Tessa Vaendel,
Noor Debets,
Looking at the daily life of the Texelaar, all sub-systems are in some way related to the sub-system of Sustain Lifestyles. A brief description of this relation, expectations and potential tensions are given.
5.2.1 Feed Texel
Within any lifestyle food is highly relevant, as people have to eat several times a day, and people have a great amount of personal choice in how, when and where they do this. Within the pathways towards a sustainable lifestyle food was used as a case, since a lifestyle consists of many different elements and food is one of the most important.
- Expectations: Our expectations of the food subsystems are very high. Because this subsystem is so intertwined with the lifestyle of people (normally 3 meals a day), this subsystem can have a large contribution to a more sustainable lifestyle.
- Potential tension: Is there enough locally produced food available to feed all the different sub-groups, and can the Texel area support enough quantity and varity? Can locals and tourists subside on this supply?
5.2.2 Accommodate community
People always need accommodation, either to live in or to use as a public space (e.g. for education, meetings, business, leisure).
- Expectations: After 2020 national legislation restricts new buildings for any level below zero-energy buildings. We expect that even without any further intervention the process to a more sustainable housing portfolio is a matter of decades.
- Potential tension: This sub-system is mostly focussed on tourists, while the sustain lifestyles sub-system mainly focusses on the locals. Secondly investment costs for more sustainable accommodations are high and could affect the prices that are charged on Texel. A third tension is that Texel allows (by local law) only a limited amount of beds for tourists. This could hamper the introduction of a new brand of eco-tourism.
5.2.3 Sustainable entrepreneurship
The sustainable entrepreneurs are the local producers that are currently somewhere on the spectrem between planet-local and profit-local. When this subsystem strives for a more sustainable way of running business and starting new initiatives across all of these entrepreneurs, they are helping the profit-local move closer to the planet-local.
- Expectations: We expect a large contribution on local producers and the use of a Echt Texels Product tag on local items. Also we think that the market of local energy holds a lot of potential for sustainable local entrepreneurs
- Potential tension: Our proposition is that locals should only consume locally produced items, which is unrealistic and impractical given the current higher prices. These prices have to drop, but this could mean that without a proper financial plan, the profit margins of the entrepreneurs will shrink too much.
5.2.4 Teach your own
For mainly children and youngsters in Texel education is a big part of their lifestyle, this being the place where they gain knowledge, spend a large part of their time, develop opinions and meet their friends.
- Expectations: In order to enlarge the awareness of the locals, education on this subject is paramount. However Texel currently does not have a future perspective for students that want to enter higher education, which forces them to leave the island. Maybe new technologies (distance learning) methods will overcome this.
- Potential tension: If these students don't return after their studies, this outflow of higher educated students could result in more older (and conservative) inhabitants that are less change minded than a group of youngsters who have been confronted with the problems of climate change and who are already familiar with and use many of the new technologies.
5.2.5 How to get there
Transportation systems are vital for the Texelaars. Especially the single connection to the mainland is very important.
- Expectations: Transportations will become less dependent of fossil fuel and more connected to the electrical grid. Lifestyle changes will occur due to the adjustment in refueling/recharging rhythms of transport users.
- Possible tension:Sustainable energy has a one of the major drawbacks of not always being available, and it is not yet known if more controllable sources are available in large enough quantities. One other tension could be that producing all food and goods locally means many of the people who used to transport these goods from mainland to island are out of a job, which could cause problems.
5.2.6 Permanently innovate
Innovations can be game-changers when it comes to lifestyles. Look for instance at the socio-technical impact of the cell-phone, car or internet.
- Expectations: Innovations are hard to predict, however, we expect that innovations like autonomous vehicles, food-tagging and 3D-printing will affect the lifestyle of people on a large scale.
- Possible tensions: As mentioned under point 4, most of the inhabitants on the island are relatively old. We assume that they are less willing to adopt certain innovations and changes.
5.2.7 Organic matter matters
People and nature not only consume organic matter, they produce it as raw materials, which we send away to be turned into products. However we do not use these new products as efficiently as we should, considering how much food leftovers many people end up throwing in the bin at the end of the week.
- Expectations: We expect a lot of the reuse of organic waste in the local food- and energy chain. Waste is fuel, as can be seen on Samsø, where they use organic matter to produce green gas to power the local grid.
- Possible tensions: Reuse of materials cannot be done without the strict separation of waste. This will require more conscious choices and effort from the inhabitants, that they might not always be willing to do.
5.2.8 Regenerate inorganic waste
During a day people produce a lot of waste, for example packaging from food or leisure products, or consumer goods that are broken or not used anymore.
- Expectations: We expect a lot of the reuse of inorganic waste in the local production chain. Waste is fuel, and as one of the goal is to produce as much of our goods on Texel as possible, there will be a new impetus to close this waste loop. Some materials could for instance be reused as base materials in a 3D printer.
- Possible tensions: Reuse of materials cannot be done without the strict separation of waste. This will require more conscious choices and effort from the inhabitants, that they might not always be willing to do.