
Your Sustainable House in 3 Easy, Wonderful Ways
3 Key Elements of a Sustainable House
More and more people choose to live in sustainable houses. But what makes them sustainable? According to Cambridge Dictionary, sustainability is, “the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time.”
To understand sustainability, look at what isn’t sustainable. For example, corporations cut down and kill rainforests all over the world for palm oil, paper, timber, and more. But humans and animals alike depend on these rainforests to maintain the environment. The earth warms up, the climate changes, and soon our planet might become uninhabitable.
Living in a sustainable house causes little damage to the Earth and might soon be the only way forward. Keep reading to learn 3 key elements that make a sustainable house!
1 | Self Sufficiency

Sustainable house are self-sufficient.
In a sustainable house, the occupant relies on renewable energy sources such as wind turbines or solar panels for electricity. They grow their own food which reduces their carbon footprint. A sustainable house often collects, filters, and reuses water, or even features a composting toilet that turns excrements into fertilizer for the land!
2 | Minimalism

Purchase only what you need.
However, minimalism puts people off because it evokes images of owning a single bowl, a single spoon, and a single cushion. But living sustainably doesn’t mean you should throw away everything you own and go live in the mountains. In reality, a person achieves minimalism more through their mindset than anything else.
Ask the question, what do I actually need to live a happy life? Minimalists abstain from purchasing items they don’t need. Instead, they give the fullest life and purpose to each of their belongings. Therefore practicing minimalism naturally leads to a more sustainable lifestyle, and sustainable houses often feature minimalism.
3 | Zero Waste

Strive toward zero waste.
Privilege & Your Sustainable House
Truthfully, our society makes it difficult to live sustainably. Having a sustainable house takes time and money that isn’t afforded to many people. In reality, you may not have the time to grow food for your entire family or the finances to build a self-sufficient house. That does not make you a bad person. Every step taken towards sustainability should be celebrated. Until we live in a society that truly upholds the Earth, we can only do what we can do!