The Beddington Zero Energy Development or BedZED as its more commonly known, is the UK’s first large scale sustainable living community that was first conceived in 1998 by Bull Dunster as a way to create a zero-carbon eco-village. The sizes of the homes vary from 37 meter squared studio flats to 131 meters squared bedroom town houses. The present development was completed in 2002 with over 100 homes, office space, a college (an American high school) and community facilities. Around 25% of BedZED homes have subsidized rent, 25% have subsidized and affordable home ownership and the remaining 50% are for sale on the open market. Having these subsided rents built into some of the homes is important as many green homes and apartment buildings can be more expensive than existing homes or ones built with more traditional building practices.

Within the construction of the village Bioregional was able to source most of the bulk materials and labour within a 50 mile radius of the site that allowed for a lower embodied carbon rating. With this as well, BedZED has greenrooms on each of the buildings that decreases the overall urban heat island effect that the sun has. Some of the most interesting aspects of the BedZED buildings are that they have increased energy savings due to increased insulation, airtightness and passive solar heating design that decreases spending on energy. The community was able to achieve a “27% reduction in electricity consumption and 36% reduction in gas consumption between 2012 and 2015” according to the BioRegional website.