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Realising ecological sustainability in community gardens: a capability approach

In early 2011, there were over 1782 community garden sites officially registered with the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens. In addition to promoting healthy food and healthy eating, many of these sites contain a number of sustainable design features and associated activities. They also claim to deal with value-laden ethical and social issues relating to human wellbeing. In this way, they aim to be ecologically sustainable. Using a normative framework for evaluating wellbeing – the capability approach – this paper reports on the multiple impacts that the design of such spaces may have on the subjective wellbeing of site users, which go beyond physical health and healthy eating. Qualitative research methods of data collection and analysis in five community garden sites in the UK and Ireland resulted in new explanations of both sustainable design and wellbeing. Two key aspects of design – agency and dynamic balance – were found to enhance both the sustainability of the community garden sites and the wellbeing of site users. As a result, new explanations for realising ecological sustainability at a local level emerge.