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“Nano” regeneration

This article provides a nano (hyperlocal) view of climate change mitigation by viewing regenerative organizing through the eyes (as well as bodies and senses, etc.) of the households engaged in community-based energy projects. By showing what humans make up for in the largely absent relationship between nature and technology in these projects, we envision an incremental extension of the literature on community-based energy. The radically different contribution we aim to make is a tripartite imbrication that brings in natural agency alongside the human and the technical but specifies precisely how nano (smaller than micro) embodied practices afford mis- and realignments. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026619886841 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Milieubewuste kunststoffen

“Duurzaamheid”, het is één van de termen die tegenwoordig niet meer weg te denken zijn uit het nieuws, de reclames en vele netwerkbijeenkomsten. Duurzaam ondernemen, duurzaam wonen, duurzame energievoorziening, duurzame producten, gaat er een dag aan ons voorbij dat we niet worden herinnerd aan het belang van een duurzame levensstijl om er voor te zorgen dat deze wereld ook voor onze kinderen en achterkleinkinderen nog een fijne natuurlijke wereld mag zijn om in te leven? Op het gebied van duurzame materialen kregen zo biopolymeren en gerecyclede kunststoffen de aandacht. In dit boekje worden biopolymeren belicht. Daarbij wordt vooral ook aandacht besteed aan de discussie of biopolymeren nou wel echt zo milieuvriendelijk en duurzaam zijn als dat ze lijken. Dit boekje is opgesteld om ontwerpers en bedrijven die zich bezig houden met productontwikkeling praktische (eerste) informatie te bieden over biopolymeren. Naast definities, voor- en nadelen, technieken, toepassingsgebieden, soorten, eigenschappen en regelgeving zal ook een roadmap gegeven worden die inzicht geeft in welke biopolymeren er al zijn en welke er nog verwacht kunnen worden.

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Innovatiegedreven regionale ontwikkeling in Oost Nederland

Dit boekje is uitgegeven naar aanleiding van de lectorale rede van drs. Paul Bijleveld. Al lange tijd zijn we ons er in Nederland van bewust dat we wereldwijd niet meer concurreren met handenarbeid maar met hoofdarbeid. Dat noemen we ook wel de kenniseconomie. Maar op dat vlak staan we niet alleen. Niet alleen ten opzichte van de rijke landen, maar ook ten opzichte van de opkomende economieën is kennis niet meer onderscheidend. Kennis alleen maakt geen economische macht. Economische ontwikkeling draait om het vermogen om kennis om te zetten in betere of nieuwe produkten en diensten en deze aan de man of vrouw te brengen. Dit wordt uitgedrukt met de termen ´innovatie en ondernemerschap´, die als centrale voorwaarden worden gesteld voor regionaal ecomisch succes. Innovatie en meer recentelijk ondernemerschap zijn daarom belangrijk aandachtspunten in het onderzoek naar regionale economische ontwikkeling.

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Innovatiegedreven regionale ontwikkeling in Oost Nederland

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From wilderness to plastic flowers and mowed lawns

In human-controlled environments, areas of wild plants are 'translated' into cultivated landscapes to accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article explores indoor, agricultural and (sub)urban landscape in the Netherlands, focusing on the use of plants both indoors and outdoors, and reveals anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. The article also presents suggestions for alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in the Netherlands and beyond. https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=wilderness-plastic-plants-how-might-get-back-wildness https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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From wilderness to plastic flowers and mowed lawns

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Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

In human-controlled environments and in cultivated landscapes, the plants accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article will focus on the use of plants for agriculture, urban planning, forestry, environmental education and indoor decoration in The Netherlands. This exploration, based on literature review and observations, reveals mostly anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. In urban landscapes plants are pushed to the margins, if not entirely eradicated. This article shows that moral recognition of plants is an ethical imperative, which is also critically important to achieve environmental sustainability. In line with ecocentric ethics and in the interest of long-term sustainability, this article suggests alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in The Netherlands and beyond. This is the Author’s Original Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, on October 2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780 https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780

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Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

In human-controlled environments and in cultivated landscapes, the plants accommodate social, cultural and economic needs. This article will focus on the use of plants for agriculture, urban planning, forestry, environmental education and indoor decoration in The Netherlands. This exploration, based on literature review and observations, reveals mostly anthropocentric, instrumental and unsustainable practices. In urban landscapes, plants are pushed to the margins, if not entirely eradicated. This article shows that the moral recognition of plants is an ethical imperative, which is also critically important in order to achieve environmental sustainability. In line with ecocentric ethics and in the interest of long-term sustainability, this article suggests an alternative, more ethical and sustainable ways of relating to plants in The Netherlands and beyond. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in "Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability" on 10/11/18 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17549175.2018.1527780 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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The role of robotization in work design

Robots are increasingly used in a variety of work environments, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to how robots change work. In this comparative case study, we explore how robotization changed the work design of order pickers and order packers in eight logistic warehouses. We found that all warehouses robotized tasks based on technological functionality to increase efficiency, which sometimes created jobs consisting of ‘left-over tasks’. Only two warehouses used a bottom-up approach, where employees were involved in the implementation and quality of work was considered important. Although the other warehouses did not, sometimes their work design still benefitted from robotization. The positive effects we identified are reduced physical and cognitive demands and opportunities for upskilling. Warehouses that lack attention to the quality of work may risk ending up with the negative effects for employees, such as simplification and intensification of work, and reduced autonomy. We propose that understanding the consequences of robots on work design supports HR professionals to help managing this transition by both giving relevant input on a strategic level about the importance of work design and advocating for employees and their involvement.

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Rewilding Education in Troubling Times; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Post-Nature

The first part of this paper provides a series of conceptual critiques to illustrate how the recent move to inaugurate a “post-nature” world works to vindicate anthropocentric perspectives and a techno-managerial approach to the environmental crisis. We contend with this premise and suggest that troubling nature has profound implications for education. In the second part, we provide case studies from nature-based programs in The Netherlands and Canada to demonstrate how anthropocentric thinking can be reinscribed even as we work towards “sustainability”. Despite the tenacity of human hubris and the advent of the Anthropocene, we suggest these troubled times are also rich with emerging “post-anthropocentric” perspectives and practices. As such we offer “rewilding” as a means to think about education that moves beyond the romantic vestiges of “Nature” without lapsing into delusions of human exceptionalism. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/2334 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Rewilding Education in Troubling Times; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Post-Nature

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Forging Forms of Authority through the Sociomateriality of Food in Partial Organizations

This study theorizes on the sociomateriality of food in authority-building processes of partial organizations by exploring alternative food networks (AFNs). Through the construction of arenas for food provisioning, AFNs represent grassroots collectives that deliberately differentiate their practices from mainstream forms of food provisioning. Based on a sequential mixed-methods analysis of 24 AFNs, where an inductive chronological analysis is followed by a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we found that the entanglements between participants’ food provisioning practices and food itself shape how authority emerges in AFNs. Food generates biological, physiological and social struggles for AFN participants who, in turn, respond by embracing or avoiding them. As an outcome, most AFNs tend to bureaucratize over time according to four identified patterns while a few idiosyncratically build a more shared basis of authority. We conclude that the sociomateriality of food plays an important yet indirect role in understanding why and how food provisioning arenas re-organize and forge their forms of authority over time. Pascucci, S., Dentoni, D., Clements, J., Poldner, K., & Gartner, W. B. (2021). Forging Forms of Authority through the Sociomateriality of Food in Partial Organizations. Organization Studies, 42(2), 301-326. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840620980232

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Search results

Products 12

“Nano” regeneration

Milieubewuste kunststoffen

Innovatiegedreven regionale ontwikkeling in Oost Nederland

From wilderness to plastic flowers and mowed lawns

Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

Plastic flowers and mowed lawns: the exploration of everyday unsustainability

The role of robotization in work design

Rewilding Education in Troubling Times; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Post-Nature

Forging Forms of Authority through the Sociomateriality of Food in Partial Organizations

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