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.