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Page content: If you save money and energy by fitting energy-saving light bulbs, but then proceed to leave them on all night as it’s nearly free anyway, the net benefit for the environment will of course be relatively small. Such dilemmas are welcome research topics for our researchers at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.
They call this ‘production and consumption systems for households’. It boils down to this: truly responsible environmental and nature management is only attainable if the system as a whole is taken into account. If we take your household as the system, this means that you need to pay heed to both direct and indirect environmental factors. This encompasses everything from water and soil contamination, resource depletion and energy consumption to the disruption of natural processes due to resource extraction. It thus involves not only production and consumption, but also the disposal or recycling of the resources you use. It’s not just the energy used to have a hot shower; but also the water treatment required afterwards. Or the aluminium in the showerhead. How much bauxite was required to manufacture it? And what if you want to heat your water by another means, for example with a solar heater? How much energy does it cost to build one? And what’s the cost in resources?
Or how about the food that you buy in the supermarket? Have you ever stopped to consider the production processes involved? Do you buy string beans flown in from Ethiopia in the winter? Or do you choose locally grown winter cabbage? As a consumer you have an influence, albeit small, on the environmental consequences of the production processes. However, as you will have gathered, it is not easy to form a complete picture of such a system. So it is really quite difficult to be an environmentally conscious consumer. It often requires a bit more effort, and sometimes a bit more money, and for a lot of people that’s going too far.
This is a major dilemma for the industrial sector in particular. Businesses want to be environmentally friendly, but even more than that they want to make money! This conflict is clearly illustrated in Science LinX’s multiplayer game Fishbanks. In this game you are the manager of a fishing fleet and you have to decide whether to expand or in fact slow down your activities. Of course you want to make a lot of money, and preferably for many years to come. However, you have to compete with the other players and you may collectively disrupt the ecosystem... Are there enough fish for everybody?
Whether it is an ecosystem, an energy system, a food chain or a household; our researchers at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies are on to it! These environmental scientists study how such systems are interconnected using system analysis, material flow analyses and product analyses. By combining system analysis with so-called scenario studies, our researchers can also predict in which direction a system will evolve. For instance: ‘What will such a system look like in ten years time?’ or ‘What will happen if ...?’
Our environmental scientists are presently studying the opportunities for sustainable building and saving energy in households, such as the role of insulation in reducing energy consumption. Another hot topic they are presently researching is the environmental impact of tourism. For this research they are comparing the energy, land and water use of several holiday packages. What is the environmental impact of a camping trip to the island of Schiermonnikoog? Or a tropical cruise? And naturally the question: ‘How can you reduce the environmental impact of your holiday?’
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Colophon Special thanks to: Menno Keij, Johanneke Oosten, Dr René Benders (IVEM), Elske van der Vaart and Prof. Franjo Weissing. Please contact Science LinX if you should have been included in the acknowledgements. Author Siëlle Gramser
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Associative links:
 On anxious tits...
 Is it OK...? Debate!
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Fishbanks |
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