Going Off-Grid!

Over half of the world's population resides in urban areas, and the number is growing. Addressing the climate problem at the neighbourhood level is crucial. Because space is limited, cities need to connect diverse functions like education, social meetings, sports, trees, parks, and heat-resilient locations. Public space should be more meaningful for citizens than just for transport and commerce.

A few parks per city are not enough anymore. We need in every neighbourhood: community gardens, public greenhouses growing seedlings, markets offering affordable vegetables, plant-based restaurants, composting facilities, repair cafes and workshops, swapping and sharing platforms, clothes repair, neighbourhood platforms and nature and climate education.

The challenge of creating climate adaptive spaces is not the lack of ideas but access to affordable land. This is why we went off-grid. It's impossible for us to own land or afford market rent, so we use land that is somewhat cheaper because it has no grid connections.
Being off the grid can massively reduce costs, but it also poses challenges, and you need to adapt your lifestyle to a more natural cycle. That is why de Kaskantine became a prime example of city-based climate solutions- not because we wanted to, but because we needed to. Since it's not going to be possible for everyone to move to the countryside to live sustainably, we have to find ways to be less dependent on the grid as an entire neighbourhood. We need space to be able to develop that in freedom and in our own ways.

How are we off-grid

The restaurant is made out of refurbished shipping containers and a greenhouse. The containers are put on four concrete slabs. We can deconstruct the whole thing and build it up somewhere else when we need to move. The most costly part of the Kaskantine operation is moving the containers by truck.

Community buffers

Although the Kaskantine is off-grid, we are still indirectly dependent on the grid as we are also part of the wider world. Being off-grid simply reduces costs and provides a buffer in case of grid overload. This also counts for other needs, for example for water and food production: being a bit more autonomous gives the central system more buffers and flexibility.

Measuring impact

We use a straightforward tool to measure our social impact, the Social Handprint, which is already used by thousands of small social organisations nationwide. It is also very transparent; you can check the performance of the criteria online. The criteria are based on the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs).

New ways to look at the economy

From the degrowth movement to the doughnut economy and wellbeing economy, all these systems address the finite nature of the planet and the interconnectedness of people and nature. Constant growth cannot be the goal at the expense of people and the planet. Instead of addressing just the economy, we could focus on the growth of non-monetary values such as community creation, biodiversity, education, and general well-being. These are factors that GDP does not address.

A visual presentation