Abstract of a lecture that was held on the annual congress of AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) in 2014.
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Bio-based and circular building materials and techniques can play an important role in the transition toward a more sustainable construction sector. This study focuses on the Northern Netherlands and explores those competencies (in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitude) required by construction workers to meet thechallenges of material transition. The perspectives on this topic of construction companies, vocational education institutions, and local networking initiatives have been collected and analyzed by using the thematic analysis method. The results indicate that the limited knowledge availability, combined with the restricted experimentation possibilities, shape the current experiences, as well as the positioning of these stakeholders, regarding the desired competencies of construction workers. It is found that mainly attitudinal aspects of the construction workers need to receive particular attention and prioritization. To achieve that, the results highlight the importance of knowledge exchange and awareness-raising initiatives, as well as the development of a flexible, regional, and comprehensive learning environment.
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Avans University of Applied Sciences is redrafting its courses and curricula in view of sustainability. For chemical engineering in particular that implies a focus on 'green' and bio-based processes, products and energy. Avans is situated in the Southwest region of the Netherlands and specifically in that region much development occurs towards 'a bio-based economy'. There is much agriculture based business, small and large companies, important chemical industry and it is situated between major industrial and chemical industry centers and leading international ports. Chemical companies see many opportunities in bio-based products and processes. Connecting the chemical and agrofood sector will lead to unexpected new innovation opportunities. Biomass has quite other characteristics than oil and gas, in composition, availability, and offers new options with respect to compounds that can be derived from it. So there is a strong need to develop and introduce novel processes, products and production routes based on biomass resources. It requires other technologies and equipment, another approach and another mindset than those chemical engineers are being taught at present. Process design, modeling, and optimization will have to be adapted to the new circumstances. Chemical engineering in its basic knowledge won't be different but in practice students will need other and extra knowledge and therefore get other cases to study in projects. That transition will be gradually but it starts now. The bio-based economy already asks for new approaches in education, in particular in chemical engineering. Already now we observe an increasing need for personnel with knowledge of biobased issues on site and for a more bio-based oriented chemical engineering curriculum. To acquire that new knowledge and to observe what is needed by industries involved in that bio-based economy Avans University of Applied Sciences is actively participating in projects with local companies, other universities and research institutes. For this paper we have taken the international (Interreg) cooperation project 'Energy Conversion Parks' (ECP) in which we partake as example how such projects can and must contribute when developing a 'bio-based chemical engineering curriculum'. Besides attention for the specific types of equipment, processes and compounds involved, it shows that crucial knowledge also concerns the complexity of energetic optimization and the need for economic synergy when using different biomass streams and conversion technologies. Aspects involved are also bio-refinery, bio-cascading (implying use of all biomass components for products with the highest possible value) and optimizing input and output for seasonal variations in availability and demand. It shows the need for special mathematical models to calculate mass and energy balances for integrated bio-based installations, as well as the economical profitability of the different possible combination of biomass inputs and conversion techniques. The cooperation with industrial partners shows which the important technologies and knowledge for the bio-based oriented chemical engineer are. Students work on cases derived from the projects. The research results increase the knowledge we can teach. Representatives of the various project partners, from industry and research institutes, contribute with lectures based on practice information. In this manner it is possible to develop curricula that are useful for industry and society as a whole and at the same time attractive for the much needed new students.
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Following the signature of the Paris Climate Agreement, governments developed policy to limit the anticipated warming of the climate. For the construction industry, this mostly involves economic use of raw materials and reducing power consumption in the production and use of buildings. In order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, a different perspective on the economic model arose: the circular economy as a counterpart to the current linear economy. Legislation and regulations follow up on this development, but only recently so. A lot has been put into motion. In this white paper, we set out the developments in legislation and regulations for a circular construction industry. One of the developments is a greater role for renewable materials and products in that future economy. This white paper answers various questions: • What legislation and regulations are important to scale up circular, bio-based construction? • What lessons can be drawn from the difference in approach between the countries involved? • How much of a barrier does legislation and regulation really pose? • How flexible is legislation and regulation in view of function change? • How much room does legislation and regulation offer for stimulating circular, bio-based construction
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In the housing market enormous challenges exist for the retrofitting of existing housing in combination with the ambition to realize new environmentally friendly and affordable dwellings. Bio-based building materials offer the possibility to use renewable resources in building and construction. The efficient use of bio-based building materials is desirable due to several potential advantages related to environmental and economic aspects e.g. CO2 fixation and additional value. The potential biodegradability of biomaterials however demands also in-novative solutions to avoid e.g. the use of environmental harmful substances. It is essential to use balanced technological solutions, which consider aspects like service life or technical per-formance as well as environmental aspects. Circular economy and biodiversity also play an im-portant role in these concepts and potential production chains. Other questions arise considering the interaction with other large biomass users e.g. food production. What will be the impact if we use more bio-based building materials with regard to biodiversity and resource availability? Does this create opportunities or risks for the increasing use of bio-based building materials or does intelligent use of biomass in building materials offer the possibility to apply still unused (bio) resources and use them as a carbon sink? Potential routes of intelligent usage of biomass as well as potential risks and disadvantages are highlighted and discussed in relation to resource efficiency and decoupling concept(s).
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This paper describes prototypes for transition pathways towards inclusive, sustainable development for seven regions in five European Countries. The approach for developing transition pathways was based on three theoretical building blocks. First, the ABCD-Roadmap that outlines the various steps to be developed in the design process of the transition pathway, secondly, the Socio-Ecological-System framework was used to describe the current situation and analyze the interactions within the system and lastly, the X-curve model provided guidance in categorizing activities and policies that should be adapted, developed new or stopped. The international team showed how transition pathways for sustainable development can be developed in different contexts and scale levels, all over Europe. The resulting advice can be helpful to professionals active in regional development, on municipal, provincial, national, or European level.
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Abstract: The transition towards renewable and sustainable energy is being accompanied by a transformation of communities and neighbourhoods. This transition may have huge ramifications throughout society. Many cities, towns and villages are putting together ambitious visions about how to achieve 100% sustainable energy, energy neutrality, zero carbon emission or zero-impact of their communities. We investigate what is happening at the local community level towards realizing these ambitions from a social perspective. We use the case study approach to answer the following question: how do local community energy initiatives contribute to a decentralized sustainable energy system? We find that especially the development of a shared vision, the level of activities and the type of organisation are important factors of the strength of the ‘local network’.
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The government of Ukraine has adopted the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) with clear goals and a roadmap to facilitate its energy transition towards renewable sources. This is done because of both climate concerns as well as reasons related to Ukraine’s foreign policy which led the government to decide that Ukraine should work more on its own energy independence. Currently the percentage of renewable energy sources in Ukraine is among the lowest of the entire Europe and there is only slow development in terms of the growth of the sector, even though there is a lot of available biomass, given the large and flat surface of the country with a well-developed agricultural sector. As in most countries in the world, there is a quite intensive and well-developed debate in Ukraine about the energy sector, energy usage and the necessary transition towards more renewable types of energy. One of the consequences of it is that Ukraine is one of the partner countries in the Paris agreement and committed itself to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the future. That means that a transformation towards renewable energy is needed, even though currently in Ukraine only a low percentage of energy is generated by sustainable sources. The general picture is that in Ukraine the development of the renewable energy sector is going not as fast as could have been. In other words, there are several barriers present that hinder the energy transition. One of the issues behind such a barrier may be a limited access to technology, or problems with legislation or other issues which may be unknown so far, but certainly relevant for foreign investors. The Ukrainian government adopted the so-called Renewable Energy Directive (RED), set goals for the energy transition and support the transition itself. In some areas progress was made, for example in the growing number of biomass fired boilers, but still Ukraine remains one of the European countries with the lowest percentage of renewable energy production. Therefore, in order to identify currently existing barriers and help to find possible applications of new technologies in Ukraine, the Dutch Enterprise Agency (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemerschap) commissioned this study. It was done within the framework of the Partners in Business on Bioenergy program. The focus of this study is on analysing the renewable energy sector, with special attention for biomass, in the form of biomass-based heating and biomass for biofuels. Of course, other parts of the renewable energy sector such as solar and wind energy are also taken into consideration. The second part consists of a case study to determine the business case for direct processing of sugar beets with Betaprocess as a possible application of biomass to biofuel production in Ukraine. The third study is aiming at determining the amount of biomass that can safely be taken from the fields, without negatively affecting the fertility of the soil. These sub-studies mentioned in the previous paragraph offer a better understanding of the renewable energy market in general and biomass/biofuel applications in particular. This study sheds light on several important questions that entrepreneurs and/or other foreign investors may have about investing in Ukraine. Even though it is well-known that doing business in Ukraine is challenging, it is also very important to have a clear picture of the opportunities that this country offers, within the limits that nature sets, in order to avoid negative consequences like soil degradation. The objective of this report is to find out about which opportunities and barriers exist in the Ukrainian transition towards renewable energy generation, to calculate the profitability of new biomass-processing technologies as well as finding out limitations of biomass usage.
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