I would like to welcome you to the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability (CfS). These three universities have joined forces in this CfS on the topics of resource efficiency and circularity; a platform that fits excellently within the strengths of some of their crucial research groups.
My own institute, the Institute of Environmental Sciences Leiden (CML), is a global pioneer in Life cycle assessment and Material flow analysis, and hence can tell you which sectors are priorities for change. Such change needs new technologies and new sustainable product designs, and that is where various technology and design groups from Delft University of Technology (TUD), a Pioneer University with the Ellen MacArthur foundation comes in. But such new technologies and designs will only work if embedded in business models that can outcompete the old, linear ones – and here we have at Erasmus University the Rotterdam School of Management, one of the most prominent business schools in Europe.
Finally, when the change to circularity cannot be made via the market alone you need policies – and with the Dutch Research Institute for Transition (DRIFT) of EUR, the Faculty Technology, Policy and Management and the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden we again can field world-class staff. I know of few places where such good competences on all fields relevant for a transition to a circular economy are bundled.
Thanks to some successes, the CfS is now clearly taking off. In March, we had the kick-off of a Marie Curie Innovative Training Network of 15 PhD students in Delft. We have started a number of innovation hubs where industry, policy and science works together on resilient cities and other topics. The CfS student community has launched a successful initiative with regard to a Sustainable Business Battle, in which they suggest new, circular business models. I am looking forward to more of such nice developments and wish you a pleasant read.
About Arnold Tukker
Arnold Tukker is chairman of the CfS Executive Board. Since 1 October 2013, he is Professor of Industrial Ecology and Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University for 70% of his time. Until then, he was Business line manager Societal Innovation and Economy at TNO, a large not for profit research organization in the Netherlands, where he retains a 30% position as senior researcher. Arnold sets up prominent EU projects in the field of sustainable product design (SusProNet) and sustainable consumption and production and was core member of the 10 Million Euro Dutch Knowledge Network on Sustainable System Innovations.