Green Homes Network

Background Information

National Scope

•National Constitution

•Law No 25675: General Law of the Environment

Provincial Scope

•Santa Fe Province Constitution

•Provincial Law No 11717: Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection Law

•Provincial Law No 13055: "Zero Waste"

Municipal Scope

•Law No 2756: Municipalities Organic Law

•Ordinance No 7600/03. Hazardous, Pathological and Domestic Waste Management

•Ordinance No 7938/05. Creation of the "SEPARATE" Program - Waste Sorting.

•Ordinance No 8335/2008: "Zero Waste"

•Ordinance No 8757 "Hygrothermal Aspects and Energy Demand of Buildings" Decree No 0985-2013

•Ordinance No 8689 creation of the "Green Homes Network" program

Goals of the Initiative

The initiative plans to extend the scope of the Green Homes Network to achieve a greater impact on the population through technology enabling awareness and information access to more individuals, thus making the implementation of sustainable customs easier.   

Neighboring participation in the Green Homes Network aims to promote values in order to develop daily transformative experiences through learning new aptitudes, skills and habits at home. 

Parties and Partners to the Initiative

The program interacts with non-governmental organizations, other public institutions and private establishments and companies. Therefore, the initiative includes public-private partnerships.

Resources Used for Implementation

The municipality is in charge of the funding, personnel and infrastructure of the program's activities, using its own municipal budget. This new mobile technology has been designed by a specialized company.

Innovation for the Initiative

The newest stage of this 2012 program consists of incorporating new technologies, apps and ludic devices to expand the scope of the Green Homes Network.

This program has employed a number of educational tools, and is expected to attract more homes in the future through an interactive game featuring real facts about the city's environmental matters.

Innovation has been applied in

Through the incorporation of mobile technology in the program, the initiative seeks to increase the scale of beneficiary users exceeding the current 2,110 homes in the network. In this respect, we mean not only to spread the program and incorporate new homes into the network, but to also provide information access to the largest possible number of citizens. This will allow the initiative to introduce responsible and environmentally conservative measures and customs. 

Obstacles and Solutions for Innovation

The biggest barrier the program has faced is to reach a larger amount of homes. We have tried to overcome this by employing various methods and educational tools.

Outcomes and Assessments

The Green Homes Network is currently made up of 2,110 families or homes, and every year the impact of their habits is measured through an annual survey.

•Final results of the latest survey have shown that:

a)86 percent have separated their wastes for a year through the initiatives of the Separate program.

b)57 percent do domestic waste composting.

c)89 percent use an energy saving system.

d)80 percent use a water saving system.

e)81percent have incorporated sustainable mobility habits.

•In regards to workshops and trainings:

a)In 2014 we had 48 workshops and 715 participants.

b)In 2015 we had 60 workshops and 1,200 participants.

c)In 2015, the number of homes within the network reached 2,000, quadrupling the amount in 2012 (407 homes). 

Methods Applied

An initial survey is carried out when a home joins the program so we can compare different behaviors and get provable results of the network members' changes in habit.

This allows the initiative to compare this information with the results of an annual survey to verify how much participants’ habits have changed their.

In 2015, we added the option of joining the network digitally for those unable to receive assistance with on-site activities.