Ride the butterfly, fight the good fight, square the circle – these were just a few of the metaphors at play at the latest SDG Global Festival of Action. UNU-MERIT’s SITE4Society team joined the conference on 3 May 2019, in partnership with our sister institute UNU-FLORES. Put simply, our event aimed to break down the barriers to sustainable behaviour and trigger a different way of thinking. The Circular Economy (CE) is all about restoration and regeneration by design, whereby products are optim...
“Europe isn’t rich in natural resources, but we are very rich in human resources, and the circular economy can draw on those and export the technologies they spawn to the rest of the world,” said Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, announcing the roll out of the EU’s Circular Economy Package. His words serve as a guiding theme for much of our work at SITE4Society, including our latest event in January 2019. … The ‘tr...
The UN’s research and training institute in the Netherlands, UNU-MERIT, has introduced a carbon ‘tax’ on air travel for its more than 100 staff and researchers. As of 1 January 2019, all business travel by plane will incur an additional premium, which will be used to offset carbon emissions. Part of a broader programme encompassing the use of solar panels, factory water to heat and cool offices, and vegan lunch options, the new tax will make the institute more sustainable in its operations as we...
A 22-year-old student on our Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP) has won the first ever Maastricht Student Entrepreneur Award. Laura Nieboer took home the prize for her ‘Pieke Broodbier’ – a “really fruity” British Golden Ale with a “strong bite” and a novel twist: it is brewed from waste bread. Laura told Zuid Limburg news: “I first realised I could have an ‘environmental career’ while studying for a BA in Environmental Sciences and Entrepreneurship ...
For this sixth edition of our Science Reporting Workshop, Reach and Turn, we partnered with UNESCO, the City of Knowledge Foundation, and the National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation — returning to Panama as a side event of the second Latin America and Caribbean Open Science Forum (CILAC). In this edition we focused on the role of academic activism, the use of social media for communicating science, and the road ahead for science communication in Latin America and global...
A joint post by Profs. René Kemp and Shyama V. Ramani From entertainment to healthcare, innovation is everywhere. Yet, what is the end goal of all these new products and processes — and what should be the EU’s policy priorities? Should ‘we’ improve sustainability among rich consumers or better apply innovation for the poor, both at home and abroad? The basic answer is both, according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by world leaders back in September 20...
A joint post by Prof. Shyama V. Ramani and Dr. Sanae Okamoto ‘The road to hell,’ goes the age-old proverb ‘is paved with good intentions’. In the 21st century, there can be no clearer example of this than the millions of underused or abandoned toilets in the developing world built for Sustainable Development Goal 6 on Clean Water and Sanitation. Yes, technology and innovation can speed up economic growth and inclusive development, but they are clearly NOT enough. What’s missing, say Prof. Shyama...
My research addresses the problem of deforestation and forest preservation in Brazil. This country has the largest stretch of tropical forest in the world. Surprisingly, and this is good news for once, Brazil has reduced yearly deforestation levels dramatically over the last decade. Since the Rio Conference in 1993, the Brazilian government has given protected status to 40% of the ‘Amazônia Legal’ region. This means it has demarcated indigenous areas, monitored deforestation via satellite imager...
In our third and final report from the DEIP Innovation Workshop in Morocco, September 2018, we spoke with Omar Elyoussoufi Attou, Head of Innovation at the Moroccan Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Executive Training. … How can this DEIP workshop help national governments — not only in Morocco but across the African Union? This workshop was an opportunity for us to have a better understanding of the issue of innovation in our countries, across various regions of ...
In this second report from our DEIP Innovation Workshop in Morocco, September 2018, we caught up with Dr. Mafini Dosso, an Ivorian national who works for the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Seville, Spain. … We spoke about the pyramid of science communications: about serving the handful of policymakers at the top and the mass of citizens at the bottom. But you also mentioned the disconnect between the two, i.e. the lack of quality science communications in the middle. ...