Derek van den Berg

Texel. Texelaars. What to say? Innovative? Yes. Stubborn? For sure. Open for change? To a certain degree, yes. I just realized after spending three days on this beautiful island how difficult it is to come up with a plan to make Texel self-sufficient and to have it be adopted by the locals. By the way, three very enjoyable days I should say: it has to be off my chest. Until now I experienced it…

Antoine Maartens from Urgenda Urgenda is a foundation that has been founded in 2007. The mission is to improve and stimulate sustainable development. Antoine is the program manager for sustainable Wadden Islands. The interview was conducted in a semi-structured way. We had prepared some topics which we wanted to know Antoine’s on. This report is therefore not an exact transcript but more an…

In this week’s weekly report we reflect on the insights we gained from interviewing Antoine Maartens from Urgenda. Urgenda is a foundation that has been founded in 2007. The mission is to improve and stimulate sustainable development. Antoine is the program manager for sustainable Wadden Islands. The interview was conducted in a semi-structured way. We had prepared some topics which we wanted to…

I keep it short this week. I just want to share with you how I envision that the power of ideas will beat the power of production and this could 'liberate the third world' (although I hate this denomination). Since the industrial revolution not much has changed. The producers of physical goods are still very powerful multinational corporations such as Shell, Volkswagen, Sony, Unilever or Inditex.

Dec. 2014 Wars have been fought over it. It is one of the most precious elements found in nature. It is so essential, that without it, you die within a few days. Large corporations such as Nestlé and successful entrepreneurs such as the Bushes or  T. Boone Pickens are buying large quantities of it with only one goal in mind: tremendous profits. I am not talking about oil, I wish I was. Water is…

The most important technology in the socio-technical subsystem of sustainable mobility, is the ferry connection between Texel and the mainland. This connection is the life-line of the island. The island benefits greatly from the influx of tourists (see figure 2.2.1), and the vast majority of these tourists come by ferry. Moreover, all the services and goods Texel needs to import come by ferry

This week was all about brainstorming on the sustainable future of Texel. In order to design the sustainable mobility future of Texel we have decided to first discuss this solution on the socio-technical regimes level, and later try to zoom in on some technology niches. The first part will be a more ambiguous or intangible approach to the possible solution, while the second provides some tangible…

Shrinking areas are a rather common phenomenon nowadays in the Western world. A low population increase and a transition into a service-oriented society for several decades long, has led to the effect of monofunctional areas losing their talents to multifunctional areas. In the Netherlands this is happening already for some decades with the Randstad area, which sucks up a majority of the bright…

Introduction The third meeting for the this course, Engineering for Sustainable Development, took place on the 25th of November in Delft and Rotterdam. The theme for this week was “Transitions made by people”. The meeting had the following outline: 13.45-14.45 Lecture by Gertjan de Werk 14.50-15.30 Bike tour to Rotterdam 15.30-17.00 Lecture by Iris Dijkstra 17.00-18.45 Tour of lighting in…

A few months ago I read about Belgian plans to construct an energy island in front of their coastline. In the Netherlands, these kind of plans have been circulating already for decades, starting with Plan Lievense (Westra, 2007), which aspired the deployment of the Markermeer as an energy reservoir. Since the Dutch have been avantgarde in the field of water management for centuries, it strikes me…

In this weekly report we will shortly explain the organization of our team. Our team consists of 4 people, Stefan Olsthoorn, Klara Bergman, Niki Nicolaou and Derek van den Berg. With different backgrounds and different personalities in the group it promises to be an interest period and collaboration. A proper organization is key and that is why our group from the first meeting came up with a plan…

Nov. 2014 Hardly anyone saw the economic crisis of 2008 coming. Six years further down the road we are still feeling the pain of this crisis and it is likely that this tumor will be difficult to eradicate. The crisis in 2008 happened because we have constructed a financial system that got out of control, where all parties seem to owe tremendous amounts of money to others in the system. In 2008…

During the first lecture we have talked about the definition of sustainability. Most people agree upon the following definition: “meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs”. This definition is also used by the World Commision on Environment and Development. Based on own experiences, I dare to say that most people don’t have a…