A--D -- Ananda EcoAldea: Creating Sustainable Communities

Introduction

The community of Chingazo Alto in Guano canton, Chimborazo province, Ecuador, has been working for more than 10 years to achieve sustainability. In Guano, 81% of families do not have their basic needs met.

Adding to Ananda EcoAldea's vision of creating a sustainable refuge for three centuries, this project responds to the urgency of the climate crisis and the growing need for ecological and accessible housing. Conventional construction frequently ignores sustainability criteria, which is why it is proposed to use waste from the Industrial Hemp industry, legal in Ecuador since 2019, to balance the carbon footprint of traditional construction.

Our proposal integrates an innovative housing and land management model that merges regenerative architecture and agriculture of industrial hemp with the principles of community land trust. This approach ensures long-term tenure, maximizes collective benefit, and empowers local residents in the design and management of their own living environment.

The strategic collaboration between Cooperativa Ananda and its partners exemplifies the synergy needed to implement transformative solutions that simultaneously respond to the housing, environmental, and social challenges of our time, establishing a replicable precedent for sustainable communities of the future.

Impact

This project contributes to the long-term development of the community by:

Promoting local self-sufficiency: Developing a local resource generation system, including construction materials, food, and energy, reducing dependence on external resources. The use of industrial hemp as a versatile raw material is central to this objective.
Promoting sustainable and regenerative architecture: Using hemp-lime construction, or hempcrete, which captures CO₂, significantly decreasing the carbon footprint compared to traditional materials.
Empowering the community: Adopting a community land trust model, the community participates in decisions about land use and development, ensuring shared prosperity and avoiding speculation. This model seeks to revitalize participatory and democratic governance structures for collective decision-making.
Guaranteeing affordable housing in perpetuity: The community land trust removes land from the market, allowing long-term access to housing, especially for low and middle-income families.
Generating local economic opportunities: Through the production of sustainable construction materials and community management of the trust.

Quantitatively, the project aims to initially build five homes with a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions per cubic meter of construction, as well as ensuring housing affordability for an increasing number of families over time thanks to the trust model.

Core team

The team was formed in 2019 with the founding of Cooperativa Ananda, but some of them have been working for over 10 years in the community. The team has a large experience in community development and nature-based solutions.

Paul Sebastián Moreno, founder of Cooperativa Ananda and expert in medicinal and industrial Cannabis cultivation. In charge of seed acquisition and selection, planting, cultivation, and processing
Dennys Nuñez, actual CEO of Cooperativa Ananda. Expert in business administration and cooperative businesses
Javier Ojeda, founder and current President of the Cooperativa. Environmental engineer with experience in water systems and participatory methodologies. In charge of the zero waste strategy and sustainable water management
Paul Moreno Arteaga, founder of the Cooperativa and Projects Officer. In charge of the long-term development strategy and the philosophy behind land and water stewardship.
Diego Chango, mechanical engineer in charge of the research and academic relations with local universities
Isaí Quinche, electronics and telecommunications, in charge of data collection for tokenization and monetization of the EcoVillage
Santiago Robalino, civil engineer, expert in construction and geospatial data. Manager of the architecture + engineering + regenerative landscape team
Marcos Hidalgo, farmer and community relations. He lives and works in the community and is the main point of contact and knowledge about Chingazo Alto

Additionally, an administrative and marketing team supports the general operation of Cooperativa Ananda.

Energy	3,000
Architectural design and landscaping	6,000
Planting of 2 hectares of hemp	25,000
Wood	4,000
Ground shifting (Municipality)	2,000
Stone pavement (Municipality)	10,000
Cash for training (6 weeks, 4 people)	3,600
Construction manager	2,000
Utilities and communications	2,000
SROI diagnosis	3,000
Local Hemp Building Conference	3,000
Hydrological design (keylines) for the community	6,000
Insurance 4%	2,784