ClimateCafé is a multi-, trans-, interdisciplinary and international event of several days in which young professionals, stakeholders and scientist come together to collect data and design (potential) solutions for climate change adaptation in rural or urban areas. ClimateCafé mainly aims to enhance resilience and reduce vulnerability of communities by sharing knowledge, raising awareness and building capacity. ClimateCafé addresses global issues, such as climate change and sustainable development, on a local scale. In a ClimateCafé, context specific challenges, related to climate change and sustainable development, are proposed by local stakeholders and often relate to a specific problem area. Over the past decade, more than 28 ClimateCafés have been organised around the globe, including the Netherlands-Rotterdam, Sweden-Malmö, the Philippines-Manila, and Peru-Pirua. Since the first edition in Thailand (2012), ClimateCafé evolved in content and adopted a ‘learning by doing’ paradigm. Our results indicate ClimateCafé fosters integrated thinking across disciplines, cultures and knowledge sectors while reducing uncertainties affiliated with climate change adaptation. This is demonstrated by participants of previous ClimateCafés having various backgrounds including: law, civil engineering, water management, art, urban planning and environmental engineering. Furthermore, co-production is composed through workshops facilitated by stakeholders of the, so called, quadruple helix including academia, government, civic society and industry. Workshops make use of scientifically embedded methods, always related to the contextual challenge. For example, urban heat stress is measured by sensors on a bike and collecting urban green with online platform ClimateScan, community perceptions are collected through interviews, water quality is measured with the use of drones and perceptions and responsibilities of institutional actors are identified by interviews and field visits. Additionally, data is processed and design workshops facilitate integrated design of potential solutions which is disseminated through participants presenting their findings at conferences. Although ClimateCafé is resource intensive, requires active participation of stakeholders and currently mainly attracts students of affiliated universities, we argue this multi-, inter-, transdisciplinary and international knowledge exchange methodology fosters the innovation that is dearly needed to address global sustainability challenges and climate change adaptation.
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European Union’s vulnerability to climate change stretches far beyond its borders because many of its economic sectors, such as meat and dairy, use raw materials sourced from far afield. Cross-border climate vulnerability is a relatively new subject in scientific literature, while of high societal and economic relevance. We quantify these climate vulnerabilities with a focus on drought risk and assessed them for 2030, 2050, 2085 and for RCP 2.6 and 6.0 climate scenarios. Here we find that more than 44% of the EU agricultural imports will become highly vulnerable to drought in future because of climate change. The drought severity in production locations of the agricultural imports in 2050 will increase by 35% compared to current levels of drought severity. This is particularly valid for imports that originate from Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Turkey. At the same time, imports from Russia, Nigeria, Peru, Ecuador, Uganda and Kenya will be less vulnerable in future. We also report that the climate vulnerabilities of meat and dairy, chocolate (cocoa), coffee, palm oil-based food and cosmetic sectors mainly lie outside the EU borders rather than inside.
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The Hanze Hogeschool Groningen, the Authoridad Nacional del Agua, and Waterschap Noorderzijlvest, together with several other Dutch and Peruvian universities, co-organise an annual ClimateCafé in the northern Peruvian areas Piura and Tumbes, as part of the Blue Deal project. The ClimateCafé methodology is a multiple-day participatory workshop composed by an international community and powered by individual, corporate, public, and academic climate change adaptation influencers. The aim is to educate and inspire tech and non-tech people, focusing on young professionals in a “learning by doing” interaction.
In 2017, renowned Prof Kate Raworth from Oxford University and Amsterdam University introduced Doughnut Economics, an economic model to enable humans to thrive within the planetary boundaries and resources. Several private and public actors, including the city of Amsterdam, adopted the model in their circular economy development's strategies. Doughnut-Architecture aims to develop further the AREA (Atelier for Resilient Environmental Architecture) Framework, a tool designed by graduating students Charlotte Uiterwaal, Isabella van der Griend, Ryan McGaffney, Karolina Bäckman, at the faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft), under the supervision of Henri van Bennekom. AREA-Framework support architects to intervene in the built environment taking as a reference the Doughnut Economics model. The AREA-Framework is at an initial stage, and its categories and subcategories are only qualitative. TU-Delft, the architectural practices Space&Matter and SuperuseStudios, in collaboration with the interdepartmental research group Circular Built Environment Hub (CBEH) and architectural practices from the network of 400 construction companies belonging to the Ex'tax project, the advice from Kate Raworth and the Amsterdam-Donut-Coalitie will further develop the AREA-Framework primarily quantitatively and also qualitatively. TU-Delft, Space&Matter, SuperuseStudios, other architectural practices from the Ex'tax-network will test the framework on different phases of real projects, interdepartmental research and education. The ultimate goal is to develop the framework further, to increase the number of architectural practices successfully implementing the Doughnut Economics in the built environment at a national level. The framework will contribute to positioning the architectural practices concerning Doughnut Economics and the Circular Economy. The project results are firstly an online open-access publication about the further developed Framework to be applied by architects; secondly, the preparation and submission of a follow-up research proposal about the extended development and implementation of the Framework applicable to the built environment by all the Ex'tax construction sector companies.
Despite their various appealing features, drones also have some undesirable side-effects. One of them is the psychoacoustic effect that originates from their buzzing noise that causes significant noise pollutions. This has an effect on nature (animals run away) and on humans (noise nuisance and thus stress and health problems). In addition, these buzzing noises contribute to alerting criminals when low-flying drones are deployed for safety and security applications. Therefore, there is an urgent demand from SMEs for practical knowledge and technologies that make existing drones silent, which is the main focus of this project. This project contributes directly to the KET Digital Innovations\Robotics and multiple themes of the top sectors: Agriculture, Water and Food, Health & Care and Safety. The main objective of this project is: Investigate the desirability and possibilities of extremely silent drone technologies for agriculture, public space and safety This is an innovative project and there exist no such drone technology that attempts to reduce the noises coming from drones. The knowledge within this project will be converted into the first proof-of-concepts that makes the technology the first Minimum Viable Product suitable for market evaluations. The partners of this project include WhisperUAV, which has designed the first concept of a silent drone. As a fiber-reinforced 3D composite component printer, Fiberneering plays a crucial role in the (further) development of silent drone technologies into testable prototypes. Sorama is involved as an expert company in the context of mapping the sound fields in and around drones. The University of Twente is involved as a consultant and co-developer, and Research group of mechatronics at Saxion is involved as concept developer, system and user requirement verifier and validator. As an unmanned systems innovation cluster, Space53 will be involved as innovation and networking consultant.
