Sustainable Cuba

Apart from creating a profitable business, the SALA Group aims to encourage and influence all Australians to build more environmentally responsible housing and live more sustainable lives. In mid 2006 it occurred to Sandie and I that in order to achieve this goal, we really did need to spend time in the one country that is closest to achieving the sustainable lifestyle that is the ‘holy grail' for SALA. In December, Sandie, myself and our children travelled to Cuba to see for ourselves what a community that is approaching true sustainability looks like.

Since 1958, when the Cuban revolution got underway and the United States of America introduced an embargo on Cuba, the country experienced difficulties importing products from their traditional trading partners. They turned to and relied heavily on the Soviet Union for technical and financial support and supplies. Unfortunately with the collapse of the USSR in 1988 the Cuban's supply chain was severed - they found themselves cut off from the rest of the world. This period is referred to by Cubans as ‘The Special Period'. During the Special Period the Cubans became very self sufficient – producing the majority of their own food (without the use of petroleum based pesticides and fertilisers), developing alternative methods of transport, developing housing models using locally manufactured materials and creating a sense of community unrivalled in most parts of the world.

Today, according to the OECD, Cuba is the only country in the world that has a ‘developed world' standard of living. It also has an environmental footprint that if adopted by the entire world, would allow us to sustain life with the resources of just one planet. If the entire world lived like Australians the world would need 3.5 planets to sustain life.

Politicians, industry leaders and communities around the world are starting to accept and plan for the phenomenon of Peak Oil. We were particularly interested to see how the Cubans have managed to survive (and thrive) without a supply of cheap oil and oil derived products.

During the Special Period the supply of fertilisers and pesticides all but dried up. In order to feed themselves the Cubans needed to find ways to produce food without the use of artificial pesticides and fertilisers. Interestingly, they turned to Australian permaculture experts to develop a method of producing organic fruit and vegetables to feed the nation. The Australians, with the help of the Australian Conservation Foundation, helped to create a decentralised, privately run network of farmers that now provides the majority of Cuba 's food needs. All Cubans now eat organic fruit and vegetables, hugely reducing the size of their collective ecological footprint. For more information on Cuba's urban agriculture, click here.

Prior to 1988 houses in Cuba were centrally produced in prefabricated form. This was an automated process by the Ministry of Construction with guidance from the USSR. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting shortage of oil during the Special Period meant that the centralised production of prefabricated homes, which had to be transported great distances, was no longer viable. While in Cuba we set out to find people who had been involved in finding the solution to the country's housing problem. Our search led us to Profesor José Fernando Martierena Hernández from the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Estructuras y Materiales (CIDEM) at Santa Clara University.

In the late 1980s Professor Hernández recognised the need to reduce the housing sector's dependence on transport and started to develop systems and products that would allow local communities to build durable, cost effect homes using local labour and materials. His research led him to Italy where he noted that the Roman buildings, some of which were thousands of years old, were made of a different type of concrete to that which is used today… and they were still standing! Normal Portland cement, used the world over at present, is not very durable and would never last like the cement in the Roman buildings, especially in harsh environments. Building on the Roman method of cement production, Professor Hernández and his team at CIDEM developed a form of cement called CP-40 that they use to produce concrete building products. According to CIDEM, the use of CP-40 results in products that are much more durable than conventional Portland cement, have half the CO2-e emissions of Portland cement products, have half the embodied energy and are much more cost effective.

As you will know from previous newsletters SALA Homes has been a vocal opponent of the use of cement in construction because of its huge environmental impact, so Professor Hernández's work in this area has been a real eye opener for us. SALA Innovations will be spending a lot of time evaluating this technology and its potential.

During the early part of the twentieth century the North Americans, followed by the Russians, cleared huge tracts of vegetation in Cuba for agriculture. According to Professor Hernández the impact of this has seen parts of the country (mainly in the east, near Guantanamo) that used to be rainforest turned to deserts. The destruction of the vegetation has affected rainfall patterns, caused severe erosion and has rendered much of this land useless. With the financial support and prompting of the Swiss Development Corporation, the team at CIDEM are undertaking a reforestation program using bamboo. The bamboo, which grows very quickly in the tropical climate of Cuba and is extremely strong, is being used to create local building material industries. The local factories are producing laminated structural beams, paneling and flooring to construct local housing. Using very simple machinery, non-toxic glues and pest treatments, local communities are now able to produce their own structural timber and internal linings in a very cost effective manner.

As well as producing cost effective eco building materials the systems that the CIDEM team have been developing over the past 15-20 years have had the added benefit of creating much needed employment and social interaction in the communities where they operate. It was the social housing aspect of Professor Hernández 's work that won him last year's United Nation's World Habitat Day Award. The SALA Group sees a lot of potential for a duplication of this type of program in remote communities throughout Australia where mass produced, prefabricated buildings are proving to be too expensive and inappropriate for local conditions.

Part of the evolution of the SALA housing model has come about from the trickle of useful ideas and technologies from various parts of the world. Spending time in Cuba has turned this trickle into a flood of information. I have no doubt that the SALA houses of the future will be influenced greatly by this Cuban visit and future ones. Watch this space!