Construction of four low cost sustainable houses
The main goal is to demonstrate how low cost houses in Malawian cities can be constructed to have higher environmental credentials. As it stands, most dwellings in Malawi are constructed using kiln-burnt bricks and these have various adverse environmental impacts such as high rates of resource use, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. The project therefore utilises alternative materials and technologies to reduce the environmental footprints of domestic houses.
This activity has experienced various delays mostly due to Covid-19 risks. Nonetheless, the project was granted an extension hence work has progressed substantially. This activity has dual roles. The first role is relates to providing insights in community members and other stakeholders on how they can build sustainable houses and incorporate various technologies to improve environmental performance. The second role related to building use, where people that are residents in the houses will be a source of reporting by narrating to external stakeholders how their houses are performing or some of the benefits they are seeing from living in the houses with these technologies. Added to this the project aims to establish a "Pay Rent to Plant a Tree Scheme" as an off-site carbon sequestration scheme to reduce the carbon footprint of urban dwellers. This new innovation is a new system of promoting carbon sequestration and afforestation where a fraction of the rent paid by tenants in houses built by the project and other associated collaborative institutions will be funding the planting and management of woodlots. The sustainable houses therefore play an integral part in ensuring that this new system is implemented successfully.
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