Sustainability in practice: a comparative life cycle assessment of Italian ecovillages and national lifestyle patterns

Discussions on sustainability and community-level policies to reduce environmental impact have become key political topics in response to the global climate crisis. In light of these challenges, environmentally conscious individuals and communities are seeking to adapt their consumption patterns and lifestyles to more sustainable alternatives. Some people are doing so by joining intentional communities purposefully built around sustainability-oriented objectives. This study examines the lifestyles and resource-use choices of four Italian ecovillages to assess and compare their potential to reduce environmental impact. It also discusses the possible diffusion pathways through which the practices identified as most efficient might become adopted on a wider scale. We evaluated the environmental impact of each ecovillage using life cycle assessment (LCA) and compared the results with national averages for Italy. Our findings provide evidence of the environmental benefits arising from the intentional application of more sustainable food and transport choices by these communities. They also consumed less energy than the national average, although older and poorly insulated buildings in ecovillages may limit energy efficiency. The grassroots practices used in ecovillages merit replication in peer communities and even scaled up to conventional contexts.