Sustainability in Active8-Planet: “It is also about poetry and beauty, not just technology.”
Griet, I had the pleasure of working with you for 1,5 years on the Active8-Planet project. One of the things I appreciate very much is your strong commitment. I understand this already started in your childhood. Do you remember what triggered you?
My parents were very traditional but there was a sensitivity to sustainability. We usually went hiking in nature during our vacations, I was a member of the Panda club (WWF for children) and chemical pesticides were not allowed into the house. In short, you have to take care of your environment. We also had the book ‘Limits to growth’ in our house, which became tangible during the energy crisis in the early ‘70s. I remember I absolutely hated the house being cold inside.
You were looking for a way to shape this further after completing your engineering studies…how did that go for you?
A vacant lot, overgrown and full of plants, was being cleared out to erect a building during my studies. That was so sad, I realized that it could not become my profession. So, I sought out opportunities where I could develop/gain expertise in the field of sustainability, and I took advantage of them to grow and try to make a difference. In the entire program, durability was only addressed in the course “building physics”. That inspired me to work with that professor as a researcher and later as a PhD student. The focus of my work there was designing energy-saving homes that met the highest standards of ecological and energetic conservation. Considering that it was quite technical, I already included a bit of ‘behavioral sciences’ in my area of expertise. It was important for me to empower people and that clearly didn’t work with only technical facts.
What I sometimes experience is that academia is very much about “analyzing the problems”. But you really want to get things going.
The academic world is indeed a traditional environment that analyses, where things are uncovered and recommendations are formulated. The implementation is usually not our task. Research often takes place in separate silos, where people go in depth and pay too little attention to the broader context. It is an ongoing quest for me to find the right way to get the message across about sustainability. To the students and colleagues, but also more broadly to society. As a Civic university, we really want to have a positive impact on society by working together with all stakeholders and looking for concrete solutions. I have learned that storytelling is necessary in order to inspire people. We spend a lot of time on the numbers, but telling the story behind the numbers is equally important and fascinating to me.
In the meantime, you have been leading your own research group in the UH architecture department for many years. Is that also the focus of your approach there?
When a question comes in from a company or organization we always try to first see if the right questions are being asked and only then look at how we can investigate that correctly. Our focus is on the use of natural resources, in the broad sense of ‘handling our materials in a sustainable way’, without losing sight of the social component. And indeed, how can we support people and organizations in making the right choices, starting from their perspective. What solutions can we develop for them? That’s why I’m so excited about Kate Raworth’s concept of the ‘Doughnut Economy’ (DE). It is an approach that is concrete, has a very broad view and is based on our current society. In this way she has set things in motion in companies, academia and politics and I myself feel a difference when I use her images and approach. Where there was previously resistance, this seems to appeal to many.
In Active8-Planet we work in a multidisciplinary way, students from different study programs work together with academics and businesses on one challenge. The matrix you developed in this project is based on the DE approach. What are your take aways after the first year?
We got to know each other, each other’s vision and perspective better. I found that very enriching. All those years ago I would never have imagined that we would be at this point today, but at the same time we are still nowhere. And we must dare to say that. I have the feeling that people don’t realize what gigantic steps we still have to take. Technology alone is not the solution. We have to ask ourselves, what is enough? A systemic change is needed and we all have different roles in that system: as a person, as a consumer, as a citizen, as a student, as a professional, … in all those roles you can do things and plant seeds for a healthy society, for both people and Earth.
Sustainability is not only about the environment but also about social justice. You could say that the victims of the flood last summer are the first climate victims in Belgium. That is also very clearly expressed in the Matrix.
Absolutely and that has also been an important change for me: going from ‘how can I have a less negative impact’ to ‘how can I create a positive impact’. It’s a paradigm shift and it gives you energy. Instead of thinking ‘how can I do it less badly’, ‘how can I create added value’. I think that it also makes the Active8-Planet matrix more valuable. The matrix works with four ‘lenses’, ecological and social, local and global. The workshops show us that the social-global lens is the most difficult to envision. What impact we have here on the quality of life of people elsewhere is a blind spot for many people, while it’s also super important.
We certainly don’t have all the answers yet, but at least we’re taking it into account in our thinking process. How can we develop this even further within Active8-Planet?
Indeed, the matrix is a concept to take the first steps, to broaden the view, to change the mindset. But I think we still have to look for tools that really give you the handles to get started: “I have now initiated all those ideas; how do I turn that into action”. The matrix still seems a bit too general for that. Sustainability is a very dynamic process. It’s continuously testing, seeing what works and where we need to adjust. The most important thing for me is that we continue to look at it critically and with an open mindset. We need to focus more on community, doing things together, trying things together.
You have recently become a sustainability coordinator for UH. Do projects such as Active8-Planet contribute to the development of UH in the field of sustainability?
I think we learned a lot within our team and it stimulates us to work together with different departments and stakeholders on sustainability. For UH to be sustainable, it is important that everyone really supports it and wants to go for it, that we work together with the students, teachers and staff and above all, it is also about poetry and beauty, not just technology.
Griet Verbeeck has a MSc and PhD in Architectural Engineering from KU Leuven. For many years she was a research fellow at the Building Physics Division of KU Leuven until 2007, with in-between a short stay at the Energy Administration of the Brussels Capital Region, where she was co-responsible for the energy policy in the Brussels Capital Region. Since 2007, she leads the Sustainability Research and Education Team at the Faculty of Architecture & Art, Hasselt University. While the focus of her research was at first mostly technological and on the aspect of energy and comfort, she considered this focus to be too limited and that other additional perspectives are necessary. So, over the years, she evolved into an educator and a researcher, who is strongly interested in guiding people, students and professionals in the building sector towards more sustainable choices, especially with regard to the use of natural resources, but with attention to social justice and planetary boundaries. She is inspired by the principles of doughnut economics and sufficiency and tries to introduce them both in her professional and personal life.
