GUIDE
TAKING LITTLE CHANGES INTO ACCOUNT 1
About ARUP Sustainable Eorts
About Little Changes
Water
Energy
Contents
3 4 6 10
14 18 22
Waste
People
Paper
FINDING THE WAY TO A BETTER FUTURE
SUSTAINABILITY
AT HEART
ABOUT ARUP
“We are an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists offering a broad range of professional services. Through our work we make a positive difference in the world.”
Founded in 1946 with an initial focus on structural engineering, Arup first came to the world’s attention with the structural design of the Sydney Opera House. Arup has since grown into a truly multidisciplinary organisation. Most recently, its work for the Singapore Sports Hub has reaffirmed its reputation for delivering innovative and sustainable designs that reinvent the built environment.Arup brings together broad-minded individuals from a wide range of disciplines and encourages them to look beyond the constraints of their own specialisms. This unconventional approach to design springs in part from Arup’s ownership structure. The firm is owned in trust on behalf of its staff. The result is an independence of spirit that is reflected in the firm’s work, and in its dedicated pursuit of technical excellence.
Arup’s work in the built environment leaves a significant legacy to subsequent generations. This power, to design and influence the built environment, carries with it a responsibility to do the best possible job for current and future generations. Putting sustainability at the heart of its projects is one of the ways in which Arup exerts a positive influence on the wider world.
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ABOUT LITTLE CHANGES 4
Little Changes is a program aimed at educating children from ages 7 to 10 throught the implementation of small shift in habits. These ‘little changes’ as the program refers to them, consist in little daily actions that kids can have that, when combined can greatly affect the environment for the better. Throught this educational strategy, the teachers can access bigger topics by explaining simple concepts.That is to say, by explaining to kids that they should turn the lights off when they leave a room, teachers can explain that energy needs to be conserved, which derivates in why do this meassures need to be applyed, which presents the opportunity to discuss broader topics such as how do we get our energy, why are these resources limited, and explain the different solutions to this problem by tackling renewable energies. This is an example of how this program can open the doors of education by taking a little change and turning it into a big lesson.
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THE BIG TOPIC: Ocean Pollution and Endangered Reefs
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
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The first change that kids would implement in this program is related to water, and would be to close the tap when they finish using the water. Hopefully this accion will be spread into their houses, and kids will teach this to their parents, who may not know the importance of this little action. The broader topic this change will cover is ocean pollution and endangared reefs. This is an opportunity to create consciousness about the ecosystem that provides more than half of our oxygen.
Fresh, clean water is a limited resource. While most of the planet is covered in water, it is salt water that can only be consumed by humans and other species after undergoing desalination, which is an expensive process. Occurrences such as droughts further limit access to clean and fresh water, meaning people need to take steps to reduce water use and save as much water as possible. In some areas of the world, access to water is limited due to contamination. People who have access to fresh water can take steps to limit their use of water to avoid waste.
CLOSE THE TAP
WATER:
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This is a sample of the infrographic that will be provided to the kids who study this program. The adjacent book is full of pages of the same size made by recycling shopping bags into paper without any chemical process.
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little change #1
WATER CLOSE THE TAP The floc settles to the bottom and the clear water moves to filtration.
Coagulation removes dirt and other particles suspended in water. Chemicals are added to water to form tiny sticky particles called "floc".
The water passes through filters, some made of layers of sand, gravel, and charcoal that help remove even smaller particles.
A small amount of chlorine is added to kill any bacteria or microorganisims that may be in the water.
So,
Water is distributed in the neighborhood
WHY DO WE NEED TO SAVE WATER? Only 3% of the water in the planet is drinkable, and as you saw, the process to turn water into drinkable takes a lot of resources.
Finally water gets to our faucet
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TURN OFF THE LIGHT
ENERGY : WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
THE BIG TOPIC: Non-renweable and Renewable Energies
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The second change that would be implemented by kids is to turn o the light every time they leave the room or when they do not need it. This little action teaches children about responsability in the use of resources: in the eyes of the children, energy becomes a limited resource that we need to take care of, instead of abusing its qualities and benefits. They will also learn that we can do something to improve the current situation of the planet, and that it is not only possible, but already happening
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Renewable energy technologies are clean sources of energy that have a much lower environmental impact than conventional energy technologies. With this type of energy we have a power source for our children’s children’s children. Renewable energy will not run out. Ever. Other sources of energy are finite and will some day be depleted. Coal, natural gas and oil reserves are finite and hidden. An unknown and limited amount of each resource is buried deep underground or under the ocean. As more is harvested, finding new sources becomes more diďŹƒcult and more expensive, and exploiting them becomes more challenging and sometimes dangerous as well. Renewable energy is far cleaner than fossil fuels. Coal mining and petroleum exploration and refinement produce solid toxic wastes, such as mercury and other heavy metals. Renewable energy is reliable and plentiful and will potentially be very cheap once technology and infrastructure improve.
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This is a sample of the infrographic that will be provided to the kids who study this program. The adjacent book is full of pages of the same size made by recycling shopping bags into paper without any chemical process.
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little change #2 GOOD
ENERGY
ENERGY
BAD ENERGY
TURN OFF THE LIGHT
Electricity is made at a power plant by huge generators. There are good and bad ways of creating electricity or energy.
Solar, Wind and Hydroelectric, are ways of getting energy which are good for the planet. The elements used for this type of energy are RENEWABLE, which means that they will be replaced by nature in a matter of time
Coal, Nuclear and Oil are sources of energy that harm the planet. Getting this materials is really difficult because they are hidden in different parts of the planet, and humans need to destroy a lot of ecosystems to get to them. These are NON-RENEWABLE energies because nature will not replace them
The electricity is sent through transformers to increase the power so it can travel long distances.
The energy is transported through transmition lines that connect the whole country
The electricity is sent through another transformer to lower the power so it can get to our homes
So, WHY DO WE NEED TO SAVE ENERGY? Energy travels a long way to get to our houses, and a lot of resources are used. The less energy we use the less we harm the planet
The energy is distributed throught neigborhoods
Finally, we get ENERGY in our light switches!
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PAPER:
DOUBLE USE EVERY PAPER THE BIG TOPIC: Deforestation and Destruction of Natural Habitats
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The last change is realted to paper, since it is one of the resources that kids use the most, specially in a teaching environment. Children tend not to notice how much paper they consume and this change is exactly to teach them that this resource comes from processes that are really corrosive to the environment. This change would be joined by buying donated books, which is a challenge for the parents rather than the children. The broader topic covered in this change is deforestation and the destruction of one of the most important ecosystems on earth, which are the jungles and natural forested places.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Deforestation is clearing Earth’s forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year. The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation. The biggest driver of deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut forests to provide more room for planting crops or grazing livestock. Removing trees deprives the forest of portions of its canopy, which blocks the sun’s rays during the day and holds in heat at night. This disruption leads to more extreme temperatures swings that can be harmful to plants and animals.Trees also play a critical role in absorbing the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Fewer forests means larger amounts of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere—and increased speed and severity of global warming.
WHAT IS THE CHANGE? 15
This is a sample of the infrographic that will be provided to the kids who study this program. The adjacent book is full of pages of the same size made by recycling shopping bags into paper without any chemical process.
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little change #3
PAPER
DOUBLE USE EVERY PAPER
Paper in made from trees. First, trees are cut down The cut trees are taken to a factory Their barks are removed
The paste is bleached and other chemicals are added
They are cut into little cubes
The little wood cubes are mixed with water and cooked into a paste
The paste is flattened and cut
So, WHY DO WE NEED TO SAVE PAPER? A lot of chemicals go into the production of paper, the less chemicals we use, the better we take care of our planet
Paper gets to our homes!
THE BIG TOPIC: Pollution of the ecosystems
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WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Not only does it cost a lot of money, energy and natural resources to manufacture and transport new products, it also costs a great deal to transport and process these products once we’re done with them. The more waste we put in the ground, the more our landfills release methane gas (a contributor to climate change), as well as leachate, a toxic sludge that can kill plants and animals and contaminate our water supplies. Simply put, waste causes pollution, contributes to climate change and squanders more money, energy and natural resources than most of us realize. Making small changes we make in our everyday lives can make a powerful difference to the health of all living things and the province and planet we call home. If the world really got serious about improving energy efficiency, we could save $1 trillion per year. A study by economists estimated that a full-fledged energy-efficiency program could product 1.3 million jobs in the United States by 2020. If such a program were implemented, a panel of technology experts projects that global energy efficiency could increase by 50% between 2011-2016.
WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
WASTE:
REUSE INSTEAD OF DISPOSE
The change implemented in this section would be to reduce the consumption of every item possible, while trying to reuse every item that allows for this. These change would emphasize on the first two Rs: reduce and reuse, instead on the third R, which is recycle, since recyling items calls for a chemical process which produces chemical reactions that create pollution.
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This is a sample of the infrographic that will be provided to the kids who study this program. The adjacent book is full of pages of the same size made by recycling shopping bags into paper without any chemical process.
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little change #4
WASTE REUSE, DONT TRASH
When the trash cans fill up, garbage trucks pick it up and take it to lots of destinations
the
GOOD plant to be recycled
garden to create compost
the
BAD incinerator to get burned
So, WHY DO WE NEED TO REUSE AND REDUCE? Reusing and reducing the stuff that we use is vital to lower the amount of trash we produce, and having a clean planet
landfill to decompose
DONATE TO THOSE IN NEED
PEOPLE:
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A recent study by Harvard Business School faculty and graduate students titled “Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior,” explores the ways in which charitable behavior can lead to benefits for the giver. While the the concept that giving to others can make you feel good about yourself is not revolutionary, there are several more subtle ways that giving your money or time for a cause can benefit your psychological, spiritual and emotional well-being. The 2.4 billion of us living on less than $2 a day account for roughly 34% of the human population. Even though all of us would like to think that our sense of wellbeing, political freedom, and personal accomplishments are the results of our own efforts, we know that none of these realities are possible without certain essential material conditions: food, clean water, shelter, basic healthcare, and political stability.
THE BIG TOPIC: Overpopullation
WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
The fourth change would be to constantly donate clothes, and goods to those in need, specially to those in the local communities. It is very important for children to be in contact with the community, and to learn about one of the biggest environmental problems the planet is facing right now: too many people and not enought resources. By donating their items, not only do they produce less trash, but they help people who may not have had the same opportunities as them.
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This is a sample of the infrographic that will be provided to the kids who study this program. The adjacent book is full of pages of the same size made by recycling shopping bags into paper without any chemical process.
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little change #5
PEOPLE DONATE TO THOSE IN NEED
A baby is born every 8 seconds
1234567 If we keep consuming this many things, by 2050 we will need 3 earths Instead, if we share, we will need to produce less new things and keep the planet clean
So, WHY DO WE NEED TO DONATE? A large number of people do not have access to the things that we do, plus the more we reuse, the less things we need to produce
THANK YOU!
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ARUP Š T+1 202 729 8220 Ewashington@arup.com Washington DC