Living lightly does not have to mean living an austere lifestyle removed from the mainstream. Some sustainable dwellings are extremely hi-tech, achieving their sustainability through technological ingenuity. Designers are at last discussing benchmarks that allow us all to make conscious choices in our use of the world’s limited resources; choices that consider how those resources might be replenished within the lifetime of the building.

We each draw a line in the sand that we will not cross in a different place for our own unique reasons, but if the house in which we live achieves sustainability in some measure we have made a difference to the future and to the problems our offspring are going to have to deal with in ten or fifty years time. The task can appear to be overwhelming but the accumulative effect of many small contributions can make an enormous impact. Our challenge is to make that possible.