The present study was born out of an agreement between the Sieben Linden
community (Siedlungsgenossenschaft Ökodorf e.G.) and the Politecnico
di Torino (DIST), approved on May 9, 2013. The Politecnico team, led
by professor Andrea Bocco, intended to perform an overall analysis of
the way of living in the ecovillage, including a number of areas among
which are agriculture, biodiversity, building, decision-making, diet, economy,
energy, land husbandry, etc. The Sieben Linden community, on the
other hand, was particularly interested in having a new ecological impact
assessment done, a dozen years after that by the University of Kassel
(Dangelmeyer et al. 2004).