Seven years of environmental book reviews

Posted on 19 mei 2020 by Antoinette

May 2020 – More than 50 reviews of environmental books from authors including William Nordhaus, Kim Putters, Simon Rozendaal, Ben van Beurden, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Rene ten Bos, Tim Morton, Bas Eickhout, Jan Rotmans, Marjan Minnesma and Stephen Emmott. That is what resulted from more than seven years of book reviews for the Dutch Network of Environmental Professionals VVM. A new review appeared in issue 2020-3 of the magazine ‘Milieu’, this time of the book of Andrew McAfee, ‘More with Less’.

Subsidising Dutch gas fields is not a good idea

Posted on 24 februari 2020 by Stephan Slingerland

February 2020 – Dutch Government and some researchers think that subsidising new investments in Dutch gas fields in the North Sea is beneficial for the climate and for reducing dependency on Russian gas. Stephan Slingerland and Harro van Asselt argue in an opinion article published in the Dutch newspaper Trouw on 21 February 2020 that this is not a good idea for long-term international climate policy.

Will the European Green Deal be successful?

Posted on 10 februari 2020 by Stephan Slingerland

January 2020 – Shortly before the Christmas break the new European Commission published its long-awaited Green Deal. Once more the European Union showed its green ambitions and proclaimed environmental leadership by drafting a document full of strong environmental objectives. However, more will be needed than only big words. The Green Deal will need to make at least three fundamental connections in the coming year in order to be successful. Read more.

Understanding sustainability starts with basic environmental principles

Posted on 26 januari 2020 by Stephan Slingerland

November 2019 – For the Open University in the Netherlands, SPA Sustainability supervised the courses ‘Principles of Environmental Science’ and ‘Earth, Humans, Environment 2’. In these courses, students learn the basics of sustainability science. Part of the assignment was also an update of one of these courses in order to fit with most recent insights in sustainability and environmental sciences.

New Insights for Citizen Policies in Bristol

Posted on 12 januari 2020 by Stephan Slingerland

December 2019 – The recently published ClairCity final policy report Bristol shows that policy making with citizens leads to new insights: 1) not commuting, but shopping and leisure behaviour contributes most to air pollution in Bristol, 2) citizens generally support more ambitious air pollution and climate change policies in Bristol and are ready to change their own behaviours accordingly, 3) policy makers confirm that the citizen plans overall can be implemented, 4) the citizen plans lead to less air pollution and carbon emissions in the city and do not have to imply excessive additional costs to the city. Read more >>

Summer School Energy Transition in a Fossil World

Posted on 9 december 2019 by Antoinette

July 2019 – Combining social, technological and economic perspectives is required for successful change. In July 2019, SPA Sustainability organised the Summer Course “Energy Transition in a Fossil World” for the IVM Institute for Environmental Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In lectures, excursions and interactive sessions, a large number of expert speakers introduced the students in a nutshell to all key aspects of a successful global energy transition. The course was attended by bachelor and master students as well as energy professionals from all over the world and very positively evaluated: “The knowledge that I got is much more than what I expected before I came. Technology, Economics, and Politics, all of them are covered in just two weeks program – unbelievable but true.” The Summer Course will be organised again in July 2020. Read more

ClairCity – Citizen-inclusive local sustainability policies in Europe

Posted on 9 december 2019 by Antoinette

January 2019 – Citizens need to be at the heart of sustainability policy making in cities. Air quality and climate policies will require huge changes in European cities in the coming years. In the Horizon2020 project ‘ClairCity’, it is investigated in six European cities and regions (Amsterdam, Bristol, Ljubljana, Aveiro, Genoa and Sosnowiec) what current and preferred future behavioural practices of citizens can be used as a basis for such policies. Also, citizens are asked for their own preferences regarding future policies and local policy makers are given the opportunity to react to these proposals. In a final stage of the project, the effects of the unified citizen and policy maker proposals are modelled. The project shows that the pace of planned change is very important: in some cities, citizens seem ahead of policy makers, in others policy makers seem more ambitious than citizens. The project is carried out with partner Trinomics and 15 other consortium members all over Europe. Read more

Poems for sustainability

Posted on 28 november 2019 by Antoinette

Change towards global sustainability starts with feeling connected to your local environment. A successful sustainability transition will involve new forms of local cohesion. Poems in the public environment contribute to less anonymous neighbourhoods and to community building on a neighbourhood level. SPA Sustainability therefore initiated a citizen initiative that publishes poems on private walls in the community of Oegstgeest, Netherlands. All poems will have a connection to the location or to the village in general. Once that several poems have been realised, they will be connected to form a digitally available walking route through the village that also provides background information and music. The project also involves a poetry competition for primary school pupils in the village. It is carried as “Oegstgeester Muurgedichten Actiecomité (OMA)” for Cultuurfonds Oegstgeest.

Who will win the energy transition?

Posted on 6 november 2019 by Stephan Slingerland

November 2019 – The future low-carbon energy sector will also reshuffle energy geopolitics. Trinomics together with partners carried out a project on this topic, focusing on energy technology dependencies of the European Union and on a policy strategy that ensures competitiveness and security of supply in the EU low-carbon energy sector. Stephan Slingerland presented main conclusions and recommendations of the project for Trinomics on October 24, 2019, at the Berlin German-French Energy Transition Forum conference. The project reports can be downloaded from the European Commission’s Publications Website here.