Living sustainably in a Danish eco-community: how social and physical infrastructures affect carbon footprints

The paper addresses the urgent context of climate change mitigation, noting IPCC targets that require steep emissions reductions. It challenges assumptions that lowering consumption reduces happiness by examining whether eco-community members can achieve both lower carbon footprints and high life satisfaction. Focusing on the Self-Sustaining Village (SSV) in Denmark, the study reports that residents’ footprints are about 60% below the national average and explores how collective decisions embedded in social and physical infrastructures achieve this. The purpose is to demonstrate that infrastructural arrangements, rather than solely individual choices, can drive substantial emissions reductions while maintaining or improving life satisfaction, thereby informing debates on behavioral change, responsibility, and the design of sustainable living.

The study engages with practice theory and scholarship (e.g., Elizabeth Shove and colleagues) linking social practices to material infrastructures, emphasizing mutual shaping between practices and infrastructures. It builds on work distinguishing physical (hard) and social (soft) infrastructures in eco-communities, including Jarvis’s “social architecture,” Nguyen’s analysis of Danish eco-community infrastructures, and prior work by Gausset on socio-political infrastructures. It also situates findings within literature on consumption and happiness, questioning the assumption that reduced consumption lowers well-being, and within research showing sustainability advantages of co-housing and eco-communities. The concept of social infrastructure here encompasses bylaws, meeting structures, direct democracy, decision-making and conflict-resolution procedures, time banks, cost-sharing, and specialized working groups managing collective goods and services.

General approach: The paper draws on the COMPASS research project (Collective Movements and Pathways to Sustainable Societies), a collaboration between University of Copenhagen researchers and practitioners from green communities, funded by the Velux Foundation. SSV was selected for focused analysis due to its lowest carbon footprint among surveyed communities. Mixed methods combine quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data: An online questionnaire (YouGov, May 2019) surveyed 1018 representative Danes and 258 members of green communities (including eco-communities, food coops, urban gardening), of whom 16 were SSV residents (72% of SSV households). Carbon footprints were calculated following carbonindependent.org, covering: energy (annual electricity and heating), transport (km by train/bus/car and hours by plane/ferry, with car occupancy adjustment and inclusion of road infrastructure), food (shares of meat-free, fresh, organic, seasonal), and “other items” (annual spending on clothes, electronics, furniture, hobbies/sports, restaurants/hotels, medicines/cosmetics, bottled drinks/cigarettes). Emission factors came from carbonindependent.org and Danish sources (Danish Energy Agency, Statistics Denmark, HOFOR). Self-reported consumption underpins estimates; where unknown, energy use was imputed from dwelling size, household size, and reported energy-saving efforts. The same method was applied to both samples, enabling direct comparison. Qualitative data: The first author conducted site visits, interviews, and fieldwork. The second author resided in SSV for 12 years, engaged extensively in community work (e.g., food production, communal meals, livestock, tours), and held roles in national eco-community networks, providing long-term participant observation insights. Data availability: quantitative data are hosted at OSF (https://osf.io/8g6pd, ref 8g6pd).

• Overall: Across 253 green-community participants, average carbon footprint is 27% below national average (vs 1018 Danes), f(679.7)=7.5, p<0.001.
• SSV total footprint: 4.7 t CO2e per capita vs 11.8 t national average (−60%); independent-samples t-test t(26.7)=12.7, p<0.001.
• Energy: 0.31 t vs 1.06 t (−70%); t(32.8)=12.6, p<0.001. Contributing factors include building guidelines (natural/second-hand materials, passive solar design), efficient wood mass ovens or geothermal heating, some solar PV, and reliance on a national grid with 52% renewables. Communal facilities reduce private dwelling size needs.
• Housing size and household size: Similar residents per household (SSV 2.1 vs 2.2), but smaller dwellings (SSV 78 m² vs 117 m²); t(14.2, N=1034)=4.7, p<0.001.
• Food: 0.58 t vs 1.59 t (≈−64%); t(16.8, N=1034)=16.8, p<0.001. Drivers: high share of organic/seasonal/local/self-produced food; communal vegetarian meals (meat only from community-raised animals 1–2 times/week); a prepaid communal food store (~$165/month per adult, reduced for children) allows access to basics; ~half of consumed food produced on community land (mix of perennial/permaculture and annual crops).
• Transport: 2.0 t vs 6.73 t (≈−70%); t(30.0, N=1034)=9.5, p<0.001. Air travel: 1.6 h/year vs 13.7 h; t(101, N=1034)=11.2, p<0.001; 68.8% of SSV residents did not fly in past 12 months vs 41.7% of Danes (χ²(1, N=1034)=4.7, p=0.029). Car: 1.22 t vs 2.63 t; t(19.5, N=1034)=3.6, p<0.001. Contributing factors: strong social norm to limit flying; lower average income (~40% lower than national) limiting travel; one shared car with pay-per-use and scheduling; widespread cycling (including e-bikes) and carpooling coordinated via internal mailing list.
• Other consumption: 1.82 t vs 2.49 t (−26%); f(16.7, N=1034)=5.9, p<0.001. Lower spending on clothes, furniture, electronics, hotels/restaurants, leisure. Physical infrastructures (swap room, waste-sorting, DIY workshop) plus sharing/borrowing reduce new purchases.
• Life satisfaction: Despite ~40% lower household income, 88% of SSV respondents report being very satisfied/satisfied vs 67% of Danes; χ²(1, N=1034)=3.08, p=0.079 (weak significance). Higher life satisfaction attributed to rich social life, meaningful collective engagement, reduced financial pressure due to shared goods/services, and time reallocation to community work and valued activities.

Findings indicate that SSV’s markedly lower carbon footprint coexists with equal or higher life satisfaction because of interdependent social and physical infrastructures. Physical infrastructures (communal land/buildings, shared tools/appliances, food production systems, shared car, waste sorting, DIY facilities) reduce per-capita resource use by enabling smaller private homes, efficient energy use, shared services, and default vegetarian communal meals. Social infrastructures (bylaws, direct democracy, working groups, cost-sharing, time banking, norms) create, manage, and sustain these physical systems, translating sustainability ideals into everyday practices and collective decisions that apply to all residents. Infrastructures are dynamic and continuously co-developed through pragmatic negotiation between ideals and feasibility, aligning with dwelling theory. Specialization via numerous working groups allows members to delve deeply into specific domains (e.g., energy, food, transport), resulting in collectively optimized, more sustainable choices than individuals typically achieve alone. Explicit sustainability goals, coupled with social norms (e.g., discouraging frequent flying, valuing DIY and reuse over status consumption), guide infrastructure design and management, making low-carbon behaviors default and effortless rather than sacrificial. This collective model shields residents from the typical link between lower income/consumption and lower life satisfaction by providing shared goods/services and richer social interaction.

The study shows that residents of the Self-Sustaining Village have a carbon footprint 60% below the Danish average while reporting higher life satisfaction. This outcome is explained by mutually reinforcing physical and social infrastructures that make sustainable practices default, convenient, and socially supported. The paper contributes to understanding the role of infrastructures in sustainability transitions, emphasizing that social infrastructures are essential to the success of physical infrastructures and that collective governance can simultaneously reduce emissions and enhance well-being.

• Carbon footprint estimates rely on self-reported consumption, with imputed values for missing energy data (based on dwelling size, household size, and self-reported energy-saving efforts), introducing potential measurement error.
• The calculation method follows carbonindependent.org and specific Danish sources; results are not directly comparable with studies using different methods or system boundaries.
• The survey focuses on consumption under individual/community control and excludes most national infrastructural emissions (except road infrastructure included in car-related footprints), limiting scope.
• Sample size for SSV is small (n=16), though it represents 72% of households; statistical power and generalizability may be constrained.
• Data were collected in May 2019; behaviors and energy system composition may have evolved since then.