The True Cost of Sugar: Economic trade-offs in conventional, organic and Fairtrade sugarcane and sugar beet production.

Sugar is an important economic commodity that is produced and consumed around the world. The impacts of different production methods differ on social, economic and environmental aspects. This research focuses on the economic trade- offs in conventional, organic and Fairtrade sugarcane production in India and sugar beet production in the Netherlands. Previous research provides insights into single production methods, but a complete comparison between different production methods is currently lacking. Data was collected using both literature research and interviews in the Netherlands and India. After developing a Multi-Criteria Analysis, it is concluded that organic sugarcane and Fairtrade sugarcane rank slightly higher than conventional sugarcane on the economic criteria. However, conventional sugar beet and organic sugar beet rank higher on all economic aspects, with conventional sugar beet ranking the highest. The main differences between the production methods can be seen in the innovation, and to a lesser extent the in the production.

Circular cities: Analyzing bottom-up initiatives for making Amsterdam more circular

Circular economy is becoming ever more widespread sustainable concept for promoting efficient resource usage; Amsterdam is one of the first cities to implement this approach to solve waste management problems. While the circular transition is mostly examined from a top-down perspective, the role of bottom-up initiatives is often left unstudied. This article determines the contribution of bottom-up initiatives to Amsterdam’s circular transition by assessing their environmental, economic, social impact together with their commitment to circularity. The study utilizes the survey method followed by a statistical analysis to investigate the influence of such initiatives on public awareness, involvement, and behavioral change. The content analysis of initiatives’ official documentation and news articles allows revealing the environmental and economic impact and analyzing initiatives’ commitment to circularity. The results communicate that bottom-up initiatives mostly create an economic value and positively affect citizens’ involvement. However, the environmental impact, the influence on public awareness and partly on behavioral change is insignificant due to their small local scale and inconsistency between the declared and actual priorities. Such initiatives might still serve as trendsetters thereby indirectly tackling waste problem and facilitating Amsterdam’s circular transition.

Digitalisation of Dutch Agriculture: Implications of reducing Nitrogen pollution from livestock cultivation

"For the last many decades, the EU’s intensified agriculture model has shown a significant trend to reinforce the economy while feeding the world. The Netherlands is one of the EU’s member follow neoliberalism in agriculture by importing cheap animal feed & fertilisers and exports meat & dairy products. The intensification of Dutch agriculture results from solid collaborations among the Agriculture Innovation System actors (AIS). Nitrogen (N), being one of the essential elements of building blocks of life, is a vital nutrient, an indicator for global food security, and supports agriculture’s intensification. N in fertilisers and feedstock’s intensive use comes with the consequences of wicked problems such as ammonia (NH3) emissions in the air and nitrates (NOX) leaching in the soil. Around two-thirds of the Dutch farmlands and 80% of the crop, fertiliser is used for livestock cultivation. The Netherlands is famous for technological innovations worldwide (in terms of niche innovation); however, digitalisation is still an ‘alien’ term for Dutch farmers. A lack of landscapelevel technology implementation, weak policy infrastruture for monitoring pollution dynamics is one of the leading causes of the nitrogen crisis in the Netherlands. The N-crisis is causing distress in farmers, and the government is struggling for effective policy implementation. Therefore, there is a need for state-of-art initiatives which utilise maximum involvement of technology and the environment with minimum (government) efforts. This holistic and explorative cast-study research highlights the challenges and consequences of the Digitalisation of Agriculture Innovation System (DAIS) to resolve the Dutch N-crisis. Different aspects of research covered are 1) to address associates knowledge gaps, 2) analyse the cause of complex N-crisis in the Netherlands, 3) to analyse the current state of Dutch policy infrastructure & challenges and 4) to analyse present & future trend of DAIS transformations. This will ultimately lead to technology and policy recommendation supporting multi- stakeholders collaboration, creating a market of Nitrogen Trading System (NTS) at multiple levels and using digitalisation as a key for establishing Sustainable System Transformation (SST)."

Progression & Motivation - Working through challenges in sustainability focused project organizations

As the Brundtland (1987) described, the ability of future generations to meet their needs will depend on how sustainable we can make our economy today. Now more than 20 years later we can observe initiatives aimed at sustainability across industries and borders. Sustainable development aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability for future generations to meet needs. Understanding how organizational members thrive or stagnate in work related to sustainability can give us understanding needed for enabling such organizations to improve and prosper. Hence by researching what practices makes organizational members motivated to endure challenges in sustainability-focused organizations, beneficial insights can be contributed for the continuity of such organizations. This qualitive study with (participant) observation and interviews, aims to provide a deep comprehension and map aspects related to the motivation factors in mentioned work settings. The outcome of the research is related to theory on research that has the key words: sustainability, motivation and volunteering. The significance of the research is to discuss and propose what beneficial solutions can be derived out of the observed scenarios to contribute to sustainability focused organizational project work.

Influence of UV absorbing films on yield, quality and pest activity of protected strawberry crops

The cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) is a highly valuable and economically crucial soft fruit crop. Strawberries are famous due to their particular flavour, colour, quality, and appearance, as well as their nutritional value. They are one of the top ten crops cultivated and consumed in the UK. However, due to the limited season for cultivation but all year demand, there is still a high level of imported fresh produce from other prominent strawberry producing countries both in Europe and worldwide. There is a potential to develop new horticultural films with in-creased UV absorption to reduce pest and disease incidence, improve the yield of strawberries grown under protection and extend the strawberry season in the UK further; this is because insect visualisation and host recognition are influenced by UV radiation, and the life cycle of many fun-gal diseases relies on UV light. Therefore, an experiment was set-up to study the effect of four newly developed UV absorbing horticultural films (ranging from complete UV transmission to complete UV blocking) on strawberry plant growth, yield and fruit quality, as well as pest infestation. Overall, plant growth and fruit quality were largely unaffected by UV absorbance. Still, the yield was enhanced, and the thrips population significantly reduced, which are beneficial outcomes for the strawberry industry. The partially UV absorbing film (UV 370) performed considerably better than other films regarding fruit quality and yield. The completely UV blocking film (UV 400) was serving better initially but degraded after the second peak harvest resulted in reduced performance later. If the UV 400 film could be stabilised to prevent degradation, there is the potential to improve strawberry fruit yield and quality.

Evaluation of the Directive 2008/50/EC on Ambient Air Quality

The EU Directive 2008/50/EC on Ambient Air Quality and Cleaner Air for Europe is one of the actions taken at the European Levelto reach sustainable air quality levels that do not threaten the Environment and EU citizens across EU Member States. After over 10 years, it was considered appropriate to evaluate the EU intervention with the aim to comment, on its shortcomings and to provide policy recommendations. According to the EU “better regulation guidelines”, every assessment should use the evaluation criteria framework and investigate five main aspects of the intervention, namely effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, relevance and EU added value. Although this framework must guide every evaluation, the level of investigation implemented for each of the five criteria stills depends on the initiative being assessed, as well as the timing and data reliability. The analysis of the five criteria demonstrated a solid difficulty in implementing EU-wide measures to improve air quality. Although there’s no doubt about the relevance, cohesion and EU-added value aspects of the Directive, its efficiency and effectiveness can be debated.

Life in Plastic, It’s not Fantastic: The Economics of Plastic Pollution

Since the 1950s, the production of plastic surpassed the production of almost every other material. If the trends in plastic production - and oil consumption - continue at its current rate, estimates are that by 2050 there will be about 12 billion tonnes of plastic litter in the environment and the plastic industry will be responsible for 20% of the world’s total oil consumption. Globally, management of the increasingly large quantity of plastic waste has been challenging, with only 9% of plastic being recycled and almost 80% of plastic being either dumped, disposed in landfills or littered in the environment, resulting in an estimated 4 to 12 million metric tonnes (Mt) of plastic waste in the oceans annually. The improvement of solid waste management systems has not accompanied the rapid growth of plastic production, creating market inefficiencies with serious downstream effects on human health, quality of life and the environment – in particular marine life. Ultimately, there is no “one size-fits-all” solution to the current plastic problem. Governments, businesses and individuals all have a major role to play in paving the way for a circular economy with more sustainable patterns of consumption and a more efficient design of plastic products

The Role of Sustainable Design in the Current Refugee Crisis

This research paper discusses the question to which extent sustainable design by female designers can help mitigate humanitarian hardship caused by a refugee crisis. To examine this question, four sustainable design projects will be analyzed with respect to their ability to meet refugees’ needs and the extent of their sustainability. After the presentation of the designs, several questions will be addressed. Specifically, the economic feasibility and effectiveness of the solutions in targeting issues that arise with a refugee crisis will be evaluated. The paper recognizes limitations of the presented designs in terms of providing structural, macro-level solutions to a refugee crisis. It then concludes by acknowledging the overall potential of sustainable innovation in relieving humanitarian hardship caused by a refugee crisis.

Estimating the effects of restoration on ecosystem services in the Haringvliet: Mapping current and future regulating ecosystem services

To improve the state of the ecosystem of the Haringvliet, an estuary in the Southwest Delta of the Netherlands, the dam, which cuts off the estuary from the sea, will be opened a little in 2018. My research aims to quantify plausible changes of the ecosystem services supply following this water management modification and accompanying habitat restoration measures. For this purpose, values of ecosystem services supply for the relevant ecosystems were collected from the literature and GIS mapping was applied. The study shows clearly that the ecosystem services supply is expected to increase in general following the restoration scenarios. The results can be used for the planning of additional restoration measures aiming to provide the highest possible supply of the ecosystem services.

Adaptation in Global Climate Governance: Linkages between Intergovernmental Dialogue Forums and the UNFCCC Regarding Adaptation

This paper investigates how intergovernmental dialogue forums addressing climate change outside of the UNFCCC are linked with the UNFCCC regarding their statements on adaptation. The discussed forums are the Major Economies Forum, G8, and G20. Three analytical points of comparison concerning the UNFCCC are established, namely: the UNFCCC gives adaptation the same priority as mitigation; there is increasing attention for the role of transnational actors in adaptation; and there is a clear distinction between the roles of developing and developed countries. A qualitative content analysis of forums’ documents was conducted to investigate the nature of the linkages between statements related to adaptation. The key conclusion is that there is much overlap regarding adaptation statements between the dialogue forums and the UNFCCC, but there could be complementarity as regards certain adaptation subjects about which the forums made statements prior to the UNFCCC.