In the beginning of the academic year the CfS Student Board organised three online lunch lectures for the LDE-Universities. Here is there recap of what the lectures were about:
Delft: Getting More by Using Less w/ Tomer Fishman
In this lunch lecture with Tomer Fishman, we learned about the issues related to material extraction and use while addressing the potential of more efficient resource use. The environmental and social impacts of material use are spread over the whole life-cycle of any given product, whether that is during the extraction, refining, manufacturing, use or disposal. The severity of the impacts in these life-cycle phases differs significantly between sectors and individual products/services. During this lecture, the different solutions and examples from practice were shown as to how better technology, design and consumption patterns lead to improvement of material efficiency.
Leiden: Environmental Injustice in the Arctic w/ Tanja Joona
In this lecture on environmental injustice, Tanja Joona developed a story of traditional life in the Arctic and how it is becoming rapidly threatened by external green energy investors. Arctic inhabitants who naturally adopt a low consumption lifestyle are seeing their local environments transformed intro windparks to compensate the excessive energy use of the developed Western world. The concept of NIMBY, familiar to the student audience, becomes problematic in a case where local, non-damaging livelihoods are halted for the sake of distant consumers.
Rotterdam Lunch Lecture: Entrepreneurship with a Purpose w/ Simon Schilt
The Lunch Lecture “Entrepreneurship with Purpose” with Simon Schilt, the initiator and business developer of Onze Markt, brought a lot of insights in why and how should the transition to a fair food chain take place. Simon emphasised the importance of strong “why” statements in entrepreneurship, from which sustainable business practices arise. In more detail, he presented the Onze Markt business model, which is built on the consumer setting specialisations for a product to ensure it is fair to the farmer, environment, and the consumer. The engagement of the lecture was high, as participants raised questions about the soil, burdens of price, and other topics and were provided with comprehensive answers.
written by: Holly Thomas