Accept the challenge #SustainableStudents

Nieuwsbericht | 26-01-2023 | 00:00

An outside view

The challenge helped the participating organisations a lot. "Almost all students contribute something substantial," says Esther van der Ent, project coordinator Sustainability Challenges at Leiden University. "Sometimes these are findings that were already known under the surface in the organisation, but often they also provide new perspectives. I therefore strongly encourage companies and governments to sign up for these challenges! From the beginning of March until the end of April, we will open another call for entries on our website." 

Many organisations within the central government are also working on sustainability. Within those organisations, it is not always easy to come up with good solutions, or to think outside existing processes and patterns. The perfect solution: getting a group of master students to conduct research. 

"Organisations can apply with their specific problem," Esther explains. "That can be a specific issue or an open question to help think about more sustainable operations. We then pair students with a suitable topic and they get to work." 

The challengers

An example of a successful group of students are The Lab Rats. They took up the challenge in recent months to make the national governmental laboratories more sustainble, including the RIVM, Customs Lab and NVWA. Worldwide, laboratories use a lot of energy and water and are responsible for as much as 2 percent of plastic waste. So it was time for an outside view.

The Lab Rats’ research is about  the procurement for national governmental laboratories, then moves on to day-to-day laboratory operations, and ends with processing waste streams. To gather all relevant perspectives, they apply various techniques, from quantitative environmental impact assessments to qualitative governance and transition analyses. Hajar, a student Industrial Ecology: "Although a lot of technical progress has been made thanks to single-use plastic utensils, we are pushing for more reuse."

Claes Wassenaar of RIVM is pleased with the research. "Especially in times of crisis, the focus on sustainability quickly shifts to the background. It is also often difficult to implement innovations in our laboratories. After all, you are bound by hygiene and safety rules when it comes to disposable plastic. This is precisely why it is extra important to get insights from students who do not walk around laboratories week in week out."  

Although full results will follow next month, The Lab Rats can say something in advance: "In the lab of the future, we imagine, the large amount of packaging waste has been reduced and packaging materials are reused wherever possible. Energy-intensive devices are used sustainably by looking at the lifespan and the circular use of the device as a waste stream," Hajar explains.

More sustainable at home?

It is a long-standing question: do people behave more sustainably at home than at work? Veronique Ruiz van Haperen of VWS and Marieke van den Bosch of SZW wanted to find out. Veronique: "At work, we saw a lot of poorly discarded waste. Also, colleagues sometimes reacted strongly to a lunch with only vegetarian options. We wondered: do people do this at home too?"

So, they put their group of students to work. Using an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews with officials, they tried to get to the bottom of the officials' actions and behaviour. As it turned out, officials were actually less sustainable at home than at work. Veronique: "The results of this study show why it is so valuable to participate in these Sustainability Challenges. You have certain assumptions about your colleagues' behaviour, but sometimes these are wrong. Now it is a matter of doing something with the results and recommendations. Key points for interventions are: approach it positively, keep it simple, use social norms and offer financial incentives. For example, we could make a game and play it with each other, to raise awareness and try out different things." 

Recommendations

Another theme that several departments within the national government are working on is sustainable ICT. For this, the students took a close look at the TaxAdministration and looked at how that organisation can  reduce their impact on the environment when using software. Student Suzan Vellekoop: "Our research shows that sustainability is not as black and white as is often thought. In principle, it is more sustainable to store all data at the Tax Administration on one large server in a data centre. But this way of working does intensify the use of more data. Using one server is efficient, but you don't save a lot if you keep increasing the data." 

A different group of students chose Logistics: the procurement category for central government logistics movements within the Netherlands and abroad. Barbara Budding, supervisor within the category Logistics: "We are glad we participated in the Sustainable Challenge. Our issue was about how to make the international logistics chain more sustainable and the students' recommendations led to new insights. Their recommendations varied from a pilot with sustainable packaging materials to a reduction in air transport. In fact, we are so excited, as soon as we heard about the next challenge we immediately signed up. A new group of students will start in February!"

Chris Steensma, project leader CO2 performance ladder at RVO, also led a student group. "It is nice that the students get to see the difference between theory and practice. In theory, there are many great solutions to our issue, but what can we really change in practice?" Student Yvette Nason: "The complex structures on the inside and outside of RVO sometimes lead to disagreements between different parties. This means that when we put forward our proposals for making the building more sustainable, in addition to technical solutions, we should also look at improving the RVO's communication structure with other parties." Chris: "It is nice that the students are making recommendations that we can really work on within RVO with our stakeholders. It also helps us to get confirmation from a younger generation about the findings we face as an organisation."

Get involved

Not just looking for new projects but looking for long-term projects: that is the goal of the Sustainability Challenges, Esther believes. "Therefore, sign up to this challenge with topics you as a company really want to take up in the years to come. That way, the students' research doesn't just disappear into a drawer." Veronique can agree. "I was impressed by all the groups. Especially nice to see how diverse the participants and their research questions are: from water use in animal park Artis to biodiversity at phone company KPN and from governmental organisations like RVO to the labs of RIVM. I will definitely advise my successor to participate in this challenge next year as well."

Are you a part of an organisation that is looking for ways to be more sustainable and do you want to know more about the Sustainability Challenges? Registration runs from the beginning of March. But you can also email Esther directly at Student.challenges@cml.leidenuniv.nl.