary writings. Today we run almost 200 week-long courses every year as well as conferences, trainings and our busy Outreach programme of educational workshops taken around the world by our workshop leaders.
In 1972 the community was formally registered as a Scottish Charity under the name The Findhorn Foundation and in the 1970s and 80s grew to approximately 300 members. In 1975 the Foundation purchased Cluny Hill Hotel as a centre for its educational courses and for members' accommodation, renaming it Cluny Hill College. In the late 70s the Universal Hall, our centre for the arts, was built by volunteer work. Behind its fantastic stained glass facade are housed a modern theatre and concert hall, a holistic café, dance and recording studios, and offices.
Throughout the 1970s and 80s further volumes of Eileen's and Dorothy's guidance were published including Eileen's best seller, Opening Doors Within, a collection of daily inspirations which has been translated into more than 30 languages. Dorothy's autobiography, To Hear The Angels Sing, was published in 1980. In 1982 the Foundation bought its home, the Findhorn Bay Caravan Park. Also acquired in the 1980s were neighbouring Cullerne House, whose gardens became the centre of organic vegetable production, and Drumduan House in Forres, where community members established the Moray Steiner School. Eileen's autobiography, Flight Into Freedom, was published in 1989.
LOHAS is simply an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. It is a $355 billion market segment in the United States alone (growing about 10% a year) and a $546 billion market worldwide. The term LOHAS was first coined by sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Anderson, co-authors of The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World (also founders of Gaiam, LOHAS Journal and LOHAS Forum in 1999).
LOHAS learners make up 46% of the LOHAS market and represent an untapped opportunity. The learners want to do the ‘right thing” but aren’t sure where to start. Solving for their key barriers which include price and availability are paramount ot unlocking the market.
LOHAS consumers are those who are passionate about the environment, the planet, social issues, health, about human rights, relationships, fair trade, sustainable practices, peace, spiritual and personal development. LOHAS consumers tend to make their purchasing decisions in keeping with their values of social and environmental responsibility. LOHAS marketers call this group by many other names including: lohasians, conscious consumers, progressive consumers, tree huggers, humanist, responsible consumers, and green consumers, but none want to be labeled as such.
Cultural Creativesis a term coined by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologistSherry Ruth Anderson to describe a large segment in Western society that has recently developed beyond the standard paradigm of Modernists versus Traditionalists or Conservatists.
The concept was presented in their book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (2000), where they claim to have found that 50 million adult Americans (slightly over one quarter of the adult population) can now be identified as belonging to this group. They estimated that there were another 80–90 million Cultural Creatives in Europe in 2000.
Dr. Ray and Dr. Anderson divide cultural creatives into two subdivisions:
Core cultural creative
Just under half of the CC population, this segment comprises the more educated, leading-edge thinkers. This group includes many writers, artists, musicians, psychotherapists, feminists, alternative health care providers and other professionals. They combine a serious concern for their inner life with a strong passion for social activism.
Green cultural creative
The more secular and extroverted wing of the cultural creatives. They tend to follow the opinions of the Core group and have a more conventional religious outlook. Their world views are less thought out than the Core group and less intensely held.
Ecocities of Tomorrow: UK's First Planned Ecovillage Gets Go-Ahead
After having their plans rejected once by British planning institutions, a small group of families has been granted permission to build a small ecovillage in the Welsh countryside. The tiny village, to be called Lammas, is planned to cover a 74 acre site of pasture and woodland.
Planned to be completely independent of national infrastructures, water would be drawn from springs and rooftop rainwater collection. Electricity would come from local, renewable sources such as small-scale ethanol production and an existing water turbine. All houses would be built out of straw bale, earth and timber, with rammed earth floors and hemp fiber insulation, and would include compost bins and composting toilets.
The Lammas website features incredibly detailed plans regarding every aspect of the community's existence, including site layout, architectural and transport plans, an ecological footprint assessment and detailed business plans. Closely following Permaculture planning concepts, the "low impact" village concentrates residences and compact, intensive functions in a denser core, with less intensive functions spread out along its edges. A significant portion of the community's land will be set aside for natural woodlands, containing native plants.
Planning permission for the community became possible when the Pembrokeshire County Council implemented a "low impact development" policy, requiring a high level of self-sufficiency in local households' use of resources. Pembrokeshire is one of two local authorities in the UK with such a policy regarding local sustainability.
Below is a short film about the Lammas initiative, courtesy of www.undercurrents.org.
For more detailed information, check out Lammas' website at www.lammas.org.uk.
First Official UK Ecovillage Seeks Permits
Lammas Ecovillagein Wales is seeking approval for their ecovillage under new UK government rules to allow a new form of rural mixed use development. Theirs would be the first ecovillage approved under these new rules which allow a mix a residential, agricultural, and commercial enterprises on much more affordable rural land.
Lammas has been getting a lot of press and exposure on blogs but not all of it has been accurate.EcoWorldlyandTreeHuggerrecently posted a notice saying Lammas had been granted approval but a Lammas member commented to say that they had resubmitted their plans but is still awaiting approval. For more accurate info keep an eye on theWelsh newsor on theLammas siteitself.
You can also see videos about Lammas at undercurrents.org:
I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!
The Ecovillage Movement
“Would it be an exaggeration to claim that the emergence of the ecovillage movement is the most significant event of the 20th century? I don’t think so.” Sociologist Ted Trainer, University of New South Wales, Australia “In my view, ecovillages, and the larger social movements of which they are an integral part, are the most promising and important intentional community movement in all of history." Robert Rosenthal, Professor of Philosophy, Hanover College, USA
The “most significant event of the 20th century”? The “most important intentional community movement in all of history”? Powerful words. Let us look at what is behind them.
When Findhorn community in northern Scotland announced the topic for their annual autumn conference in 1995 as “Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities”, they were overwhelmed with applications from all over the world, breaking all previous records. Eventually, they had to turn away about 400 people for lack of capacity in beautiful Universal Hall. Somehow they had struck a chord that resonated far and wide. The word “ecovillage”, which was barely four years old at the time, thus became part of the language of the Cultural Creatives. It was appropriate that the first major conference was at the “planetary village” of Findhorn — founded in 1962 — because it was one of the oldest and best known of the many intentional communities around the world. After October 1995, most of them, like Findhorn, began calling themselves “ecovillages”, and a new movement was born. Following the conference, a group of about 25 people, from almost as many countries, decided to formalize the sense of a major historic event by founding the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) to link the hundreds of small projects that had sprung up around the world with a common motivation, but without having knowledge of each other. Gaia Trust, Denmark, committed on the spot to fund the network for the first five years. (1)
A Sustainable Lifestyle
Thus was born a new lifestyle movement, which may prove to be far more significant than has been realized to date in government circles and the media, who have yet to discover what is happening all across the world. The ecovillage movement — although still in its early embryonic stage — is a global phenomenon responding to global causes. It is best understood as a part of the anti-globalisation movement. But while the more visible parts of the anti-globalisation movement protest the corporate-dominated global economic model through demonstrations in the streets and consumer boycotts and through single issues movements, ecovillagers have a different approach. They are quietly building small, sustainable communities with their limited resources, with personal commitment — walking their talk. They see ecovillages as models of how we must all live eventually, if the threat to our environment and social structures posed by corporate-led globalisation is to be taken seriously. It is a lifestyle possible for everybody on the planet.
LOHAS 
I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!
When