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Recent is de Nederlandse Rijksoverheid gestart met een langlopende klimaatcampagne. Onder de titel ‘Iedereen doet wat’ maakt de campagne duidelijk dat iedereen iets kan bijdragen: groot of klein. De campagne maakt heel slim de duurzame norm default door niet de vraag te stellen óf mensen iets kunnen doen voor het klimaat, maar wát ze kunnen doen. Echter, een recente studie toont aan dat zelf al iets kleins doen mogelijk indirect een negatief effect heeft op de steun voor vergaande, impactvolle overheidsmaatregelen.
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De energietransitie is op gang. “Nederland is op weg naar een klimaatneutrale toekomst. Beleidsmaatregelen, economische prikkels en technologische innovatie spelen hierin een cruciale rol. Zij vormen de aanjagers voor ontelbare besluiten door burgers en bedrijven in de gewenste richting. Daarbij wordt een ingrediënt vaak over het hoofd gezien: vertrouwen. Zonder vertrouwen in de overheid, in bedrijven én in elkaar komen de gewenste beslissingen niet tot stand en zal de transitie mislukken. Tenzij die met harde hand wordt afgedwongen. Met alle maatschappelijke gevolgen van dien.”
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Generiek betalen mensen met de minste mogelijkheden om hun energieverbruik te beïnvloeden, de hoogste energiebelastingen in relatie tot hun inkomen. Martien Visser over deze ongelijkheid.
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In het vorige blog kwam de term ‘greenwashing’ voor en werd ik nieuwsgierig of organisaties inderdaad zo groen zijn als ze beweren in bijvoorbeeld hun jaarverslagen. Greenwashing staat voor “het zich groener of maatschappelijk verantwoorder voordoen dan een bedrijf of organisatie daadwerkelijk is”. Het kernproces van het bedrijf is dan bijvoorbeeld nog niet aangepast. Bedrijven noemen hun product ‘natuurlijk’, terwijl er misschien maar één natuurlijk ingrediënt in voorkomt. Op die manier kunnen ze mooi meelopen met de groene trend, zonder daadwerkelijk te voldoen aan milieueisen. Het is meer een likje groene verf. Zijn er middelen die ons kunnen helpen bij het vormen van een kritische houding?
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Dit rapport is een aanvulling op de de toekomstvisie van het NBTC betreffende het inkomend toerisme in Nederland. Als aanvullende input voor genoemde toekomstvisie heeft het NBTC aan ETFI gevraagd om met behulp van een scenariostudie te komen tot (betere) ramingen van de omvang van het internationaal verblijfsbezoek aan Nederland richting 2030. Een dergelijke studie kan helpen bij het identificeren van onzekerheden en het bepalen van bandbreedtes. De doelstelling was als volgt omschreven: Op interactieve wijze een aantal toekomstscenario’s ontwikkelen die helpen bij het identificeren van onzekerheden en het bepalen van bandbreedtes waarbinnen het internationaal verblijfsbezoek zich op de (middel)lange termijn kan gaan ontwikkelen.
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Energy efficiency has gained a lot of prominence in recent debates on urban sustainability and housing policy due to its potential consequences for climate change. At the local, national and also international level, there are numerous initiatives to promote energy savings and the use of renewable energy to reduce the environmental burden. There is a lot of literature on energy saving and other forms of energy efficiency in housing. However, how to bring this forward in the management of individual housing organisations is not often internationally explored. An international research project has been carried out to find the answers on management questions of housing organisations regarding energy efficiency. Eleven countries have been included in this study: Germany, the United Kingdom (more specifically: England), France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Canada. The state of the art of energy efficiency in the housing management of non-profit housing organisations and the embedding of energy efficiency to improve the quality and performance of housing in management practices have been investigated, with a focus on how policy ambitions about energy efficiency are brought forward in investment decisions at the estate level. This paper presents the conclusions of the research
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Since the film of Al Gore An inconvenient truth, sustainability stands high on the national agenda of most countries. Concern for the environment is one of the main reasons in combination with opportunities to innovate. In general, innovation and entrepreneurship are important in the realm of national economies because they hold the key to the continuity and growth of companies (e.g. Hage, 1999; Cooper, 1987; Van de Ven, 2007) and economic growth within a country. It is therefore obvious that national governments are investing money to enable and improve innovation management and entrepreneurial behaviour within organizations with sustainability in mind. Policy measures are aimed at reduction of carbon dioxide emission, waste management and alternative use of energy sources and materials. In line with these measures companies are urged to integrate sustainability in their business processes and search for innovative sustainable solutions. While on a national level policy measures towards a more sustainable society are defined, enterprises - and especially small and medium sized companies - lag behind and fail in incorporating these measures appropriately in their day-to day business. As a result research for sustainability has become an important driver for innovation. Within the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CI&E) at The Hague University of Applied Sciences we have taken the initiative to develop an innovation and research program for the construction industry to help small and medium sized companies (SME's) integrate sustainability in their business processes, while simultaneously professionalizing students and lecturers. This paper is part of ongoing research among 40 companies in the region of South-Holland. The companies are mostly SME's varying from very small (6 employees) to middle-sized (more than 100). According to Rennings (2000) while innovation processes toward sustainable development have received increasing attention during the past years, theoretical and methodological approaches to analyse these processes are poorly developed. This paper describes a theoretical approach developed at our university's Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which combines education and research. It is an inductive approach that departs from real-life problems encountered by companies, and is aimed at developing a model that supports companies in integrating sustainability in their business and innovation processes. We describe the experiences so far with a number of companies in the construction industry, which participate in the innovation and research program described above and the barriers they encounter. Our sustainable program is centred on four themes: cradle-to-cradle, social corporate responsibility, climateneutral construction and sustainability and customer orientation in the building process. It is an exploratory research in which students and undergraduates are involved under the supervision of a lecturer as senior researcher of this program. Through an in-depth analysis of the companies, participant observation and indepth interviews with the owners/directors of the companies, experts and prominent sustainable trendsetters, insight is gained in innovation processes towards sustainable development. Preliminary conclusions show that on a company level one of the main bottlenecks is the dilemma posed by the need for profit for the continuity of a company, while taking into account people and planet. The main bottleneck is however the inability of companies to translate policy measures into strategy and operations. This paper is set up as follows. In section 2 we give an account of European and Dutch policy measures geared at stimulating sustainability in a business context and especially the building and construction industry. In section 3 an overview is given of the economic importance and characteristics of the Dutch building and construction industry and the problems in this sector. These problems are offset against the opportunity of sustainability as a strategic option for SME's in this sector. In section 4 the innovation and research program developed at the CI&E is introduced in the context of the main research question. Following that in section 5, methodological choices are addressed and the research design is presented. We finalize this paper in section 6 with our conclusions and recommendations for further research.
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Abstract. In recent years circular economy has become more important for the development of many places including cities. Traditionally, urban development policies have mainly been aiming to improve the socio-economic wellbeing of neighbourhoods. However, technical and ecologic aspects have their effects too and need to go hand in hand. This paper is based on an urban area experiment in the Dutch city of Utrecht. In order to assess urban area developments, typically rather straight-forward quantitative indicators have been used. However, it has proved more complicated to assess multifaceted developments of the area studied in this paper. With the City Model Canvas a multi-layered model is being used to better assess the impact of the urban development being studied. Key findings include that the project studied resulted in more space for companies from the creative industry and the settlement of local ‘circular’ entrepreneurs and start-ups, although it remains unclear to what extent these benefit from each other’s presence. The increase in business activity resulted in more jobs, but it is again unclear whether this led to more social inclusion. From an environmental point of view the project activities resulted in less raw materials being used, although activities and public events bring nuisance to the surrounding neighbourhoods.
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