july-2012

22
eco
roger east on car pools, eco golf courses and a centre for sustainable living
The new in
the old
in MILAN
Milan has a new design centre for
sustainable development – housed in the
city’s beautiful 17th-century Cuccagna
farmhouse. Dating back to 1695 and
occupying a central site, the city authority
-owned building had been allowed to fall
into disrepair despite its historic heritage value.
Now sensitively restored, it opened to the public at this
year’s Design Week, accommodating over
50 companies and individuals in the
GoodDesign Initiative’s Live Well,
Work Better exhibition. The venue
provides a cultural laboratory to
develop old and new ideas on
urban living – complete with
high-tech hydro-geothermal
heating and cooling, plus stateof-the
art insulation to keep the
temperature ideal for creativity.
jULY 2012
Greener
golf in
toulouse
cars to go
in europe
The ruinous cost of parking is one
reason why urban car-share clubs
are catching on. In cities choked
by traffic congestion, a car is an
expensive liability most of the
time, even when you aren’t using it. ‘Collaborative
consumption’ schemes like Zipcar, or the Swiss
pioneer, Mobility, give members the alternative of
‘pay as you go’ access to a vehicle. Typically these
cars are in designated parking bays, where
members return them after use. They are booked
by the hour and an electronic code and booking
reference are provided to let the driver in. But now
cities from Amsterdam to Vienna and half a dozen
in North America, have signed up for car2go, a more
easy-going version of the car-share concept. A
car2go member can pick up – and leave – a twoseater
Smart car at any ordinary public parking
space, safe in the knowledge that the scheme – an
offshoot of Daimler – has done a deal with the
relevant city authorities to cover any parking charge.
Hopefully, another user will soon be at the wheel
and the car will vacate the space.
You can search in vain for the ‘green’ on most golf
courses. So much weedkiller and fertiliser, so little
biodiversity and above all, an excessive thirst for water
puts them on the ‘eco problem’ list even before
considering how the punters get there and get around.
But now there’s a French movement to give the sport
a more responsible face. The Téoula course in Toulouse is the first holder
of a new Ecodurable Golf certification, created in the wake of a new
national charter on golf and the environment by the French golfing
federation and the ecology ministry.
Cutting 30% of water use – notably by planting more droughtresistant
types of grass – is top of the charter’s agenda. Téoula is also
notable for eliminating the use of weedkillers on 80% of the course, with
beehives by the first green to testify to the richness of the vegetation. It
has almost halved its use of nitrate fertiliser too. But what about playing
with Justin Timberlake’s biodegradable balls? As used at Timberlake’s
own Miramichi Lakes course in Tennessee (alongside such innovations as
solar-powered buggies), these eco-balls dissolve in 24 hours when hit
into the water – and turn into fish food.
FLY TO milan seven times daily; toulouse three times daily. brusselsairlines.com