Residency emissions: according to a rough estimate from the Julie’s Bicycle emissions calculator, the residencies in apartments 18A & 18B have a footprint of approximately 0.62 tons CO2 in total per year for these two apartments in 2022. To put this amount in some perspective, the average emissions in 2019 per person in Italy was 5.3 tons CO2, in the UK was 5.22 tons CO2, in Denmark it was 5.11 tons CO2, and the world average was 4.5 tons according to the World Bank.
It is currently difficult for us to calculate emissions accurately, and the above calculation for the residencies does include utilities, trash removal, cleaning, and some local transport, but does not include the travel that residents spend to get to Ascea.
Travel: Any one of our guest’s travel will vary substantially, according to how far the person travels to arrive in Ascea, and also according to what extent such travels are combined with other activities. In any case we would encourage all guests to take into consideration the environmental impacts of their activities, and try to minimise such impacts. There is an estimation tool for comparing environmental impacts of various modes of transportation for your travel route at EcoPassenger. This tool will usually tell you that trains give the lower emissions compared to driving and/or flying.
Wassard Elea environmental sustainability goals include becoming carbon neutral and eventually become “carbon-negative” through planting trees and other efforts. Short-term plans include installing high-quality insulation and solar-powered heat-exchange systems for heating/cooling in the apartments. More on this as plans develop and improvement work progresses…
Wassard Elea encourages diversity and we work to reduce structural discrimination: We are especially keen to encourage more visits from people who are minoritised or marginalised and recognise that they may encounter more barriers than others. If this applies to you and you would like to discuss any concerns, including finding funding, please contact Leila (via the Contact Me page) – she also runs an Arts Council England funded social enterprise dedicated to helping writers of colour break into the children’s literature industry, and will happily advise if she can.
As part of his work with the Board of Directors of Dansk Komponistforening (Danish Composers’ Society) René has been engaging in the Norwegian-based Balansemerket, a course and online resources helping to work towards reducing and eventually eliminating structural discrimination in the cultural sectors.
Some interesting pages on cultural diversity include UNESCO Diversity of Cultural Expression and United Nations Cultural Diversity Day.