Author: Inge Luyten

Utrecht Community consists of more than 25 organizations that all contribute to integrated sustainability from their own discipline. In this blogpost, one of UCo’s communitymembers shares its’ knowledge and ideas on a specific topic. 

Written by: Jane Butler from Except Integrated Sustainability

Plans were bubbling for almost a year at UCo, as a small group mused over how they could use the outdoor office space for a garden and maybe grow food for employees. UCo is a relatively young community of sustainability professionals, founded in 2017. As the community matured, the garden became a realisable project. “This year as UCo is evolving, wider participation from the group began taking place. People wanted to make our outdoor area more beautiful and unique to what we do”, my colleague Saskia explained to me, having been involved since the idea’s inception.

The office at UCo is indeed beautiful on the inside, with plants and trees sprawling high and wide around the shared office space. There is plenty of natural light filtering through large glass panels. Located in an industrial building, between two diverging train tracks from Utrecht Centraal, our concrete urban surroundings merited some inspired action.

A lot of background work was involved, of course: ordering soil, choosing seeds, and sourcing expertise. “We had to make a lot of phone calls!”, said Emma, our architect, having invested many hours in the process. An external expert volunteering with us, Suzanne Van Der Berg was essential. Suzanne told me that she was motivated to transform what was then a grey yard, into a green one, “so that people could interact with nature during their day”. We found that enthusiasm around the project generated generous sponsorship from the kickstarter Pay it Forward, as well as a local farmer who provided, free of charge, the apple crates in which we would plant almost everything.

The date was set to ‘Make the Garden Great’ and a willing number of people left their desks one late afternoon to get involved. The group effort involved clearing a space and shifting large quantities of soil to the various plots. This kind of physical endeavour made sure that we began breaking a sweat and working in unison with each other. It was a great way to get to know people that you had seen daily but never chatted to.

“The garden is the new connector in the community. It has become an easy way to interact with different people.”  says Emma.

After about two evenings of work, some laughs, dirty office wear for the inappropriately dressed, and some shared beers afterwards – we had a garden that was beginning to sprout.

Now, some weeks on, the beds are almost overflowing with the first harvest. I talked to people in the community to see what the results have been.

How are you making use of our new garden?

“I always have my lunch outside if the weather permits. I really like to work and then go outside for a little bit, to see if I can pick out some weeds. Small contact with nature is really relaxing.”

“My favourites of the garden are the Moroccan mint that I use for tea, and the fennel leaves that really add to flavour in a dressing”

“It’s extremely practical as we don’t buy salad leaves anymore. Value is increasing for biodiversity as we see in small birds, butterflies and bees!”

“As a cooking enthusiast trying to shift towards a (mostly) plant-based diet, a blooming garden on the office doorstep is a blessing”

Our abundant rocket took the prize for the favourite pick, among everyone.

Does it have an effect on your working day?

“During the day, it is really nice to spend half an hour outside, whether we are watering the beds, having a walk with colleagues or sampling some of the flavours. It makes me feel very proud.”

“I love seeing the noticeable growth after a weekend. I can walk around and sample a bit of everything!”

“We are all working in sustainability in one way or another. We should be able to come into contact with nature in a small way during our day.”

Charles brought along his kids to the office, and it seems that they now regard growing food as a norm in office life. “The kids love it. For them, it’s completely normal that an office should have a garden with food.”

“The general norm before was that you could eat your two sandwiches as quickly as possible behind your desk. A garden empowers people to think more about their food rituals during the day.”

I see the project as a bright addition to individuals and to the community as a whole. It is the combination of working in a garden, and enjoying better tasting fresh ingredients that creates a sense of well being which is already manifesting itself. We have work ahead to ensure daily watering and maintenance as the garden evolves and as different produce becomes available. The date is already set for the next sowing session. We had the fortune of strategic timing, as the summer months arrive affording us the luxury to eat outside. Yesterday, I learned how to pick fennel, so I am now planning my exit from meetings, to get my hands dirty, and prepare a fresh salad on time for lunch.

Utrecht Community consists of more than 25 organizations that all contribute to integrated sustainability from their own discipline. In this blogpost, one of UCo’s communitymembers shares its’ knowledge and ideas on a specific topic. 

Utrecht Community bestaat uit meer dan 25 organisaties die allemaal bijdragen aan geïntegreerde duurzaamheid vanuit hun eigen discipline. In deze blogpost deelt een van de communityleden van UCo zijn kennis en ideeën over een specifiek onderwerp.

Geschreven door: The Missing Link 

Op donderdag 14 maart 2019 organiseerde The Missing Link, samen met de Reinwardt Academie, het ministerie van OCW en het Nationaal Restauratiefonds, het kennisevent ‘Bouwen aan plekken met identiteit’. Dat erfgoed belangrijk is in de leefomgeving en sociaal-maatschappelijk kan verbinden, is onlangs door het kabinet onderstreept in de beleidsbrief Erfgoed Telt uit september 2018.  Het thema van de dag was hoe je erfgoed en identiteit kunt inzetten bij gebiedsontwikkeling om gezamenlijk betekenisvolle plekken te creëren.  De ruim 120 aanwezigen in de voormalige wagenwerkplaats van Utrecht Community (UCo) vormden een  bijzondere mix van mensen, professionals op het snijvlak van erfgoed en ruimte – overheid, markt en educatie. Cultuursocioloog Michiel Schwarz opent het programma met zijn keynote speech over Straatwaarden. Hij spreekt van een veranderend speelveld, een cultuuromslag, waarbij mensen gezamenlijk een sociaal-duurzame stad maken met gebruik van erfgoed op openbare plekken. Er is een beweging gaande waarin erfgoed (idealiter) beter verbonden raakt met de waarden van lokale groepen bewoners en andere spelers.

Zie ook de video en een uitgebreider verslag van de dag op: https://the-missinglink.nl/kennisevent-bouwen-aan-plekken-met-identiteit-geslaagd-unieke-mix-van-deelnemers/

 

 

Utrecht Community consists of more than 25 organizations that all contribute to integrated sustainability from their own discipline. In this blogpost, one of UCo’s communitymembers shares its’ knowledge and ideas on a specific topic. 

Written by: Recycling Netwerk Benelux

The battle against the plastic soup: are European governments as ambitious as Commission and Parliament?

The European Parliament strongly backed the Commission’s proposal to ban a range of single-use plastics and to ensure that producers will pay the clean up costs. On October 24th, an impressive 91.5% of the Parliament supported the ambition to curb the ocean pollution. The members of parliament listened to the demand of the European citizens to take effective measures against the plastic soup.

However, since the Council has joined the discussion and trilogues – the trilateral negotiation between Commission, Parliament and Council – have started, the process has taken a worrying turn. In the Council, amendments have been put forward that cause confusion and will undermine the intended environmental impact of the Single-Use Plastics Directive. The plastics and packaging industry is heavily lobbying the national governments with the aim to put some loopholes in the Directive.

As an environmental organisation, we appeal to all policy makers and governments to remember that this Single-Use Plastics Directive has been drafted to protect our environment, not businesses. Next to our environment, however, there is another compelling reason why the Directive should be kept at least as ambitious as proposed by the Commission and Parliament. The EU has made preceding environmental commitments which are close to impossible to live up to without a strong Single-Use Plastics Directive.

In this article we list a handful of the international commitments that are in danger of being compromised by a weakened Single-Use Plastics Directive. Then we give some examples of Council amendments that are undermining the strength of the Directive as proposed by the Commission and adopted by Parliament.

 

Without a strong Directive, these 5 European commitments are doomed to fail

A strong Single-Use Plastics Directive, with EPR kept intact and the 90% separate collection target for bottles by 2025 upheld, is needed to live up to at least 5 earlier environmental agreements to which the EU has committed itself.

• Already in 2014, the European Commission issued a reduction target for marine litter. By 2020, marine litter has to be reduced by 30% for the ten most common types of litter found on beaches. Now, the Council is suggesting a delay for two key measures of the Single-Use Plastics Directive that can really reduce marine litter substantially: it wants to postpone the 90% separate collection target for plastic bottles with 5 years (until 2030) and the implementation of mandatory EPR with 3 years (until 2024).

• In the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy (Plastic Strategy), which was adopted in January 2018, the EU commits herself to ensure recyclability of all plastic packaging on the EU market by 2030. Currently, different types of plastic waste are collected together, which results in a mixed, contaminated and thus low quality plastic stream which is difficult to recycle. Reaching this goal is thus inconceivable without separate collection systems that yield pure and high quality streams of plastic. It will become very difficult for the the EU to ensure the recyclability of all plastic packaging by 2030, if already the objective for separate collection for just one item, plastic bottles, threatens to be successfully undermined by industry lobbying. Moreover, recycling costs will inevitably stay steep due to mixed waste streams. By creating better manageable collection systems with as low contamination as possible, recycling will become easier and thus profitable.

• The EU pledged to reduce consumption of single-use plastics in the same Plastic Strategy. Ultimately, to move to a circular economy, we should move away from single-use items. This Directive is a first step, of course in prohibiting certain single-use plastic items and demanding a consumption reduction in Member States. But one should not forget that EPR has proven to be an important driver in stimulating eco-innovation and eco-design, whilst boosting collection rates, and thus is necessary to move towards such circular models.

• The fact that curbing plastic pollution and a focus on reuse, repair and recycling of plastics makes a “tangible contribution to reaching the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement”, was actually a motivation by the EU Commission for drafting the Plastics Strategy. Recent research, however, shows that the actions of the EU lag behind their commitment to halt climate change under the Paris Agreement. A more circular approach to plastics contributes significantly since it is one of the key materials accounting for most industry CO2 emissions. In fact, plastics alone risk exceeding the carbon budget quota available for industrial emissions. CO2 is released in the production but also in the incineration of plastics, since plastics contain substantial embedded carbon in the material itself. This is released as CO2 when plastics are burned. Since current recycling rates are low, the CO2 gains of improving circularity in plastics are substantial. The EU has to take the first necessary steps in making the transition to a circular approach for plastics by means of a strong Single-Use Plastics Directive.

• Finally, in these 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs, 2015), the Member States of the EU committed themselves to “by 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris” (UN SDG 14.1) and to “by 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources” (UN SDG 12). The first commitment somewhat summarizes the goal of the SUP Directive and therefore obviously calls for an ambitious Directive. Both separate collection and EPR are measures of the SUP Directive that contribute to the efficient use of natural resources in a straightforward and effective manner. These measures will make EU a frontrunner in this area. However, if the EU does not seize the opportunity to implement EPR and an ambitious separate collection target in the SUP Directive, it will create a lock-in situation that will hinder reaching these UN SDGs for many years.

 

These Council amendments will weaken the Directive

The Directive would become weaker, and unable to live up to these commitments, if some of the Council amendments regarding Extended Producer Responsibility(EPR, Article 8) and the separate collection target for plastic bottles (Article 9) would be adopted. These measures form the backbone of the Directive. Impairing them would impair this legislation to such an extent that it would not contribute to the above mentioned European commitments.

 

Clinging to ineffective, non-binding agreements with industry

EPR as suggested by the Commission and Parliament obliges producers to pay the clean up costs for litter. By charging producers with the bill, this industry will be motivated to improve their efforts on litter prevention – for example by designing less litter-prone products or setting up more effective collection systems – as this will reduce the clean up costs they have to pay.

Currently, producers of plastic items are not required to take responsibility for their product ending up in litter, but can come up with voluntary actions to address their littered products. Since this voluntary arrangement has not led to the expected results in reducing the plastic soup, the Commission drafted this Directive to systematically tackle the most problematic single-use plastics.

Neither the Commission nor Parliament gave way to pressure from industry lobbyists who are heavily resisting EPR and do not want to pay for the clean up costs.

Under Austrian Presidency, however, the Council suggests delaying setting the target from 2021 to 2024. Moreover, the Council creates unnecessary confusion by tampering with EPR and its workings by proposing the following (Article 17):

“Provided that the (…) objectives as set out in (…) Article 8 (EPR) are achieved, Member States may transpose the provisions set out in (…) Article 8 (…) by means of agreements between the competent authorities and the economic sectors concerned”.

This amendment has two possible interpretations that both compromise EPR and its workings. Either the Council does not want to move away from the current situation but gives Member States the chance to maintain the voluntary arrangements as long as objectives are met. Or the Council wants to give Member States the option to replace EPR with voluntary agreements with the industry once the urgently needed results have finally been achieved by means of mandatory EPR.

It just takes one look at the plastic soup to comprehend that either continuing with or returning to letting businesses aim to curb plastic pollution voluntarily will only have further detrimental effects for our environment. It is time for the EU to act decisively and to act now. EPR is an effective instrument to systemically tackle plastic pollution. It should therefore be implemented without alterations and in the short term, to last for the long term.

 

Committing to 12 years more of plastic bottles’ pollution?

A high separate collection target for plastic bottles keeps these plastic items out of the environment, as it motivates Member States to strive for the most successful collection systems. The 90% separate collection target by 2025 as suggested by Commission and Parliament is achievable both in time as in percentage: the case of Lithuania shows that a return rate exceeding 90% can be achieved in less than two years time.

Whereas Parliament added a 35% recycled content target for new bottles to strengthen the circular approach to plastic bottles, the Council seems to be only mitigating this aim. It suggests a much weaker 75% separate collection target in 2025 and delays the 90% with five more years to 2030. Given the billions of plastic bottles sold every year, that means a huge amount of plastic will continue to pollute our seas.

The Austrian Presidency should acknowledge that there is no rational justification to decrease the target in percentage or to expand the timeline and step up its environmental game. Separate collection of plastic bottles, for example by means of a deposit-return system, will guarantee high-quality recycling and a decrease in plastic pollution.

 

A strong SUP Directive is necessary to achieve the European goals

In conclusion, Europa has to adopt a strong SUP Directive as proposed by the Commission in order to reach its own environmental objectives. Watering down the SUP Directive would mean that plastic pollution levels will not decrease and, the EU will not be able to respect its international commitments.

When mandatory EPR gets replaced with voluntary agreements, Europe irrevocably gets trapped in the current situation of plastic pollution and huge costs of cleaning up for municipalities and taxpayers.

Delaying the 90% separate collection target for plastic bottles until 2030, means 5 more years of marine pollution, way beyond the deadline set by the UN Sustainable Development Goal. But confirming the 90% target, means yielding a pure and high quality stream of plastics that will facilitate qualitative recycling and make it profitable. It is a great opportunity to create a level playing field, necessary for the transition to a Circular Economy which the EU has envisioned for 2030, and creating great European business opportunities.

The SUP Directive, as drafted by the European Commission and supported by the votes of the European Parliament, corresponds to the environmental and economic ambitions the EU has committed itself to in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. All Member States will need to make a joint effort in order to meet these goals.

Therefore, Recycling Netwerk Benelux strongly calls upon the members of the Council for visionary decisiveness and determination to support the SUP Directive as it is – and not weaken it as to leave Europe with a sea where plastics outnumber fish.