The ‘Grand Challenges’ of our times, like climate change, resource depletion, global inequity, and the destruction of wildlife and biodiversity can only be addressed by innovating cities. Despite the options of tele-working, tele-trading and tele-amusing, that allow people to participate in ever more activities, wherever they are, people are resettling in cities at an unprecedented speed. The forecasted ‘rurification’ of society did not occur. Technological development has drained rural society from its main source of income, agriculture, as only a marginal fraction of the labour force is employed in agriculture in the rich parts of the world. Moreover, technological innovation created new jobs in the IT and service sectors in cities. Cities are potentially far more resource efficient than rural areas. In a city transport distances are shorter, infrastructures can be applied to provide for essential services in a more efficient way and symbiosis might be developed between various infrastructures. However, in practice, urban infrastructures are not more efficient than rural infrastructures. This paper explores the reasons why. It digs into the reasons why the symbiotic options that are available in cities are not (sufficiently) utilised. The main reason for this is not of an economic nature: Infrastructure organisations are run by experts who are part of a strong paradigmatic community. Dependence on other organisations is regarded as limiting the infrastructure organisation’s freedom of action to achieve its own goals. Expert cultures are transferred in education, professional associations, and institutional arrangements. By 3 concrete examples of urban systems, the paper will analyse how various paradigms of experts co-evolved with evolving systems. The paper reflects on recent studies that identified professional education as the initiation into such expert paradigms. It will thereby relate lack of urban innovation to the monodisciplinary education of experts and the strong institutionalised character of expertise. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63007-6_43 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karelmulder/
MULTIFILE
The overall purpose of this consultancy was to support the activities under the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in developing the 7th pan-European environmental assessment, an indicator based and thematic assessment, implemented jointly with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The series of environmental assessments of the pan-European region provide up to-date and policy-relevant information on the interactions between the environment and society. This consultancy was to:> Draft the input on drivers and developments to chapter 1.2 of the assessment related to the environmental theme “4.2 Applying principles of circular economy to sustainable tourism”.> Suggest to UNECE and UNEP the most policy relevant indicators from UNECE-environmental, SDG indicators and from other indicator frameworks such as EEA or OECD for the environmental theme for the sub-chapter 4.2.> Assess the current state, trends and recent developments and prepare the substantive part of sub-chapter 4.2 (summary - part I) and an annex (part II) with the detailed analysis and findings.
Het gebruik van plastic en plastic afval staan in de belangstelling op Terschelling. Plastic afval komt niet alleen uit zee, maar ook van gebruik op het eiland. Horeca en verblijfsaccommodaties op het eiland proberen daarom hun plasticgebruik terug te dringen en de transitie naar het toepassen van biologisch afbreekbaar plastic en circulair materialengebruik te maken. NHL Stenden, RUG Groningen, Van Hall en Friesland College ontwikkelen samen met de gemeente Terschelling de Victoria campus voor innovatieve projecten en onderwijs. Vooruitlopend hierop wordt in het Maritiem Instituut Willem Barentsz op Terschelling reeds nu een innovatielab ingericht waar partners uit bedrijfsleven, overheid, onderwijs en maatschappelijke organisaties samen aan oplossingen voor vraagstukken op het eiland werken. Het vraagstuk rondom het thema circulaire plastics op Terschelling past goed in dit innovatielab. De onderzoeksvraag is hoe reductie, hergebruik en recycling van kunststoffen op Terschelling tot stand gebracht kunnen worden door middel van ketensamenwerking en systeem verandering om meer duurzaam te gaan opereren op het gebied van verpakkingen en kunststofgebruik, gezonde voeding en het tegengaan van voedselverspilling. Het lokale platform Plasticvrij Terschelling wordt in deze aanvraag vertegenwoordigd door 3 ondernemingen, namelijk Hostel Stayokay Terschelling, Hotel De Walvisvaarder en Vakantiepark Tjermelan. Daarnaast neemt een landelijke leverancier van horeca producten, Bidfood, als partij uit de waarde keten deel. Uit het netwerk van de verschillende deelnemende lectoraten van NHL Stenden, namelijk lectoraat Circular Plastics, Lectoraat Sustainability in Hospitality & Tourism en Lectoraat Open Innovatie en het netwerk gelieerd aan de Victoria Campus worden waar nodig partijen betrokken die relevant zijn voor de oplossingsrichtingen. Innovaties worden ontwikkeld op het gebied van duurzame alternatieven voor wegwerpplastics in de keuken en het verminderen van grote plastic verpakkingsafval door een gezamenlijk, lokaal systeem van hergebruik en recycling.
Circular Economy is a novel disruptive paradigm redefining sustainability in the hospitality industry and addressing the environmental challenges set by this fast-growing impactful industry. To address these challenges, the creation of further knowledge on circular economy and its applications in the hospitality sector is fundamental, together with providing hoteliers and restaurateurs with proper skills and knowhow to tackle such challenges. Drawing on a on going pilot project on Circular Economy in Hotels in Amsterdam, the Friesland hospitality sector and the Professorship of Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences have set out to develop an innovative learning experimental environment in which Friesland hoteliers and restaurateurs can develop further knowledge and identify - together with students, researchers, and experts – possible key actions and strategies to implement regenerative circular processes of material up-cycling. To which extent this learning community of the Northern Netherlands contributes to develop wider knowledge on circular economy in hospitality and to identify, implement, and test innovative regenerative circular actions will be evaluated.
