Zoekresultaten

Education for the future?

Building on the Millennium Development Goals, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG) were established. Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace the SDGs, given escalating sustainability challenges, this article questions whether ESDG is desirable as “an education for the future”. Many challenges outlined by the SDGs are supposed to be solved by “inclusive” or “sustainable” economic growth, assuming that economic growth can be conveniently decoupled from resource consumption. Yet, the current hegemony of the sustainability-through-growth paradigm has actually increased inequalities and pressure on natural resources, exacerbating biodiversity loss, climate change and resulting social tensions. With unreflective support for growth, far from challenging the status quo, the SDGs and consequently, the ESDGs, condone continuing environmental exploitation, depriving millions of species of their right to flourish, and impoverishing future generations. This article creates greater awareness of the paradoxes of sustainable development and encourages teaching for sustainability through various examples of alternative education that emphasizes planetary ethic and degrowth. The alternatives include Indigenous learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, education for steady-state and circular economy, empowerment and liberation. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in 'Journal of Environmental Education' on 01/20/20, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00958964.2019.1710444 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

A Method for Indexing Axiomatic Independence Applied to Recongfigurable Manufaturing Systems

Modern manufacturing has to deal with global competition, in which customers have high purchasing power. Production efficiency and rapid response to customer demand are dominant conditions for enterprises to stay successful. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) are designed to have a modular architecture in both mechanical design and control system. The architecture enables change of the machine structure quickly, by adding and removing parts of the system, and by changing the corresponding software programming. It can handle short times to market. This paper presents an ‘Index-Method’ to monitor the reconfiguration of RMS. The method is able to categorise the reconfiguration and related development in seven stages. It focusses specifically on the Independence Axiom. The main goal is to find all relevant parameters to cause interactions, and to decouple them. The solution, aiming to be scientifically vigorous and practically applicable, was applied to a true case; the development of a manufacturing system for an inkjet print head for industrial applications. The realisation of the system required the development of new process technology. The index-method may be considered successful. It has the ability to structure the configuration process of RMSs. The method harmonises well with the industry known V-model.

The Amsterdam Doughnut

Scholars in sustainable consumption increasingly highlight the limitations of “weak sustainable consumption” approaches to overcome the challenges of the current environmental crisis. While efforts to enable cleaner production and circular flows of materials are necessary and important, progress in environmental efficiency tends to deviate attention away from a more critical challenge: advancing sufficiency. In order to deliver “absolute” improvements, reducing production and consumption levels (an explicit focus on “strong sustainable consumption”) is needed. However, international and national environmental policies tend to avoid such measures. The literature points out that resistance from businesses and citizens and fear of losing geopolitical power or income from consumption taxes are major obstacles for such policies to emerge. In this context, this paper examines the case of the “Amsterdam Doughnut”, the measures aimed at reducing consumption of electronics, textiles and furniture included in the “Amsterdam Circular 2020-2025 Strategy”, and the relation to product lifetimes. Interviews with key actors involved in the integration of Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economy model into the city strategy were conducted, and official documents were reviewed. The paper discusses to what extent these efforts can be characterized as a “strong sustainable consumption” policy, and aspects that may have helped to overcome the resistance mentioned above, contributing to ongoing debate about the implementation of sufficiency principles.

The insanity of endless growth

The authors consider the reality that endless economic growth on a finite planet is unsustainable, especially if society has exceeded ecological limits. The paper examines various aspects of society's endless growth predicament. It reviews the idea that there are 'limits to growth'; it then considers the 'endless growth mantra' within society. The paper then considers the 'decoupling' strategy and its merits, and argues that it is, at best, a partial solution to the problem. The key social problem of denial of our predicament is considered, along with the contribution of anthropocentric modernism as a worldview that aids and abets that denial. Finally, the paper outlines some potential solutions to our growth predicament. https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/article.php?t=insanity-endless-growth https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

Reorganizing logistics to reduce urban logistics trips – experiences from CILOLAB with decoupling points.

Reorganizing city logistics to reduce urban movements – Experiences with hubs and decoupling inner and outer urban transport.

To realize a more sustainable city logistics system the focus should go beyond reducing emissions only. Next to zero emission vehicles, reduction of urban logistics trips is required in light of several urban, environmental and economic challenges. This contribution focuses on the role of hubs and decoupling points, where logistics flows to and from a city are decoupled from the flows in a city, to optimize the city logistics. For six distinctive hubs or decoupling point concepts, we examine the potential under current market and legal conditions. By decomposing city logistics in subsegments and urban logistics trip structures, we estimate the realistic trip reduction potential of decouple points in the current city logistics conditions.