ESD columns week 1

Island technology

Joey Wagemans

How technology from island communities differs from globally used technology.

Cars have been in our lives for as long as we can remember. Many people probably can’t even imagine how to live without them. It has become more than just a technical artefact. It has become a social construct. At the same time there are people in this world right now, who have never used a car. Perhaps they don’t need transportation or perhaps the car is simply not an important part of their social circle. This could be the case, for example, for people living on an island.

The car can be seen as a social-technical system, which means it’s not merely a technical artefact that doesn’t operate in isolation, but it’s highly dependent on specific and complex ensembles of elements and the interplay between them, like other technical and non-technical elements in society and the economy. If you would apply such a technical artefact on a small scale society, like an island, it may look quite different when compared to how the technical artefact is used on a global scale. Let me give an example.

In the summer of 2014 I went on a backpacking trip through Scandinavia and eventually I ended up in Göteburg, Sweden . This large city has an archipelago with its own community. To get to an island of this archipelago, one must ride a small ferry. This ferry enters all the small ports of the islands, before returning to the dock on the shore of Göteburg. It works almost like a tram line.
Since the islands are so small, there is no need for cars on the island. Every island is a small community on itself, offering some small stores. The bigger islands might have a school or a small health clinic. Locals have to use the ferry, not only to go back to the shore, but also to switch between islands. Most adults use the ferry every day to get to work. Some children have to use the ferry to go to school. Every islands offers its own community, but all the islands together also form a community on a bigger scale.

But since there are no cars on these islands, how would you transport many and/or heavy objects? All the islands have big hills and moving stuff around takes a lot of energy. The islanders have various solutions for that. The island of Brännö, the second largest island, uses small mopeds with a loading space. It’s their very own type of transportation. One of the smaller islands, Köpstadsö, doesn’t even need motorized vehicles. Instead, every islander has its personal wheelbarrow. They don’t need much more to live with.

My point would be, on a small scale community, like an island, maybe the globally used technology isn’t the best one. Perhaps a new technology has to be used with which the people are more comfortable and perhaps this technology could offer the rest of the world some new insights.
Close your eyes and picture the rainforest

Graciela Nava Guerrero

^{Miramar Lagoon, in the Lacandon Jungle, Mexico. Image by Carlos Rojas (de Picasa) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons}

About seven years ago, during my first lecture in college, an environmental engineering teacher asked us, his class, to close our eyes and picture the rainforest. He asked us to imagine its sounds, its touch, its scents, its colors and even its taste. After letting us wander around our imaginary paradises for some minutes, he asked each of us to share what we had experienced. We mentioned the singing of the birds, the colorful flowers, ancient and endless trees and majestic jaguars. As our teacher noted, none of us had seen humans in our mental rainforests.

Sometimes, we unconsciously think of wholes as the sum of their parts, and we tend to think that we can study those parts in isolation. For example, everyone in that group had seen a forest before. We either had been tourists there, passed in the middle of one while driving in the highway, or had even visited communities who live there. Although in the three cases humans are interacting with nature and are part of the same whole, our minds simplified those interactions and decided to focus on a nature-only forest.

While working with sustainability projects, the isolated thinking can be a massive threat to our project success. For example, I recently read about the Volta Basin, located mostly in Ghana and Burkina Faso, but also in Mali, Togo, Benin and Ivory Coast. Part of the basin has struggled with drought for a long time and might be struggling with it even longer if climate change brings unfavorable conditions. Many small reservoirs have been constructed in the region to fight the drought, some of them being more successful than others are. Interestingly, the factors that make reservoirs more or less successful in tackling the problem were not technical, but social. For a reservoir to be a successful solution, its design had to consider local social rules and traditions. Therefore, when the technology solution (reservoir) was designed in isolation from the natural and human context, the project failed.

Currently, as an engineer learning about sustainability transitions, I would like to share one lesson from the rainforest anecdote and one lesson from the reservoirs example. First, I try my best to keep in mind that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. Nowadays, when I imagine a rainforest, I still remember all its sounds, touch, scents, colors and taste. However, I also think about its interactions with humans, including the goods and services that we receive.

Second, I keep in mind that technological solutions are always in a human and natural context. Thus, when I think of technology solutions for human problems, such as building reservoirs to fight drought and hunger, I know that those technological solutions are located in human and natural environments.

Now, my renovated mental rainforest has people, nature and technology. To me, those three elements are part of the same whole, and I believe that we are part of the ecosystems and should use them for our well-being. However, I also think that we can only achieve human well-being when nature is healthy; likewise, human well-being also contributes to have a healthy nature. The same goes with sustainability transitions. It is easier to be engaged and to take action when we understand that while doing so, we are taking steps towards our own happiness and well-being.

Hens, L. (2006). Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity conservation and management in Ghana. Journal of human ecology, 20(1), 21-30.

Van de Giesen, N., Liebe, J., & Jung, G. (2010). Adapting to climate change in the Volta Basin, West Africa. Current science, 98(8), 1033-1037.
From Awareness to Attitude to Action

Ivo Hummelink

-Ivo Hummelink-

The 3A approach: From awareness to attitude to action!

During the lecture last week, we as ESD students introduced ourselves to fellow students by using an Ice-breaker exercise in which we had to find colleagues that fit the profiles that were listed on a questionnaire. Because there was not one particular profile that suited me best I chose to present myself as a ‘hands on sustainable engineer’ associating this profile with some sort of action-hero status, but not realizing that this choice dominated my thoughts during the whole day..

After the lecture was over I mused on this qualification some more. Did I really consider myself a ‘hands-on sustainable engineer’? As a matter of fact, what is a ‘hands on sustainable engineer’? And what does a hands on sustainable engineer do or leave?

I figured, it should be somebody who doesn’t only talks about making the world a better more sustainable place to life but also acts accordingly. It is a person which motto should be: actions are better then words. It is a person who has reached the last phase in the 3A-process of Awareness, Attitude and Action and in my opinion somebody who takes in account at every choice he has what the consequences are for his environment. I realised that more and more there was a mismatch with my own profile.

Later that day I gave this subject more thought while I drove home in my fossil fuel consuming car to my energy leaking C-label house. After having a meat containing dinner with my family (kale with sausage and meatballs) and taking a too long shower I went to bed. Lying in bed I came to the conclusion that I am still far away from the ultimate sustainable action hero status and that I’m actually stuck between the phases of awareness and attitude and realised there is a lot room for improvement in my lifestyle before I could call myself a ‘hands on sustainable engineer’.

Therefore, I think I’ll have to apologized to all fellow students to whom I presented myself as a ‘hands on sustainable engineer’… Sorry I’m not… yet. But I’ll promise you I’ll try the coming weeks to enhance my awareness and build up my attitude in order to finally act in a more sustainable way.
Grow by chunking

Alkistis Stergiani Kartsiou

_{Volvox algae colonies: from simple to multicellular cooperative systems in nature}

Not much time has passed from the two-week sustainable urban design workshop in Amsterdam in which I participated as a member of the Swat/Building Technology course. Having been assigned with the sustainable redevelopment of one of the most problematic areas in Nieuw West, we came across two opposite design processes that claim the forefront in the transition era towards sustainability.

The approved plans for the revitalization of this currently dull and empty of activities area, included the demolition of existing low scale buildings and the erection of huge monolithic complexes which would incorporate several different uses: accommodation, student housing, hotel, parking spaces etc. Although already approved by the municipality of Amsterdam, would this still be the right direction to follow?

Cost, materials and energy savings are the two arguments coming first in our minds in favor of reusing the existing building stock rather than erecting new huge structures. However, there are many more. Think of tomorrow’s society. Everything is rapidly changing. People are looking for new versatile solutions in every aspect of their life. We are renting places from Airbnb, we are calling an Uber instead of a taxi, we want to charge our phones and our laptops at public spaces and in general we want to have as many options as possible. Nothing is permanent and solid anymore. Yet, most of the buildings we live in are permanent once they are built. This linear and irreversible process of planning and intervening does not fulfill the ever-changing demands of modern society anymore; replacing the old built environment with a brand new permanent one is definitely not serving the way socio-technical systems are working and being developed today.

The answer lies on a circular design process: simple, small and flexible interventions, with low energy footprint, constructive effort and material use, which can be easily altered, adjusted or even removed after their implementation, depending on their performance and effectiveness. Their efficiency as design decisions can be assessed through a feedback loop, based on their expected and final effect on their urban context. A step by step addition of elements and simple systems can therefore lead to solving high complexity problems.

“Grow by chunking”, one of the nine laws that according to Kevin Kelly can operate systems as diverse as biological evolution, describes the exact same simplicity-driven principle: “The only way to make a complex system that works is to begin with a simple system that works. […]Time is needed to let each part test itself against all the others. Complexity is created, then, by assembling it incrementally from simple modules that can operate independently.”¹

Besides, simplicity and adaptability are two principles which our whole biological existence and evolution has been built upon. Despite the rapid technization of our world, they should continue to be the prime infrastructure in every aspect of human activity.

[1] Kelly, K. (1995). Out of control: the new biology of machines, social systems and the economic world. Basic Books, pg. 469
About statements that people want to hear

Karolina Dvorakova

On 3^rd August 2015 the president of the United States Barrack Obama presented a new Clean Power Plan, a law, which aims to place the United States among the leaders in fight against climate changes in our planet. The law is concerned with lowering the amount of CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere by closure of the coal factories. Keeping aside the politics surrounding acts as such, let’s look at the law and the subsequent media reactions from closer perspective.

Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 32 % by 2030

The reduction of the CO₂ emissions by 2030 is the main pillar of the Clean Power Plan. The 32% reduction is taken from the level of emission in year 2005. Needed to say that in year 2006 the United States reached the peak in the emitted CO₂ and there has been a gradual decrease since then (the decrease between 2005 and 2015 was of about approximately 10%). Mr. Obama actually openly admitted this in his speech when stating, “the US over the last decade despite the growing economy managed to cut their total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth.” During his speech, this statement was awarded in the White House by great applause. Unfortunately Mr. Obama forgot to add that the United States have been by far the worst emitter in past decades, (figure 1 shows the CO₂ emissions per capita, in 2015 the highest emissions are in China), therefore it is only natural that the cut in total carbon pollution is more severe than if other country has a completely different starting point. Although decrease in the amount of emissions is definitely admirable, a closer attention needs to paid in understanding the used numbers; not get bluffed by the media and by big enthusiastic political speeches.

Clean energy

In his plan Mr. Obama partially proposes to replace the coal plants by plants burning natural gas. It is true that the natural gas emits approximately half of the amount of CO₂ than coal while burning, however it still adds to the total amount of the CO2 in the atmosphere. Not even mentioning that natural gas is still a fossil fuel, which will deplete one day. Therefore this change is definitely an improvement, but not a solution to the climate change situation. The question at stake is whether it is even worth the money to change the factories into such temporary solution? The improvements of the current situation are favorable, but one must look at the bigger picture and the causes of the actions on the bigger scale.

The Obama’s plan once again started the discussions whether the human activity is really the cause of the climate change and whether there even is such thing as climate change. Even if someone claims that the climate change is only something made up by politics and media, even he must agree that in the future there will be no other option to create energy than using renewable sources and creating thus clean energy. Because the amount of coal or natural gas is limited and one day will be gone; as simple as that. And while talking about the carbon emissions depleted into the atmosphere in context of big strategies as Clean Power Plan or European 20-20-20 Plan, we still should keep in mind that it does not really matter, whether the decrease is of 20%, 35% or 60%. In the future, we should strive for 100% decrease, 0 carbon dioxide emissions released to the atmosphere.

References:
White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change
2013 Report, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/news_docs/pbl-2013-trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report-1148.pdf
How should I dispose my bioplastic packaging?

Tessa Vaendel

Recently supermarkets are focusing on selling biological products, on the one hand because they want to be responsible for the earth (or at least to suggest they are) and on the other hand because there is a demand from the consumer side. However, these products – for example biological tomatoes – are sold with a packaging. These tomatoes would not be really biological without a sustainable packaging, so bioplastics were introduced to solve this issue (one could wonder why these products are even sold with a packaging at all, but that will not be the point of this column). After enjoying the biological tomatoes, and having a good feeling about this because you ate ‘something good’ (for yourself and the earth), a dilemma will (hopefully) arise: how should I dispose this bioplastic packaging?

Well, the answer is that there is not really an answer. At least not in the case if you want to dispose the bioplastic in a sustainable way. The name ‘bioplastic’ suggests that it is biodegradable, however this is not the case. Bioplastic is made of natural materials, for example PLA is made out of corn, that is where the ‘bio’ comes from. Nevertheless, bioplastics are industrial compostable, this means that in theory it could be disposed with the green waste. In practice this is different because the time to industrially compost a bioplastic is much longer than for example the tomatoes that also could have ended up with the same green waste. Therefore the bioplastics are still intact after the composting process and they will be collected and incinerated after all, just like the residual waste streams. [1][2][3]

I mentioned that the dilemma ‘hopefully’ would arise, because most people probably will not even be aware of this dilemma. I guess that most people will dispose the bioplastic with the plastic waste. This sounds like a logical decision; bioplastic is not much distinguishable from ‘normal’ plastic, except for the small icon on the packaging (‘kiemplantlogo’ or ‘OK-Compost’). However, the worst way to dispose the bioplastic is with the plastic waste. Bioplastic in the plastic waste stream cannot be filtered out; in this way the bioplastic does negatively influence the properties of the recycled plastic. Thus the disposal of bioplastics with the green or the residual waste is preferred over the disposal with the plastic waste. Via the green and residual waste the bioplastic will be incinerated and in this way at least biogas is generated. [1][2][3]

With this case I want to illustrate and question the sustainable innovation of bioplastics. It could be regarded as a socio-technical system; the bioplastic is the technical artifact, and a lot of people in society do interact with this in their daily life – when buying the biological tomatoes – maybe without even being aware of it. For social-technical systems the acceptability is often a challenge, however I wonder if the bioplastics were not accepted too easily within society? Did supermarkets implement the bioplastics not just for their own benefit - to be regarded as ‘sustainable’ and gain competitive advantage? Were the developers of the bioplastics too happy that the supermarkets where willing to implement the bioplastics as packaging, without thinking how the material would be disposed? Isn’t it very contradicting that a material that looks like plastic cannot be disposed with the plastic waste?

I think there are a lot of challenges to improve the bioplastics. One example is the perception by the consumer. The consumer should become aware of the fact that they buy and use a bioplastic in the first place, and subsequently become aware of the right way to dispose it. The responsibility should not lie with the consumer, but with the packaging designer, the supermarket and/or the developer of the material. Communication is key. Besides this the waste collection plays an important role here. And not to forget about the logistics problems that come along with this. The list of examples for improvement could continue... To conclude, there lies a great challenge to improve the bioplastics in order to become a real sustainable innovation.

[1] Milieu Centraal (no date) Composteerbaar plastic [online] Available from: http://www.milieucentraal.nl/afval/verpakkingen/composteerbaar-plastic/ (accessed on the 14^th of November 2015)

[2] Keuringsdienst van Waarde (09-03-2011) Bio-afbreekbaar [online] Available from: http://keuringsdienstvanwaarde.kro.nl/seizoenen/2011/30-39075-09-03-2011(accessed on the 14^th of November 2015)

[3] Morssink, R. (02-07-2013) Bio-plastic: composthoop of prullenbak? One World Magazine [online] Available from: https://www.oneworld.nl/groen/bio-plastic-composthoop-prullenbak (accessed on the 14^th of November 2015)
Exit Strategy

Robert Akerboom

Four couples in Texas have set the example for all these dreamers and created and designed, with the help of architect Matt Garcia, the Llano Exit Strategy. A micro housing project which includes only four modern private dwellings and one shared building, built for under $40.000 each.

Exit Strategy

During these hectic times, after watching the latest news for example, who hasn’t at least once fantasized about just leaving this rural area to leave in a tiny community somewhere in the middle of nowhere with just family and friends around you? Four couples in Texas have set the example for all these dreamers and created and designed, with the help of architect Matt Garcia, the Llano Exit Strategy. A micro housing project which includes only four modern private dwellings and one shared building, built for under $40.000 each. The most important though, is the sustainable approach they decided to focus on during design.

By the creation of a community space, many functions such as cooking, dining and group activities can be hosted in one central place rather than several individual ones. Apart from that, it houses enough room to accommodate guests from any of the family’s living there. In a world where the iPhone is usually a person’s best friend, the social sustainability provided by this project alone already seems extremely valuable to me. On top of that of course, the shared spaces are simply a cheaper and more eco-friendly solution by means of materials and volume to be climatized.

Some really simple but effective features were applied to mitigate the harsh Texan climate. Metal cladding reflects the sun, insulation keeps the cabins cool in summer and cozy in winter and via the roofs, rainwater can be collected in cisterns for the cabins to use. The cabins, with a footprint of only 35-square-meters, have an open floor plan to meet the owner’s wishes best and are fully naturally lit. Last of all, the interiors are fully made out of plywood to keep the costs low and give a warm feeling.

What is shows, is that sustainable living doesn’t necessarily need the usage of highly technological measures. All it really takes is some personal willingness to live in a conscious way and some small context related solutions. And since they live in the middle of the nature from now on, they will simply have to learn to live within that system in a durable way.

I might propose this idea to my family for Christmas this year, probably via the iPhone to make sure I’ve got everybody’s full attention.

Llano river community

Four couples live together in sustainable homes

Best friends built a tiny town
The New Dutch Weed

Judith Stegeman

The first time I got to know about this delicious Dutch Weed Burger was at the Sustainability Festival of a Dutch political party. I got it for free, which offered me the opportunity to try out this ‘new’ food made from seaweed. To me this food seemed to be a luxury as I had not seen it before. As I was impressed by this delicious burger I was looking for it at other places, but it was only available in some exclusive restaurants or at big festivals in the other parts of the Netherlands.

A few months later I organised a design contest which would last 24 hours and this burger was still in my mind. I wanted to let more people try out this sea weed product, so I looked for the food merchant online, but it appeared to be too expensive. The Dutch weed burger seemed really exclusive to me and I was not able to make it part of my daily life.

Nevertheless more than one year later it is actually available at one of my favourite cafés: it is possible to eat this burger as many times as I would like.

The Dutch Weed Burger seemed more exclusive in the beginning, but is it now becoming part of our daily life? Will this food from the sea be part of our daily life or will it just be a luxury? Will it become available at every street corner? Will seaweed be the new Dutch weed?

Seaweed as daily food

This Dutch Weed Burger only consists of vegetables as the website of the Dutch Weed Burger shows us. This burger is made of both snips of soya beans and Royal Kombu, which is a so called ‘winter seaweed’. This seaweed contains good proteins and omega fatty acids. Summer seaweed is used as lettuce from the sea. Because this seaweed is only a vegetable it would therefore be appropriate for many kinds of diets. It is suitable as vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher food and can therefore be part of the daily life of many people.[1]

Qualities of seaweed food

Food Matters and Zeewierwijzer explain the qualities of seaweed as food in more detail. Seaweed is nutritionally really dense and contains many minerals as many of them are being offered in the ocean.[2] Moreover the effects of eating seaweed are: blood purification, high dose of minerals (calcium, sodium, iodine and iron), source of vitamins and fibres, neutralisation of acid effects of other diets, protection against environmental toxins, increase of bodily anti-oxidants, boosting of weight loss.[3]

Seaweed is thus a healthy food that can be part of a healthy diet. It seems to be a perfect food in our daily life.

Sea

In The Netherlands we are surrounded by the sea so that the growing of seaweed can take place at many places nearby. When the seaweed gets processed to become a food product in the Netherlands itself, the transportation costs and emission of CO2 can stay low. In the Netherlands there are a few islands in the ‘Waddenzee’ that are fully surrounded by the sea. Texel, for instance, could profit from growing and processing seaweed for both own use and export reasons. Seaweed is available to everyone without limits. One condition for this to happen would be that this seawater should be non-polluted. The seaweed soaks the water that they are growing in, therefore clean seawater is of vital importance for the growing of healthy seaweed.[3]

More food products

The Dutch Weed Burger initiative should only be the beginning. The reason for the founders to start this was to create more room for the future of seaweed and cooking with plants.[4]

There are different kinds of seaweed, that are appropriate for different kinds of uses. Some are suitable as an ingredient for salads, vegetables and soups; others are used for making sushi rolls, jam, ‘wraps’ etcetera.[3] Seaweed is also being used as tea or as supplements.²

Willingness

We have to get used to the taste of seaweed and it is therefore recommended to start with small portions. Many herbs and spices are added to create more flavour.[2]

Voedingscentrum, the Dutch organisation that gives advice on food, describes the research of Motivaction about the willingness of people to occasionally eat seaweed instead of meat. About 2 people out of 10 say that they would do so.[5] If it will become more available people will get used to it, might try it out and make it part of their daily life.

Availability

By searching for some places to eat this fancy Dutch Weed Burger there are many options right now. Especially in the Randstad and at festivals these burgers are available. In the Northern part of the Netherlands the revolution still needs to take place, unfortunately, as I am there really often.

Before seaweed will become available in our daily life it will take a few years, because it still has to be tested which ones are suitable and which ones not.[5]

Conclusion

Seaweed is not yet part of our daily life, but it has the potential to become so. It can be produced in the sea, which is close by and it contains many useful nutrients. Because of its vegetable substance it is appropriate for vegetarians, vegans, Muslims, Jews. Though it might take some years before the seaweed will be tested, produced and people are used to the taste of it.

[1] http://dutchweedburger.com/

[2] http://www.zeewierwijzer.nl/zeewier-voeding/het-eten.html

[3] http://www.foodmatters.tv/health-resources/seaweed-superfoods

[4] https://www.nudge.nl/projects/the-dutch-weed-burger/

[5] http://www.voedingscentrum.nl/nl/nieuws/zou-jij-vlees-vervangen-door-zeewier-.aspx
Building with local waste

Our society is based on linear production chains. As humans we always create 'waste' at the end of the chain. But what is waste actually? Waste is material what in our eyes can't be used anymore, for example when it doesn't function anymore or it is rest material in order to create something else with it. 'Waste' doesn’t exist in nature, because in nature every material is part of a 'lifecycle'. It practically feeds the new material. For example when an animal dies, the body and its energy is given to the ground, the animal is food for the ground to grow new life.

What happens if we try to use the life-cycle principle in our building production chain. Creating building blocks out of rest-products, dead-stock or demolished buildings and re-creating new buildings, isn't a new fact. But why don't we organize all our buildings in the principle of the circular economy? The transition to a circular economy asks for a whole new way of organizing our building materials and building principles. All buildings should be demountable, re-mountable and should have a material passport. Then of course we should collect all these data so that we know which streams are available to build with.

Harvestmap or Oogstkaart.nl is a platform where data of 'waste' streams are collected and getting sold. It is a new online marketplace for redundant and second hand materials. Harvestmap allows companies or individuals to inventorise their supply of materials, components or even buildings to superusers. All materials, ranging from small quantities to continuous flows of (industrial) leftovers are represented. Participation allows you to share your own supply, provide tips to the community and find available resources in your neighbourhood or the surroundings of a project. And beautiful buildings, products and interiors are build with it, even with a good story!
Cultivated landscape

Kimberley Roelvink

Cultivated landscape of Limburg which is not allowed to build in.

Last week I been on the excursion to IBA Parkstad (Heerlen, Kerkrade (Limburg). We have a design task to help to develop the environment. Making the small towns more attractive and in the same time we were not allowed to change things.

Wouter, our tour guide from IBA took us to the middle of nowhere to see the real landscape. He told us that by the changing weather wine farming was upcoming and it actually tasted like the France. The problem is that by the government it's not allowed to build there in the environment, so you can't live there, can't make a cafe, B&B or something similar. The reason was that affects the landscape. This should be prevented. According to the municipality, it was very special and natural landscape.

But you can doubt if the landscape is really natural. Everything is cultivated, the fields, the forest, the road and on the horizon houses and big windmills rise. Is this natural, do we need to preserve this? Why do we love this image so much, with all the civilisation? Why can't we make a building that fit into the landscape and make it more attractive and economical?

So, the main question, how can we convince the municipality and how can me implement new types of buildings in the landscape and make it still beautiful and magical?
Sustainable change in behaviour; starting small is the answer

Katja Rossen

Sustainability as a concept has become more and more important during the last couple of years. An increasing amount of people is becoming aware of the problems we create for both our and the future generation and almost everyone seems to have the same (ultimate) goal to save ourselves from killing our own planet. So, sustainability worldwide is a relevant subject of conversation, innovation and action.

Although the big change might be the ‘endgame’ it all has to start on a small scale. However, the process towards change and especially keeping this process ongoing is not easy. For example, how often have you tried to make your life more sustainable? For instance by separating your waste, trying to buy products with none (or less) packaging materials, bring your own bags to the supermarket or buy fair trade products, but in the end, after perhaps a couple of weeks, found yourself buying the cheapest products or using plastic bags offered by a shop again?

I think even if our minds have changed towards a sustainable way of living, our own behaviour, especially on the long-term, is the hardest to change. The question then is: How to continuously be sustainable? Both, from the information I’ve read in literature and from my own experience I could state that, after people are successfully stimulated towards sustainable change, it is in their nature to want to achieve the main goals right away. However, the chance the ‘ultimate’ goal will be achieved by conducting this method probably isn’t that high. The best way to accomplish isn’t trying to achieve your goals right away, which as stated before, will end up with us feeling not motivated anymore and will lead to giving up most of the times.

A better way to make progress in this transition of change is to keep your levels of change realistic: do it step by step. For instance, instead of attempting to achieve all the examples of changes from the second paragraph at ones, try one at the time. By making little changes at a time, after a while you’ll find yourself doing these particular actions effortless and automatically. This way, when something happens along the way or a specific action will not get into your system as easy as previous ones, you have something to fall back on and it won’t stop you from changing entirely. It is easier to adjust and it might motivate you even more to pull through and conquer this small (and overall) goal too.

Concluding; Sustainable change isn’t easy and therefore is not something that is achieved overnight, it is a transition process that truly takes root in an individual, organization or society. Even the best or most brilliant sustainable change initiatives are worthless when they are not implemented on the right, in my opinion initiatively small-scale, way. A way that will keep people motivated and involved until the desired impact or result on the long-term is achieved.
Watersquares: from sink to scape

Anne van loenen

Sustainability has become more and more of a household name over the past decade. This has mostly been caused by the consequences of climate changing becoming clearer and more obvious. So humanity is now stuck in a situation where on one hand they are experiencing a climate with more extreme weather every year, while on the other hand our living environment is completely unsuitable for absorbing these extreme climate effects.

As a way to change this unsuitability, designers have come up with interventions that can make cities adaptable to climate change, and more importantly, these designs are actually carried out. Instead of falling back on the old civil engineering solutions, which were often hidden from the public view, the designs now integrate public places. In theory these public water squares would help create unique changing spaces where the people could see the water system of the city above the ground.

In reality quite a few of these designs look like public swimming pools.
And of course they are a tremendous help in managing the water of the city, but the idea behind them is lost. While they are dry they usually have some sort of function, there are football fields and playgrounds and benches. But as soon as the water hits, the people cannot use this space anymore. The water squares have lost their function and become sinks instead of squares.

Basically we’ve falling back on our old habits of storing it and then ignoring it until it’s gone.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. I would like to point at another type of waters square: interactive ones. There are a few design studios who are creating such spaces [1]. These squares come in wildly varying shapes and shades and forms. They give us the opportunity to experience the current status of the water system. When we were children, the best way for us to learn how to deal with new situations was by experiencing them. This is what we are now missing out on. Water squares give us the unique opportunity to bring the water system of our cities to the surface, and to create visceral changes in the landscape when this system is unbalanced. By showing people when the system is unbalanced, and by letting them interact with the consequences of this unbalanced system, designers have an unique opportunity to teach and spread information. But knowledge is not the only objective. These new water squares create interactive, unique environments, which can help us regain the same joy we found in our surroundings when we were children. If we want to keep living in cities, that are expanding and swallowing the landscape around them, we can’t keep pretending that what happens in the cities doesn’t matter for the water balance of the entire landscape.

The city has to become a cityscape, a landscape with varying sights, people and environments. It has to be able to absorb the impact of the extreme weather. As a designer sustainability is of vital importance, but so is creativity and vision. Use your skills and knowledge to teach people about living and breathing cities, cities who adapt to nature, cities of the future.

[1] Boer, F., Jorritsma, J., & Van Peijpe, D. (2010). De Urbanisten en het Wondere Waterplein. Rotterdam: nai010.

[Image] VHP & Urban Affairs. (2007). Waterpleinen. lay-out, 02, 14.
Transition from the outdated concept ‘green’ to a well-established awareness

Milan Voorhorst

Nowadays everything is green. Green house, green food, green label, green etc. Is this all there is to tell about sustainability? In my opinion not, and think it is time to go beyond the term green and make sustainability more widespread and prevent the sustainable thought going into a niche.

Two weeks ago Arjan Lubach made a statement in his TV show “Zondag met Lubach” (2015) about meat consumption in the western world. He argued that it is just not right to eat the amount of meat we eat today and he illustrated it by saying that one steak (200 gram) needs 3000 litre of drinking water. He continued his argumentation by saying how much forest is cut down for intensive animal farming. Furthermore Lubach made clear the he enjoys eating meat and does not feel miserable for animals, but thinks wasting this much resources is just not worth it; meat demands too much from the world. After this statement one do not have to be an animal or nature lover to eat less or no meat anymore. This transition is very important since it brings sustainability to a broader perspective.

Comparisons like Lubach’s we need as society to get an insight in what is relevant in terms of sustainability. In my opinion, the colour green as a metaphor for sustainability is not enough to cover the concept of sustainability and I do not think it will stand and make a real change in how people treat resources. Also, the concept ‘green’ currently is shifting towards ‘healthy’ (the new hype, recognized by the writer). This makes green an outdated metaphor for sustainability because confusingly enough, green is not always sustainable.

Like quinoa seeds, often wrapped up in a green package full of trees, happy animals and terms such as biological. If those seeds are considered to be good for your body, it should be good for the world too, right? In fact, a lot of quinoa seed come from Bolivia and Peru and is transported all the way to the western world (Blythman, 2013). The TV programme “Keuringsdienst van waarde” (2014) pointed out that because of the big demand of the western world for quinoa, the seed became too expensive for the people who were used to eat it and have to eat less nutritious food like rice.

If we really want a sustainable transition in the way people act, the concept ‘green’ limited to a relatively small amount of people who try to act sustainable. The concept ‘green’ was a good start but now the world needs awareness throughout all layers of society. Distinct outlines like Lubach’s will establish such an awareness and made hypes alike the colour green unessential. I am convinced that once sustainable acting has become the general moral, it will stand much stronger than any symbol illustrating sustainability like ‘green’.

Blythman, J. (2013). Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? The Guardian.

Superfoods. “Keuringsdienst van waarde”. KRO/NCRV. 30 Oktober 2014.TV

Zondag met Lubach. “Zondag met Lubach”. VRPO. 1 November 2015.TV
The History of Electric Cars

Hanna Van der Ploeg

"Why seems the TESLA electric cars new and innovative, while the electric car was already invented in the end of the 19th century?"

This year motor producer company TESLA lanced the car model S. An electric car that has the automatic pilot on board. The car is promoted by the fact that the internal combustion engine and all the connected elements are substituted for just one element: the rotor. The vehicles is driving smooth, fast and silent, and is provide with the innovative autonomic functions, that gives the driver the opportunity to relax. Since 2003 TESLA has been working on electric cars. This seemed like a renewing product branch. But is this branch really renewing? Since 1830 the world has been working on the development of the electric car. The popularity of the car has been growing till the beginning of the 20th century, and during the further decade improvements were still made. Halfway the popularity did change, though. What did make the change of popularity to different powered cars? How did the customers, companies and the government affect each other in the total system of mobility?

Since the beginning of the 19th century innovators have been building on electric vehicles. Innovators in countries like France, Great-Brittan and U.S.A. began playing with the concept of battery-powered vehicles. In 1890 the first successful and practical electric car was introduced in the U.S.A. This car was able to drive 22,5 km per hour (not that fast). More and more electric vehicles were developed. By 1900, a third of all the vehicles on the road were electric cars, besides the other gasoline and steam powered cars. The popularity of the electric vehicle was increasing. The electric car had some positive characteristics comparing to the other types of vehicles. The product was quite, easy to drive and didn't emit smelly pollutant. The slow speed of the electric car didn't matter, because people were not used to fast driving vehicles. This innovation of the electric car was operating in a complex system of mobility. Getting from A to B was done by foot, bicycle, tram, train or even horse. The motives for travelling by users were just, getting from town to home or work. The term efficiency was a just discovered element of life. People were not used to using machines, which produces pollution and sounds. The standards of living and motives of people did fit to the innovation of the electric car. The characteristics of the electric car felt familiar, what made it a success at the first time.

From then on the advancements of the electric cars got behind in the advancements of the gasoline powered car. The gasoline car continued developing, and improvements like the internal combustion engine, made this car innovative and popular. The vehicle was cheaper and faster. Electric vehicles got limited performance, mostly in speed. An impulse for the electric car industry happened, during the oil Arab crisis in 1973. The government of the U.S.A realized that they didn't want to be dependant of foreign oil. The government supported projects to improve the electric car industry. It didn't change the use of cars, though.

This moment of time gives an insight in the working of socio-technical system. It shows what kind of actors and institutions are meaningfull in the system of mobility. The government, the customers, companies and innovators are deciding together whether an innovation will be accepted yes or no. In this situation it seemed like the customers and companies had the overhand. However the government tried to push the electric industry, the speed of the car, the money and business were the leading factors. The different actors in the socio-technical system were not in line with each other.

2003, TESLA introduced the electric motor vehicle; a fast an fancy car. This innovation is operating in a system of a developing alternative vehicles. The last years customers, producers and the government are realizing more and more what impact products can have on the world. The world is trying to improve our life styles. According Borrás & Edler actors and institutes of a socio-technical-system of innovation should be overviewed. The reasons, utility and meaningfulness of change should be framed, together with interests, experiences and motives associated with this change, to be able to make expectations about innovations (Borras & Edler, 2014, p. 124). The motives of the different actors and institutions in the current socio-technical system of mobility seem to be in one line again about the use of electric cars, just like in the very past, what means acceptance of innovation.

Published by Hanna van der Ploeg, 15th of november 2015
Use your hands, roll up your sleeves

Noor Debets

Sustainability is a hot topic and when you search on Google you find many hits about what environmental sustainability is, the importance of it and countless of sustainable ideas and initiatives you can implement in your own life. Type in sustainability and your screen literally turns green when clicking on images. It strikes me that there are numbers of images where you see hands holding the earth or just earth in general. It made me think - Why is it such a widely used picture and what does it mean?

The image has probably something to do with the softness of our hands, and the way we should treat “our” earth gently with love and passion. Maybe it is about the need of planting a small seed, to create awareness, one-by-one. But it seems to me that this doesn’t cover the magnitude of the task of creating environmental sustainability at all. When I see our environment, our lifestyle; how we live, what we do, with whom, where, how and what we use to do, I notice that there is a big step to make towards a more sustainable earth. It is not that easy to change a lifestyle of hundreds of people. Just awareness is not enough.

Of Course we work hard to create numbers of new (technological) initiatives, innovative or not, and small seeds are planted. We have the Dopper bottles, buy second hand clothing, have solar cells on our roof and some of us eat less meat in order to life more sustainable. There is a variety in sustainable events and ideas, but is this enough to reach our 2020 sustainability goals? Is it true when there is said that every little helps? To plant a seed, so to speak, costs little effort but it has little impact too. Why not connect all those plans, communicate them all-in-one, in order to create large impact. Why not come up with a sustainable umbrella that covers more and has a holistic approach. We need grand gestures, so get rid of the image and so show me more hands.

Let's see what we can bring Texel.

Published by Noor Debets, 15th november 2015
Technological design, with societal requirements

collective, technology, innovation

Melchior Huijts

The conservative nature of people is not to be underestimated when designing transition or change. People will usually only change their behaviour when they really believe in the cause themselves.

As an aerospace engineer, I am usually busy with optimizing a certain technology for its use in an aircraft. A design for which the requirements are technical and tangible. So the challenge of investigating sustainable technologies that need to be embedded in society has already shown to be a new one to me. It has even already come to mind that changing a society trough a sustainable technology, could perhaps only mean that the mind-set of the people has to change.

Many technologies that can reduce emissions, waste and pollution have already been invented or presented. Initiatives to sell deformed vegetables and fruits in special shops or start shops that do not use packaging are already out there, but do not yet fully become a success. Most of these initiatives require the consumer to change their daily routines. This is understandable in my opinion, if you do not intrinsically believe in the cause of sustainability. Changing yourself or your behaviour for reasons that you do not fully support, is unlikely to happen. As a person you value the way things are and have been, the nature of a person is to be conservative about the things that he/she likes.

In pure technology development, this so-needed personal incentive for change for people is often not thought of. New technologies are initially shaped the way it is most convenient for the engineer. To be honest, most high-tech innovations in aircraft for instance do not affect the passenger directly, only indirectly by making flying cheaper and thus making the ticket become cheaper in the end. But there are some successes that show how to properly let people welcome a new technology in their lives.

A very interesting new sustainable technology of the last few years that displays perfectly how an innovation has been adapted to the conservative nature of the people is the shape of LED-lights. By nature, LED-lights are about the size of a pea, but they are sold in the shape of the old-fashioned glowing light bulb. A pear-like bulb, about the size of a mandarin orange. Since they LED-light is much smaller than the size of a bulb that people are used to, it was relatively easy for the developers to just built a casing around this LED light that resembles the old bulb. Also attaching the already existing fitting to it is no real challenge, and it makes its use completely interchangeable with that of the existing bulb. Looking at your newly adopted technology, in the comforting way as it has always looked is just the easiest. So by taking into account what people valued in the original product and in what ways the consumer would probably be willing to change, a product was created that could easily be adopted in any home.

Although one can argue if society needs to change, it is not to be disputed that a change will have the greatest chances of being adopted when it is within the comfort zone of the people.
Learning from nature

Mark Ernst

When future architectural historians will look back to the twentieth century, from their sustainable world in the second half of this century, they must wonder why we did so little about sustainable living in the second half of that century. It wasn’t because we didn’t have enough money, cause we had. It wasn’t because we didn’t have the knowledge, cause we had. It wasn’t because we didn’t have the technology, cause we could have had. But, shockingly, we just didn’t care…

We were happy with our fossil fuel, consumption-driven economy and just accepted the environmental damage that came with it. We thought that mankind’s growth could go limitlessly at the cost of Mother Nature. But we are finally more and more realizing that it is limited and that it can no longer continue like this. This led us to an understanding of the need for balance between ourselves and the living world around us.

A source for a new balance can be found in the link between architecture and nature, called biomimicry. Biomimicry can be defined as ‘mimicking the functional basis of biological forms, processes and systems to produce sustainable solutions’ (Pawlyn, 2011). It’s learning from nature. And learning from nature means learning from a source of ideas that has done almost 4 billion years of research and development to survive, in a sustainable way. Organisms possess technologies that are similar to what we invented, but in most cases they solved it with far more ingenuity.

We have been inspired by nature for centuries. Before the industrial revolution people looked to nature for inspiration for building forms and decorations. But since that revolution we can see a diversion from the ingenuity that we once had. The use of fossil fuels made it possible to be more efficient, to do mass production, but it also made it possible that inefficiency developed: inefficiency in the use of (limited) resources. The lessons from nature were hereby more and more lost.

So how do we get sustainable world? Three things are needed. First, we need to achieve an enormous increase in resource efficiency. Second, we have to change from a fossil-fuel economy to a solar economy. And third, we have to transform our linear, wasting and polluting way of using resources to a closed, circular way where nothing is wasted. Nature has optimized this to perfection. It is giving us perfect examples how to do this and now all we need to do now is open our eyes and learn from it.

References
Pawlyn, M. (2011). Biomimicry in Architecture. London: RIBA Publishing.
Keep many buildings inefficient, do not retrofit!

Menno Schokker

A research of CE Delft of the road towards an energy neutral built environment (BE) of the Netherlands (NL) in 2050 really gave me some essential insights. They looked at the BE in a way I never saw before: they categorized NL in a certain amount of typologies of neighbourhoods. So now, one knows what type of neighbourhood, with certain characteristics such as density and type of buildings, are the most common.

Then, when this is clear, one can research what sustainable interventions (eg. retrofitting buildings towards energyneutral buildings through isolation and solar cells roofing or implementing 'heating districts') is most cost-effective for what type of neighbourhood.

As it turns out, a very large part of the BE are medium to high density areas, of which heating district are the most cost-effective sustainable intervention. Heating districts require a large (building)heating demand to be economically feasible. Therefore, we should not retrofit buildings within these areas, so as to give rise to heating districts.

This research was quite explanatory, it should be expanded. It should be picked up by all main institutions. Energy transition / sustainability media should give it top priority attention. This way of thirst looking at where, what intervention is most cost-effective is super important. Do not just implement retrofitting project so as to demonstrate sustainable projects; it should still always be part of a bigger whole!
Will we or won't we?

Jeremy van Mourik Broekman

Carbon Capture and Storage; careful considerations required.

Back in 2005 it seemed like such a good idea: fermenting sugar cane and corn in order to obtain a replacement for fossil fuels. By reassigning only 7%of the land used for feeding crops, the entirety of gasoline used for transport in the U.S. could be replaced. At the same time that the biofuel industry in the USA started to gain momentum a different approach was taken overseas; in Europe, world’s first greenhouse gas ‘cap and trade’ system was being set up, called the Emissions Trading System (ETS).

That was 2005. Now, a decade later, we of course know that the intended transition to biofuels would have had catastrophic consequences if expanded in the manner initially intended. Due to worldwide response of farmers to higher crop prices the emissions from land-use change would have doubled. And that is not even considering the issues of food vs. fuel, deforestation and pressure on water resources. Although less of a disaster, the regulations that the EU has put into place have also been subject to a number of shortcomings, of which the over-allocation over emissions and price volatility are the main culprits.

Yes, the policy makers behind both systems meant well; their goal was to reduce the toll humanity was taking on the environment by reducing the emission of CO2. Yes, second generation biofuels will help us transition to a sustainable future and the current ETS regulations seem to be working better. And yes, everyone has 20/20 hindsight, making it easy to criticize those who developed and initiated the proposed techniques and regulations. The fact remains that many of the abovementioned problems could have been foreseen.

It seems that the then made actions can be bluntly summarized as the policy makers choosing for short term solutions without taking into consideration possible societal and environmental changes. Or: they lost sight of the big picture. Thankfully we all know the saying “learn from your mistakes”.

Or do we?

A somewhat current development is the large-scale application of Carbon Capture Storage (CSS). Herein the CO2 produced in the fossil fuel power plants is caught and stored in depleted gas and oil fields or beneath large rock formations. At first glance it seems like an interesting way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and it may well be, but we should not overlook the unfavorable side effects it has.

Firstly, CSS causes a huge reduction in efficiency of the power plant the CSS system is connected to; approximately one-third of the energy produced in the plant is used to capture the harmful gasses. So although emissions are reduced, the amount of fuel used increases dramatically, which will surely put pressure on the environment. Secondly and more importantly, there is no guarantee that the stored carbon remains that way indefinitely. A few small-scale projects have yielded positive results, but these cannot be trusted in the long run.

And there you have it. The long run. The big picture.

If the policy makers do decide to go down this road, we will indeed clean up our energy production, which everyone agrees needs to happen. But what will the long-term effects on the environment be. Will we indeed learn from our mistakes and take careful considerations? Or will a different expression prove to be more applicable?

Let’s hope it won’t be “History repeats itself.”
House of the Future

product, innovation, Sustainability

Roely Rijpkema

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. For one week there are several projects and exhibitions you can visit in the city of Philips. I visited the Design Academy and the Klokgebouw at Strijp S. For me as heritage and architecture student, these buildings were interesting, because they were redeveloped. But the building which struck me most was a tiny house placed next to the Klokgebouw. It was the end of the day and I was quite tired, but this project made me feel awake again. We were the lucky ones who get the last tour through the building. ok, we were sitting in the living room and from there we could see all the other spaces. Now you think what is so special about this tiny house? The house was called the Sustainable Home and this was because it is totally self-sufficient.

When we were sitting in the living room of the sea container, the structure, an enthusiastic guy was telling us about the house. The building can be placed everywhere around the world, so no connection to sewerage, electricity or water. Now you are thinking, how is this possible? The electricity they get from solar panels on the roof, these panels are heating the house and makes the electrical devices work. Rainwater will be stored and filtered so it can be used for washing, flushing the toilet, cooking or even drinking. Also an extra thing, which is quite important for the future I think, the building can be totally connected via 4G internet. Because the building can be placed everywhere, it can be placed on the top of a building (and get a nice view), in the dunes (nice for the summer) or in the woods (and enjoy the nature). The ‘House of the Future’ I think.

The visit to the house made me think about the future of our houses. Will it be the future to have house who will be totally self-sufficient? Houses we can place everywhere we want? I think it is. We want to be more independent, want to save ourselves without help from others. At the moment we have so much smart devices, if they work together a house like this will be more self-evident. I think the future of house will be self-sufficient and will be less constrained by the context.
Bicycles need paths

Eugenia Kanli

The “rent a bike” concept is a new trend in urban areas under development. But truly, when is a city ready to host a “rent a bike” activity? Are all the cities suitable for this trend? The column is focused on the example of Belfast city.

It is true that the bicycle is one of the most sustainable means of transport, as it helps decrease car usage and congestion, thus improving the environment. The Netherlands is one of the countries with the best integration of bikes in everyday life. However, this is not the case for a large number of cities around the world.

Almost a month ago I went on a two-week excursion, in Belfast city, together with other TU Delft students and staff, for the purpose of the Sustainable Design Graduation Preparation course. Working on the Urban analysis of the city center, I came across a newly integrated “rent a bike” network (it started operating six months ago), with the main purpose of encouraging the locals and the tourists to change their transportation habits. Docking stations exist at 32 points around the city center and a trace for a main cycling path can be seen along some distances. With an annual fee of 20 pounds you can rent a bike any time you want. Economically speaking, this sounds very convenient! However, my impression is that the cycling paths, going up and down the pavements, being interrupted for long distances, have not been properly developed so far, creating the need for a lot of improvisations. The impression of the locals, though, is that as a cyclist you should, or at least you can, follow the same roads as the automobiles. Keeping my eyes on the cyclists of the city, during these two weeks, I have to confess that, I admired their courage many times, when cars and trucks were moving around them, on a high speed, expressing a disrespectful driving behavior in relation with the cyclists. This situation definitely creates the circumstances for possible accidents to happen.

I wonder whether it was a wise decision on the part of the Belfast City Council, to start this function within this urban context, without first proceeding in the demanded changes of the mobility network. The “rent a bike” concept is a great one. But truly, when is a city ready to host a “rent a bike” activity? Are all the cities suitable for this trend?

The phasing in of a new activity, within an area, could be a way to go through this, not only for Belfast city, but also for any location. Why not pick a small, appropriate area of the city, for this purpose and start a trial “rent a bike” activity, that is (and feels) 100% safe. As the psychological factor is very important for people of all ages in order to accept and support such a change, if the start of this change creates room for accidents to happen, then it is likely that the project will fail, not because the idea was not great, but because the implementation is lacking on specific points that are of a great importance.

Sustainable ideas for the city can be proven useful on many different levels (environmental, economic, social, health-related etc.) and, potentially, not only cure the urban environment but also upgrade the quality of every day life. However, the realization of a great idea has to be equally exceptional in order to bring a successful result.
The social side of technology

Jeffrey Ros

"Why do we see so few electric cars on our streets today in spite of the overwhelming positive views on them?" This is the very first sentence that I read while diving into the mandatory literature that I have to read for my course "Engineering for Sustainable Development". And instantly I realize that it hits the spot about why I'd like to become a sustainable engineer.

During my bachelor period, I studied Molecular Science & Technology (MST) in Delft and Leiden. I majored in "Sustainable MST" and during that time I quite rapidly got interested in the technologies behind sustainable energy methods and applications. I learned about solar cells, lithium ion batteries, fuel cells, hydrogen production and storage, "green" chemistry and so forth. During this bachelor period I have come across some amazing technologies and one of my favorite applications would be the fully electric vehicle (FEV). Hence for my bachelor thesis, I investigated cathode materials for Li-ion batteries and looked for a way to improve their charging speed by introducing a molecule-thin layer of chromium oxide on the cathode surface. During my bachelor period, I wanted to know more and more about technology: how do things work? Why do they work? So when the time came for me to orientate on a master program, my first idea was to check out the Sustainable Energy & Technology (SET) master.

However, during this orientation period, there was always this tiny voice in the back of my head (don't worry though, I'm not crazy ;) ) that kept asking me the same type of questions like the one I started this column with. How come that I know and read about so many awesome and often promising new technologies, yet often see so little of them in practice? Why is the whole world not covered in solar panels and wind mills? Why aren't we all driving EV's by now? Isn't it obvious that we need these technologies to become sustainable?

All these questions made me realize something: new technology is definitely great and it is important to know how things work and why they work, so we can continue improving. But no matter how clever a (technological) innovation is, it doesn't really have an impact on anything until it finds its way through the complex maze of economics, rules and behaviors that our society consists of nowadays. This was a turning point in my decision making process when I chose my master.

In a world where everything needs to be cost-efficient there is also a social factor: people. People are habit-creatures. Most do not like change. Especially change that they do not know about. I think hardcore engineers often forget that social part. It is important to understand not just how technology works, but also how people react on this technology. What their opinion is, their expectations and their objections or fears. Trying to understand the social aspect and its influence on technology transitions is a difficult but important task for any engineer who will want to make a difference, whatever difference it is they want to make.
Sinterklaas

Janne de Hoop

Sinterklaas… I think most of you know of Sinterklaas, have celebrated it since they where little, or got to know it as a typical Dutch tradition. This Saturday the man and his helpers arrived in the Netherlands again to bring all children in the country presents (if they behaved of course). Since I was little I have been celebrating Sinterklaas with my whole family. When I was still a child the grown ups took care of the presents, but when we (the grandchildren) got older we started celebrating with the hole family (luckily we are with only 14 in total) and everybody has to make a ‘surprise’ for one of the others. The way it goes with my family is that we each draw a name out of a hat (yes a real hat) and we try to get as much juicy stories of everyone as possible to be able to write a nice poem for them and create a nice ‘surprise’ (If you want to know what a ‘surprise’ exactly beholds ask a someone Dutch and they should be able to explain). After everybody knows who to make presents for, everybody sends their wish-list to the whole family. Today I had to create my wish-list. I have celebrating with groups of friends in the past, but this normally ends with everybody having a lot of useless presents nobody actually wants to have (that is also part of the fun). But since I am not good at throwing stuff away, I am still stuck with a bunch of little christmas balls (too little to put in a proper christmas tree), a can of fake snow and a game about preventing your sheep from drowning.

Luckily this is not the case with my family. It has to be something that can be bought for 15 euros. And although (of course) everybody loves to get presents, it is hard to come up with new things each year. 15 euros though is exactly the right amount of money to be able to buy something useful. The first wish-list got in my mailbox yesterday. Since we have been celebrating Sinterklaas for years it is not really a surprise what is on the lists. This was the same case this year, and I read the list with a smile on my face. The first list was coming from my aunt, apart from ecological soap she asked for tissues (man size, because not all ladies tissues seem to be made to be properly used as tissues). To show that this is not just one member of my family thinking about useful presents, the list of my grandmother contains hyacinths and hyacinths and also tissues. Two years ago I got a Dopper (the water bottle) and last year I got a new lunchbox since my previous one was broken. Both products that prevent me from creating a lot of waste (plastic bottles or lunchbacks are history). Inspired by the realisation of last week that there are so little people taking sustainable holidays of wearing sustainable clothes I am really eager to think of an useful present. At this moment I am still trying to come up with useful and therefore hopefully more sustainable products I can put on my own wish-list. Since I don’t have a garden, flowers is not the way to go, asking for a garden will probably not work and solar panels are also not available for 15 euros. If anyone of you has some ideas, please let me know. At this moment I have only written down tea, since that will be something that I will use for sure.
Hedonistic Sustainability

Rafael Silveira

Hedonistic Sustainability

Hedonistic Sustainability [1], this concept carved by architect Bjarke Ingels in 2009 in the book Yes is more can provide very interesting reflections.

Hedonistic means to engage in the pursuit of pleasure [2], and sustainability means, well, a lot of things nowadays, but according to the UN, it means, to be able to provide a “decent standard of living for everyone today without compromising the needs of future generations”[3]. However, these terms are hardly seem together.

Usually the way to achieve a sustainable future is interpreted as compromising our lifestyle to become sustainable [4]. Many initiatives follow this interpretations, focusing on what can we stop doing in become more sustainable, a sort of punishment to achieve something better. However, this logic does not work very well; it is hard to compromise the present thinking about the future.

And that’s where the hedonistic approach comes, by making sustainability interesting.

People are curious, attracted to do things that bring them something back, having fun, or learning for example. Initiatives like the D-exto that bring interactive sustainable activities focusing of public participation, are an example of how these two terms can and should coexist.

I believe that, to achieve a sustainable future, we should not try to focus on the things we have to stop doing, but to create alternatives to those, which have the same advantages, or even more, but that are designed to be sustainable.

[1] Ingels, Bjarke, et al. Yes is more: an archicomic on architectural evolution. 2009.

[2] Oxford Dictionary. Hedonistic. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hedonistic

[3] UN (United Nations). What is sustainability?https://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/sustainability.shtml

[4] Ingels, Bjarke. Hedonistic Sustainability. May 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_hedonistic_sustainability
Circle of life

Kajan Kort
Last week I attended a beautiful and sad funeral. It reminded me of the other funerals I had attended earlier in my life. One of them was when I was a young boy and had to bury my hamster in the garden. Not comparable to the loss of a family member of course, but in essence of my story it is the same: we are all part of a circle of life. A song from the Lion King with the same name popped up in my head.
```
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
```
Eventually all organic matter is recycled and used again, as long as it is participating in an ecosystem. Bacteria, micro-organisms, worms, insects, they all feed upon the organisms fallen on the ground. Dying organisms fall off the ladder of the food-chain, sometimes as far as the ground, sometimes half way. But always down. Degradation of the organic matter is a necessity, because no natural process occurs with 100% efficiency. But that would lead to a decreasing amount of complex organic matter in a closed system, you would say.

This is contradictory to what happens in reality. In an (by humans) untouched ecosystem the amount of organic matter would only increase. Why is this? It is because of the sun. Indirectly the sun feeds the entire system with billions of small packages of energy. Plants are able to capture solar energy by making complex molecules out of CO2, water and minerals from the soil. These plants are (partially) eaten by organisms in different positions in the food-chain and thus drives the circle of life.

Back to the song from the Lion King. "The circle of life moves us all". Technically it is the sun that drives the circle of life, and consistently moves us all. We eat solar energy, we drink solar energy, we receive and give solar energy. It is interesting to calculate the amount of solar energy captured by plants per surface area and compare this with the amount of energy we use in our lifestyles. If surface area is limited to a certain group of people, for example on an island, these numbers can easily give valuable insight. Long story short: using more energy than the sun gives is impossibly sustainable. In reality due to inefficiencies in digestion, production, growth and maintenance of plants, etc., using as much energy as the sun gives would mean a fall from a high ladder to the cold ground below.
Texel Challenges ahead

Ram Kamath
We had our first session for Engineering for sustainable development (ESD) on Tuesday, the tenth of November. The objective of the course is contrive solutions to lead the island of Texel down the path of sustainable growth. Just before attending the ESD session, I was in another course where the lecturer stated that compared to the Danish island of Samso, Texel was in the sustainable stone-age. So apparently, there is plenty of work to be done. The lecturer also stated that the Danish think that here at TU Delft, we never actually go into the field and are content with our theoretical propositions. ESD though, is designed as a hands-on, application oriented affair and perhaps it will prove the Danish wrong!

During the session, we were handed out a sheet with some questions that we had to use meet other participants in the course. Few of the questions really got me thinking. For instance, the one about having taken a low-footprint to vacation. The person I spoke to told me he took a low-footprint vacation to Tasmania…from the Netherlands. The only way that trip could be classified as a low-footprint vacation is if he had swam to down-under. He had actually visited a nature reserve in Tasmania that practiced sustainable tourism and therefore guaranteed a low carbon footprint. But in the flight that he took to Tasmania, he probably offset all those savings. On the other hand, something is better than nothing, I surmise. Another intriguing question was the one about a sustainable breakfast. What makes a meal sustainable? If the plate of food that you have before you is meat free, that’s a good beginning. I have been a vegetarian all my life and vegetarianism is much more sustainable than being a carnivore. A study by the United Nations posits that a global shift towards a vegan diet can save the world from hunger, poverty and the worst impacts of climate change. As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products will become unsustainable. Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels (Hertwich et al.,2010). Step two would be to source locally as much as possible because exporting food bumps up the carbon footprint. If in case you do make an “exotic” meal, make sure its fair trade sourced. Fairtrade’s environmental standards emphasize on making products without harming the environment or having a negative impact on the sustainability of the production site’s habitat. Fairtrade provides producers the technical tools and financial assistance needed to face environmental and climate change challenges (Fairtrade USA,2012).

For the length of this course, my team will work on solutions to manage the considerable amount of inorganic waste that is generated on Texel in a sustainable manner. Currently, the waste (organic and inorganic) is transported to the mainland and treated in facilities there. Our focus will be on reusing and recycling the waste and putting it into productive use in Texel. Texel, like other small islands, is confronted with the classic contradiction between economic progress and environmental degradation. Many local and external pressures combine with global environmental change to place additional pressure on local ecologies of small islands. However, these islands generally have a limited capacity to buffer against these environmental hazards and pressures due to their isolated geography, small sizes of their economies, and limited natural resources. They usually show environmental, economic, and social vulnerability in the process of sustainable development. Tourism is an important vehicle to overcome size constraints on the economic development of small islands. However, tourism constitutes both an opportunity and a challenge to the island: an opportunity to diversify limited economic activities and employment, and a challenge since tourism has a considerable impact on island systems that are extremely vulnerable. Right now Texel produces ~ 700 kilos of waste per person annually compared to ~500 kilos pp annually on the mainland. The difference comes down to the sizeable number of tourists that generate a significant amount of waste. So our challenge is to maintain the fine balance between a sustainable future for Texel and economic security for the residents.

Refernces:
- Hertwich, E., van der Voet, E., Suh, S., Tukker, A., Huijbregts M., Kazmierczyk, P., Lenzen, M., McNeely, J., Moriguchi, Y., 2010, Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production: Priority Products and Materials, A Report of the Working Group on the Environmental Impacts of Products and Materials to the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management.
- Fairtrade USA, 2012, Why Fair Trade Means Protecting the Environment, Too, http://www.triplepundit.com/special/future-of-fair-trade/protecting-people-protecting-planet/, 15/11/2015
- Huang, B., et al,2008,Construction of an eco-island: a case study of Chongming Island, China. Ocean & Coastal Management 51(8): 575-588.
Shared Ownership

Hugo Polman

Change of ownership,

Currently there is becoming more and more a trend towards shared ownership instead of actually owning your products. Examples of product like these are greenwheels, the NS public transport bike and Airbnb. For me as an Industrial Designer who is focussed on sustainability is that a very interesting direction, I think that this direction should be stimulated even more. Products on itself will create a much lower impact if they are used more efficiently. If the car for example will be used by whoever in the need of a car, and only pays for its functionality/service, than the total cars needed in the area can be reduced very much. There is nothing more useless than a product that is not able to fulfil its functions. The main problem in this lies still within the mentality of users, and the wish to own products. This differs per society as some societies are much more focussed on collectivism instead of individualism. If you look at the Hofstede Model, which includes how a country behaves at these points, you’ll find that countries that have a high welfare with a lot of consumer products score high on individualism. Therefore are much less used to the fact of sharing things within their society. When these findings are merged, there can be concluded that there must become a higher shift with the higher income countries towards a shared community. If the mind-set changes users will benefit because using a service gives the opportunity of receiving a higher product/service for a lower price. Secondly, the total impact of the product for the environment decreases because it will be used more efficiently and therefore the total amount of products will decrease. In this time of era in which everyone and everything is connected with each other, the tools to apply this are already there. The main challenge is how to implement this in society and how to let the higher income countries accept these new values. One of the main drivers is still money, as the example of Airbnb shows. The company succeeded with its business plan because of the economical prices, when people founded out that in times of low money a room that is not used is worth money. Therefore the most suitable way to get more higher income users involved is by promoting its financial benefit, and make users more aware of the existence of shared ownership.
Two sides of sustainable development

safety & security, risk

Eline Degenaar

Eline Degenaar - The intentions are good. Sustainable development always starts with the desire to make a positive contribution to the world. Though sometimes an on first hand innocent new technology can grow out to something that drastically changes the way we live in a way we did not expected. As a sustainable engineer you should always be aware of the influence of your newly developed technology when implemented in society.

A Smart City design is using digital technologies or IT to increase the quality of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption and to engage more effectively with its citizens. This new way of city organizing could help us face the technological, economic and environmental changes of our last decades. These new technologies are from great value, but could also harm our society. The Smart City could be hacked. There are plenty of examples: Smart street lighting that was switched off remotely by unauthorized persons and traffic lights that were manipulated by hackers. This might sound like playful misbehavior but imagine that the same hackers can see that you are not at home since the sensors in your home tell them. Or imagine a whole power plant being hacked leaving the city without electricity?

Other negative sides of the development addressed in the article are the fact that the algorithms could grow uncontrollable and the fact that companies owning the information could obtain too much power. Tech Companies like Samsung, Microsoft, IBM and Alphabet (formerly Google) have discovered the smart city and are closely involved in many projects, including in the Netherlands. In itself, it is not strange that they can participate but the interests of companies are not always the interests of citizens. They sometimes have different views on the ownership of the data, or the transparency of projects. For the municipal councils openness and accountability is important, but companies sometimes want more closeness to make the competitors not wiser.

More recently developed technologies have two sides of sustainable development. 3D printing for example has great potential for sustainable development. Products can be printed at home, leaving out transport and when printed from biodegradable materials, these products are not harmful for the environment. Next to these positive effects, there is also a threat for our society. The company Solid Concepts has the dubious honor to be the first successful developer of a metal arm printed with a 3D printer. Will people soon all sleep with a 3D printed gun underneath their pillow? Take law into their own hands when a burglar sneaks in?

These are all very extreme situations, but I think that as a sustainable engineer you should always be aware of the influence of your newly developed technology when implemented in society. Once your created new technology becomes mature and you let it enter the big world, you can only hope the technology keeps on the right track. I guess it is just like growing children… Parents all hope there children become doctors, engineers or rockstars, but some might end up as criminals.
More expensive sustainable products will never become mainstream products

innovation, management, things go wrong, adaptation

Marlien Sneller

Last sunday, VPRO Tegenlicht broadcasted the episode ‘End of ownership’, in which the Dutch architect Thomas Rau advocates the creation of a closed sub-system for the materials our society uses in products. Since the planet is a closed system, we need to reuse materials to allow the human species to continue living with a comparable level of prosperity and comfort.

One of the approaches for regaining materials is to lease products instead of selling them. This way, the company holds ownership over the product and thus controls the product during its lifetime and at its end-of-life. The customer uses the product at home (or in the office) for a specified period of time, while paying a monthly fee. After use, the company takes back the product, gives it a second life or recycles it.

Expensive sustainable products won’t become mainstream

Rau stresses the advantages of ‘end of ownership’ for the planet, but only quickly mentions the business perspective. Forgetting about the financial aspect of sustainability gives skeptical watchers the opportunity to believe that Rau’s ideas cost money, ‘just like all other sustainable initiatives’. I believe that

more expensive sustainable products will never become mainstream products.

Sustainable products which are more expensive than the non-sustainable variant might flourish in a niche of idealistic consumers, but this market will not grow sufficiently to create a healthy business. Numerous studies have proven that citizens are generally concerned with the environment and approve of sustainable product options. However, in the role of consumer (standing in the supermarket), they act according to their personal gain and choose the cheaper non-sustainable product. I don’t believe the average consumer will want to pay for sustainability.

This notion does not mean sustainable products are hopeless. On the contrary, they can be very promising, but only in case the product is financially attractive for both the producer and customer. This is certainly possible, but requires companies to review their way of doing business. Specifically, they need to revise their business models by thinking about new ways of offering the product to their customers, while generating income in new ways.

A sustainable product with an attractive business model

As an example of a sustainable business model, Rau discusses the lease construction of an energy efficient refrigerator. This is a good example of a financially attractive sustainable product.

The user leases the product for a low price per month. the investment of the fridge would have been way to high, so the user would have compromised with a cheaper version. However, cheaper fridges generally use more electricity which raises their monthly costs. Thus, taking the whole lifetime of the fridge into consideration, the energy efficient lease fridge is cheaper to use.

During this leasing period, the producer is in total control of the fridge, performing maintenance and repair when needed. Once the first user stops his contract the producer has the option to remanufacture the fridge, including revision and maybe even replacement of broken or worn out parts, before passing the fridge to the second. When the fridge breaks down, the producer knows how to recycle it and reuse the materials. All mentioned actions are cost reducing, because the producer needs less virgin materials and less production of new parts or products, while offering the same service to the user.

New business models

This example clearly shows the financial attractiveness for both the producer and the user, especially on the long term. The advantages for the planet are obvious, since all materials are collected by the producer and it is in his advantage to reuse them as efficiently as possible.

The illusion that sustainable products are more expensive has been proven untrue. Admitted, it can be challenging for companies to find new business models which are attractive from both the financial and environmental perspective, but they do exist! It requires a new way of thinking about business and seeing opportunities.

Currently, the ministry of Infrastructure and Environment subsidizes a project in which companies are supported in this phase of discovering sustainable business models: CIRCO creating business through design. Are you interested in sustainable products, but skeptical about their financial attractiveness? Joining the CIRCO Circular Business Design Track will open your eyes to identify financially attractive and sustainable business opportunities.
Public participation in building a sustainable transport system

Marti Valero Gispert

Involving the different stakeholders during the design of the mobility plan of an urban area is a recent trend that is proved to give in the end higher results in sustainability from many points of view; from lower environmental impact to social cohesion. What are the advantages of the so-called integrated transport planning compared to more conventional methods?

Mobility is a basic human activity as it serves us to reach other activities such as work, leisure and household management. In the last years, due to globalisation, the need of efficient transportation has raised, leading to more individual private transportation that not only has a higher impact on the environment but also on the interaction between people and the way we relate to others.

In European countries, many efforts are being made in order to have sustainable mobility. But what is understood as a sustainable mobility system? There are many definitions for it but the common views express that a sustainable transport system should be one that allows basic access needs and development of individuals, companies and societies to be met safely and in a consistent way with human and ecosystem health. Also, it should promote equity within and between generations, be affordable, operate efficiently, and limit emissions, waste, and noise.

When designing-or redesigning- a transport system, the different communities and institutions can provide valuable information for the authorities responsible for the plan. There are many ways of involving these actors to the work but in order to have effective participation, six guiding principles should be followed: being inclusive, open, interactive, continuous, begin early in the process, and with effective feedback of participants (A. Gil, 2011).

By doing so, the solutions reached in participatory processes have greater potential to be more respectful with the environment as encourage users to use less private automobiles and shift to public transport. Another positive point of a successful SMP is that it doesn’t promote segregation of social status by type of transport; this means that people from different social backgrounds converge in the same vehicles and thus, it leads to social cohesion of the inhabitants of the area.

Furthermore, empowering these actors to shape themselves the system helps to avoid future conflicts as it creates a sense of ownership. They feel more committed and responsible for the consequences of the process, thereby guaranteeing a better implementation.

Source: Artur Gil, Helena Calado, Julia Bentz. Public participation in municipal transport planning processes – the case of the sustainable mobility plan of Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal. Elsevier, 2011
Sustainability: Show or Tell?

Maya de Groot

Sustainability. It’s one of those words you hear all the time, a word that might be over-used and by doing so, people might not even really register it anymore. How can we make people aware of sustainability without overly addressing the word? That was one the questions I asked myself when joining the D-Exto course in 2014. D-Exto stands for Delft Experience Tomorrow and is an interdisciplinary course at both the TU Delft as the other schools in Delft, in which students design as sustainable pavilion that travels to festivals in the Netherlands.

How to make festival visitors aware of sustainability, while they are basically there to party? Is it possible to make sustainability fun? Is it possible to make it an integrated part of a festival, making people participate without having to overly advertise they’re doing something sustainable? That’s something I find interesting, I personally learn more by doing something and un expectedly finding out how sustainable it is, than having people lecture me about what is or isn’t sustainable.

Together with my team we were responsible for the design and execution of the smoothie bar; the centre of the pavilion. A smoothie bar that serves smoothies made from so called Ugly Food. Ugly food is exactly as the name implies ugly, but his doesn’t mean the quality of the food isn’t up to standard. In fact ugly food refers to food, mostly fruit and vegetables, that only on a visual level does not meet the standard and therefore cannot be sold. The term ugly food is only given to these fruits and vegetables because they’re crooked, the wrong size or colour. And I can hear you think that’s a shame and it is. By making smoothies, we could make people taste the products without them possibly being taken back by the way the products looked.

Besides the bar we also created so called Blender Bikes to make people aware of the amount of energy it costs to produce a smoothie. Because right now you probably walk into your kitchen, still half a sleep placing the fruits into the blender. The only thing you’ve got to do is press a button and wait. And often we wait too long, we forget that the blender is running or that’s its already finished, which means we’re wasting energy. The Blender Bikes were the solution for this energy problem in the sustainable pavilion. They were made of second hand home trainers, in which we connected the cycling movement to the rotating movement of the blender; by bicycling yourself you were blending your own smoothie.

The smoothie bar with the blender bikes were a big success on all the festivals we visited. Especially those festivals on which we didn’t tell the people upfront the entire project was actually about sustainability, we got the most positive repsonses. With as top point the Mooi Weer Spelen in Delft, where we had lines of at least 20 people all the time. Just to create their own sustainable smoothie.

We realised then that the success of this project was the interaction with the visitor. It’s not just showing or telling the visitor about sustainability, it was making them participate and by doing so they learned about why this was sustainable. It shouldn’t be about hyping a word, it should be about showing and proving that something is sustainable without putting extra attention to it. Cause sustainability shouldn’t be special. It should be one of the most normal things in the world.
Urban metabolism - from linear to circular

Antonia Kalatha

Have you ever wonder how do the flows of goods, waste, energy, people, water and air function in your city? What influence do these flows have on the quality of our life, how do they affect us?

C. Kennedy and fellow researchers have produced a clear definition in the 2007 paper ‘’The Changing Metabolism of Cities’’ calling “the sum total of the technical and socio-economic process that occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy and elimination of waste” as urban metabolism. These flows and the relationship between the anthropogenic urban activities and the natural processes define the urban production and consumption by transforming the resources into vital functions for the city.

Ultimately, urban metabolism is a powerful metaphor that helps us think about the man-made environment in a completely different way, which feels less judgmental than certain other perspectives. All cities, like all nature’s organisms, have a definable metabolism: in order to satisfy their needs they need to produce waste.

But what does a natural ecosystem do differently than the man-made world that surrounds us? The main difference lies on the fact that nature essentially has a circular zero-waste metabolism where every output by an organism is also an input which replenishes and sustains the whole living environment. In contrast, the metabolism of many modern cities is essentially linear, with resources flowing through the urban system without much concern about their origin or the destination of wastes. Inputs and outputs are considered as largely unrelated.

As Herbert Girardet says, in order for cities to become more sustainable they must change the linear to a more circular metabolism, creating a self-regulating sustainable relationship with the biosphere. Therefore, the challenge of today is to create sustainable cities, truly regenerative. “A sustainable city […] is a city where achievements in social, economic, and physical development are made to last. A sustainable city has a lasting supply of the natural resources on which its development depends (using them only at a level of sustainable yield). A sustainable city maintains a lasting security from environmental hazards which may threaten development achievements (allowing only for acceptable risk).”[1]A regenerative city, though, is not just resource-efficient and low carbon emitting, but it positively enhances rather than undermines the ecosystem services it receives from beyond its boundaries.

A wide range of technical and management solutions towards this end are already available, but so far implementation has been too slow and too little. It is us, as citizens, that we need to manage these processes in a sensitive, informed way, playing a key role to the overall function of our city. Most importantly, though, these transformative changes that are required to make our cities regenerative call for state-led policy based on far reaching strategic choices and long-term planning as compared to the short-term compromises and solutions that characterize most of the current political made decisions.

Diagrams depicting an Urban Linear Metabolism and an Urban Circular Metabolism - source: SWAT studio, Architecture and the Built Environment, Building Technology track, team A2

http://www.urbanmetabolism.org/

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/what-is-urban-metabolism-defined-science-cities

[1]UN Habitat, UNHCS/UNHSP (United Nations Human Settlements Programme)
'Clean' engine...at which price?

Clara Moreno

An internship experience: portable chargers for electric cars

Last July I started an internship in the industry and with it I also started a self-reflection on the concept of sustainability from a new perspective. In a few words, my task was to provide a concept of a small electricity generator to be used as a portable charger in electric vehicles. At least that is what I understood when I first read the title of my assignment and it seemed as a cool technical challenge! I have to confess that the title also included something about being commercially feasible… and my supervisor insisted: it has to be competitive in the market; the market demands will set your design requirements and you have to carry out a thorough market study to determine them. All right! - I thought. Nice complement to my technical research, but should not take me more than two weeks.

One month and a half later I was putting over the table for discussion an A3 paper full of boxes interconnected by uncertain causality relationships, roughly classified as economic or political actors, stakeholders or barriers. Without even knowing it by that time, I was struggling with a socio-economic framework. In particular, I had encountered the characteristic framework of niche markets (i.e. electrical vehicles) full of uncertain barriers to substitute incumbent technologies (i.e. conventional cars with combustion engines)… Indeed, it was difficult to escape from this framework that was affecting my technical design decisions, one year would be needed to analyse it thoroughly!

What is more: it had a big component of uncertainty but time had arrived to take design decisions based on this blurry framework. If the aim of e-mobility is to reduce emissions and oil dependence, there is a big opportunity to innovate (e.g. alternative fuels or less polluting combustion techniques). In the electrical vehicles market, if my design is ‘sustainable’ and it is ‘innovative’ it will be commercially competitive. Then I had the opportunity to create a environmentally sustainable and innovative design, according to the general demands and drivers of the electrical vehicles’ market.

This starting point has led me to several deliberations, contradictions and discussions: about the definition of sustainability for an engine, about the (un-)sustainability of batteries and electricity, about the necessity to harm one sustainability design criteria to enable another one as a designer, about environmental sustainability as a late-comer in the iterative design process and about sustainability in the automotive industry as well as the impact of legislation on car manufacturers. From all the reflections, I want to share one conclusion related to the picture of the balance on top: sustainable designs are expensive and not practical. Especially in the electric vehicles market, low cost drives customers’ acceptance. Then, investing efforts in a less-polluting generator does not provide economical profit in return, increases the total factory cost and can produce more socio-technical barriers (e.g. lack of infrastructure for alternative fuels). The outcome is customers with a higher reluctance towards electric vehicles and the proliferation of conventional (non-sustainable) powertrains. At this point I understood why sustainability is often defined as a juncture of four separate dimensions.

Then, what is sustainable development in the described automotive company scenario? To come up with a practical design that can be sustained in time: future emissions legislation proof and efficient use of resources, allowing an appropriate business strategy and economic growth which accelerates the adoption of electric vehicles. What is the role of the designer? To assign weight to each side of the balance and -probably- tip the balance favouring one side, according to his or her own technical-economic criteria (or values?) and accepting the associated risks of the decision. Is environmental sustainability and innovation a must for the engine design process? The concept is already innovative in itself, and using proven technology is crucial for social acceptance.

So…was my final concept sustainable? I hope to have a better answer to it after this course!
Engineering as a regional challenge, inspirations for a sustainable future

Lu Ding

Eladio Dieste is a famous Uguarian Architect and Engineer born in 1917, he was one of the most significant characters in the period of modernization in Latin America. His works normally consist structural experiments that pursue extreme challenge on traditional materials. Besides that, he is especially fascinated by brick construction.

The Church of Christ Obrero, is remarkably but truly Eladio Dieste’s first architectural project. In this project the engineer ginius introduced two innovative construction methods to build brick structure: "Gaussian Vaults" and “ruled walls”. Accordingly, both systems consist double curved masonry surfaces which are formed to increase stiffness under corresponding forces.

Dieste's constructions system created a brand new way of creating masonry structures, including an adjustable scaffolding that could be reused and build repetitive brick vaults, and a building method to insert reinforcement in the parts where tension force is expected to occur. His system brought new opportunities for this local construction method, while saving materials through a highly efficient structural form.

Modernism in its early stage, was tightly connected to the industrilization of European region. As other nations around the world were gradually developed into industrialized countries, the new technology of construction also spread rapidly into far continents. It is difficult to claim the regional authenticity while the new technology easily overwhelms traditional construction methods. For example, reinforced concrete is such a material that was considered the perfect replacement for almost all building materials that have been applied. Including timber, brick, stone and steel.

Eladio Dieste is such an architect that stood for the battle for the material traditions; he persisted on this trial to explore how materials are utilized in a much longer history and how to transform those techniques from the past into new artifice. His experiments may be judged as a sustainable act in today’s perspective, because this experimental approach to design with traditional materials reveals a strong notion of localized construction. Talking about the relationship between technology and society, Dieste's approach to technology has provided stronger consciousness in relation to the local context. By that, technical innovation is made more acceptable and perceptible by the local community. More importantly, his works created a type of new identity which could never be achieved with simply imported technology. Although Dieste's projects stood only with low profile in the modern history, his design methodology which let ideas grow from the place did leave a lot of inspiring messages for future architects.

WikiArquitectura. (n.d.). Cristo Obrero Church. Retrieved from Open Buildings: http://openbuildings.com/buildings/cristo-obrero-church-profile-41935?_show_description=1

Anderson, S. (2004). Eladio Dieste : Innovation in structural art. . New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
World’s first commercial-scale carbon capture power plant

Ioanna Stavrou

Climeworks AG, an ETH spin-off company is going to launch the innovative CO2 capture plant by 2016

The company communicates that the plant, which is located in Hinwil, Switzerland, has the capacity to capture 900 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. It is going to be the first in the world to sell captured atmospheric carbon dioxide to a customer – which is going to be a nearby greenhouse, which will use it to enhance the growth of its vegetables by up to 20 per cent.

The project, which will cost between €3m and €4m, aims to show that Climeworks' direct air capture (DAC) technology can run at an industrial scale. The pilot plant will determine operational costs for similar projects with the final goal to provide information for business models based on the technology. Data regarding mass and energy balances, as well as economic ones are going to be extracted during the first launch.

The technology is based on an innovative filter that chemically binds CO2 to its surface. The CO2 remains bound to the filter until heat around 100^o C is applied, providing an effective storage solution. The stored CO2 can then be used to provide near-neutral energy solutions for a range of industrial processes, such as soft drink carbonization, growing plants in commercial greenhouses, and in the production of synthetic fuels. Some important attributes of the filters are that they can fit into modular plants, are scalable as stand-alone facilities, and are attachable to preexisting industrial structures — they can turn waste heat energy into power by enabling plants to capture carbon. Finally since the temperature under which they operate is relatively low the can be reused several times.

The plants feature a modular design and the capacity is scalable in multiples of 35 kg per hour (300 metric tons per year). Individual modules consist of six Climeworks CO₂ collektors which are fitted into a standard 40-foot container. The capture plants are fully automated, controlled via key panel and touch screen display and are suitable for autonomous 24/7 operation.

In the short-term, the company plans to use the technology to supply CO2 to refreshments companies. Climeworks ultimately hopes to use the technology as a way to store renewable electricity as a carbon-neutral synthetic fuel, produced using only atmospheric CO2, water, and clean electricity.

The construction of the plant comes as part of a three-year pilot and demonstration project with electrics company Gebrüder Meier and municipal waste disposal company Zweckverband Kehrichtverwertung Zürcher Oberland, with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.
TIPS TO GO GREEN (part_1)

Antonia Kalatha
“Sustainable living” is a lifestyle that uses as few resources as possible and causes the least amount of environmental damage for future generations to deal with.[1] Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption, and diet.[2]They aim to live in balance with the Nature and to be respectful of humanity's symbiotic relationship with the Earth's natural ecology and cycles, since they do understand that we are neither separate from, nor unaffected by, our natural surroundings.

The “Eco-friendly Lifestyle”, though, can be viewed as a trend that will soon be outdated; especially because of the numerous articles on “Going Green” and all the celebrities “advertising” their green lifestyle. However, it isn’t a trend; it is a lifestyle choice.

Do you know how your lifestyle habits affect our environment and your health? Are you aware of these simple and inexpensive solutions that, if adopted, can make a difference almost immediately? There are three key factors when thinking on going green in our houses – The 3 R’s: Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

“Reduce" means using fewer resources in the first place and it’s the most effective of the three R's. It is also, I think, the hardest because it requires a more simplified lifestyle by letting go of some modern notions, including: the bigger the better, the less the worst and convenience instead of effort. Literally, “reduce” means “make smaller or less in amount”. While talking about sustainable lifestyle it can be translated as cutting down our needs.

Simple actions that lead to great results:
- Buy only what you need. Look for things that will last: durable and well-made, but also useful and beautiful enough to please you for a long time. Moreover, before buying any product, give yourself time to think if you really need it. Think, also, about its environmental impact. How did the production of this product affect the environment and what further impacts will there be with the disposal of the product (and associated packaging materials)? In addition, don't chase the latest fashions. They will age the fastest.
- Buy products made from post-consumer recycled materials, especially toilet paper (it is made from the highest post-consumer waste content you can find -80% minimum).
- Make your own products to cut down on waste and control the materials used. From soap to toothpaste and deodorants, use natural ingredients to create your own everyday products. The same applies to household cleansers too.
- Choose electronics and appliances that are energy-efficient. Moreover, when it comes to electronics, extravagance may also pay. A super-charged computer will still run the software that comes out two years from now and a good camera will always take good quality pictures. The same applies to cars. When it comes to electronics that you are not using every day (car, camera etc.) consider of sharing them within your family or other friends.
- Shop local. Buy stuff made close to home -less energy was used transporting them to the store-and, if possible, under biological production. Avoid goods made with materials whose extraction or processing is especially destructive, such as tropical woods and most gold jewelry.
- Buy used whenever possible.
- Avoid overly packaged goods or those packaged for single use (i.e., drinks, school lunches, candy, cat and dog food, salad mixings, etc.).
- Waste less energy on lights and equipment and cut back on water use at home. Start with simple steps: change the lamps with energy-efficient ones and your toilet flush with an eco-one (the double flush function and a small urine separating bowl in the front of the toilet can save up to 80-90 % water)
- Eat less meat.
- Create a tree-free home: replace paper napkins with cloth napkins; reuse envelopes, wrapping paper and other paper materials you receive wherever possible; print your documents on once-used paper and/or bleach-free, recycled paper; use digital calendars and organizers; read books, magazines, and newspapers from your local library or online.
More tips on “Reuse” and “Recycle”, next week, on TIPS TO GO GREEN (part_2)

REFERENCES

http://www.nrdc.org/thisgreenlife/0802.asp

Winter M. (2007), Sustainable Living: For Home, Neighborhood and Community, Westsong Publishing, ISBN 0-9659000-5-3.

image source: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/633439930558709760

[1]https://www.regenerative.com/sustainable-living

[2]Winter Mick (2007), Sustainable Living: For Home, Neighborhood and Community, Westsong Publishing, ISBN 0-9659000-5-3
How slow is your fashion?

collective, design

Roxanne Kiel

Today’s fashion industry relies on globalized, mass production where garments are transformed from the design table to the retail floor in a few weeks. But this fast fashion, where ‘fast’ describes the economic speed driven side of today’s fashion industry, is not good for the health of people and environment. This column introduce the movement of Slow Fashion, a countermovement that started a few years ago by Kate Fletcher, Professor of Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion in London. It is a vision for the fashion industry based on ecological integrity and social equality.
Many people wonder how it can be possible that a t-shirt can be so cheap. Child labor or inhumanity often come to mind, but it is more than that. We got used to buy clothing when its cheap or on sale. But do we think about the consequences? An official article stated that if all Dutch people would buy three pieces less a year, it will save about 143 million pollutive kilometers, which is three times earth’s perimeter. Today’s fashion industry relies on globalized, mass production where garments are transformed from the design table to the retail floor in a few weeks. Where retailers selling the latest fashion trends at very low prices and consumers are easily swayed to purchase more than they need. But this fast fashion, where ‘fast’ describes the economic speed driven side of today’s fashion industry, is not good for the health of people and environment. The central question then becomes; How might the social system of fashion become sustainable?

A countermovement started a few years ago by Kate Fletcher, Professor of Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion in London, which she called Slow fashion. Slow fashion is not a typical seasonal trend it is an sustainable movement that is steadily gaining momentum and will be a continuing trend. Slow fashion is about designing, producing, consuming and living better. Slow is in this context not the opposite of fast. It is an other approximation in which all the actors in the design system are more aware of the impacts of products on workers, communities and ecosystems. Fletcher called ‘balance’ the heart of the idea. It is a vision for the fashion industry based on ecological integrity and social equality. Fletcher in her book sustainable fashion and textiles says;

‘Slow fashion is about combining ideas about a sense of nature’s time (of regenerating cycles and evolution), culture’s time (of the value of traditions and wisdom), as well as the more common timeframes of fashion and commerce. Its emphasis is on quality (of environment, society, working conditions, business, product, etc.).’

Understanding the social system around fashion can help reveal the consequences of the fashion Industry. The movement came up with ten values which have the potential to unite the sustainable fashion movement and can be used by the fashion industry as a part of the future vision of succes;
1. Seeing the bigger picture; recognize that all actions are interconnected within larger ecological and social systems.
2. Slowing down consumption; reducing raw material use by decreasing new fashion production allows ecosystems to regenerate.
3. Diversity; maintain ecological, social and cultural diversity.
4. Respecting people; participate in fair trade initiatives, establishing cooperatives, and employing codes of conduct can help to secure the fair treatment of fashion workers.
5. Acknowledging human needs; utilizing more ethical and humane manufacturing and production processes, slow fashion respects and acknowledges human needs across the globe.
6. Building relationships; collaboration fosters trusting and lasting relationships that will create a stronger movement.
7. Resourcefulness; focus on using locally available materials, resources and human capital whenever possible.
8. Maintaining quality beauty and care; Encouraging classic design over passing trends will contribute to the longevity of garments.
9. Profitability; Slow Fashion producers need to sustain profits, and increase visibility in the market in order to be competitive.
10. Practicing consciousness; making decisions based on personal passions, a connection to others and the environment, and the willingness to act responsibly.
To conclude, it is all about understanding and being aware of the consequences within the fashion Industry. Slow fashion is a sustainable movement with a new vision according sustainable fashion. The ten values can inspire and guide organizations and consumers towards a common goal: creating a sustainable society with fashion.

Fletcher, K. (2008). Sustainable fashion an textiles, Design journeys. Londen: Earthscan.

http://slowfashionforward.org/slowfashionvalues

https://www.notjustalabel.com/editorial/slow-fashion-movement