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Heat islands - district heating

 (draft)  The summer of 2023 has provided us with a clear indication that the weather is changing to unknown charters, due to climate change.  Heat domes remaining for days, heat waves in June and September; Terrible rain in Libya, Italy, Greece, with land slides and loss of crops and fertile soil.  Add to it the wildfires in numerous locations like Crete, Greece, Portugal. Questions arise about the livability of cities.  Cities are heat islands, due to the concrete and stone that are storing the heat, and releasing it in the night.  Inhabitants are buying air conditioning, that is lowering the heat inside, and just increasing the heat on the street. Bruzz writes an interesting series of articles about climate and heat islands https://www.bruzz.be/milieu/brussel-klimaatbestendige-stad-we-moeten-meer-doen-elke-straat-2023-09-25 The focus of these are a lot about adding trees, removing concrete, painting the rooftops white.   For me there are other things to be done, and one essential on
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 2023 I start the year wondering which catastrophe will come this year, and I am getting ready for the word 'Brace for impact' like in airline terms for whatever: - an upcoming heat wave - a crazy shooting in a crowded shopping street - an uppercut right wing party  election - a car driving by too fast - an unidentified drone flying above the Belgian airspace - a cyberattack  - a real heart attack  Than I look around me from Transforma coworking in Evere, see a white  Porsche parked whose owner I  know and greet, a container of Mover Potiez Demain,  that uses former prisoners to move stuff, and the former  Nato headquarters juste behind that are now used for judging Belgian extermist terror  and a blue sky above. Should I brace for impact all the time?  Should I just ignore that there is a war going on in less than 2 hours flight from here, that the frogs are waking up in the middle of the winter and being hit by cars?   Or should I  look for another impact? - continue facilita

Facilitation - case study Brussels bike node network

  I was in summer 2020 at the reels of a quite unorthodox way of creating of a region wide bike network basd on the nodes. Unorthodox, in the way it was a complete grassroots initiative, with zero budget, and that with sufficient volunteers and support from an active biking community, managed to convince the Brusels region to take over the network, make it official and create the needed signages and management. My role in this project is the one of facilitator (bringing citizens together) ecosystem actor (discussing with the different stakeholders and policy responsibles), communicator (keeping the different communication channels in sync and up to date), and manager (keeping the network alive, looking for funding,...) In this article I would like to focus on 3 moments of the facilitation. This to understand that in your city or region, you could also make use of grassroots intelligence to build a supportive base for a biking network. - summer 2020: facilitation of the creation of the

Sportlight: facilitation of citizen bikenode.brussel project

We did it (again). Last year I was the initiator and facilitator of the creation of a bikenode network in the Brussels Region. This year we worked on a citizen update, checking on the ground what could be the improvements etc. A new version was released on 25/8/2021. Facilitation in this project? - Recruit volunteers - Foresee a working environment - Follow-up on the updates - Physical meetings at start and end of the update - Actual updating of the network online through the partners (online with routeyou.com) and on paper (paper maps with visit.brussels) including the modified track.

(crosspost) Overshoot day Belgium - business can become mission based

  This article has been co-written with the Beyonders Agency collective and has been orignally published on this link   Written by Tanguy Delestré, Pascal Durdu and Laurent Bouty We note  March 30th . For Belgium it is calculated that this is the overshoot day, the day that we have used up the resources of Planet earth. All the rest of the year we live on the credit of our biosphere and the future generations. Imagine that each year, you need to sell a % of your house because you have consumed all your budget. After decades, you will end up with few square meters where life will become impossible. Interestingly enough, this is not something new. In 1987, Brundland commission wrote: " In some parts of the world, particularly since the mid-1950s, growth and development have vastly improved living standards and the quality of life. Many of the products and technologies that have gone into this improvement are raw material- and energy-intensive and entail a substantial amount of pollu

Maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen? Met de Sustatool? Eerst zelf uitproberen

 Zelf doen? Maatschappelijk verantwoord ondernemen? Met de Sustatool?  Eerst zelf uitproberen In de zomer van 2020 zette ik mijn schouders onder het gekke Corona burger project van fietsknooppunten in het Brussels Gewest.  De opstart met een 40 tal vrijwilligers mondde uit in een stevig fietsknooppunt netwerk bikenode.Brussels dat nu ook door officiële toeristische diensten gepromoot wordt. In het najaar van 2020 heb ik het projectplan van bikenode.brussels verder uitgewerkt en hieraan onmiddellijk duurzame objectieven aan vastgelegd. Ik gebruikte bikenode.brussels als voorbeeld om de opleiding SUSTATOOL in de practijk om te zetten. Hiermee ben ik nu de eerste met het certificaat van MVO Vlaanderen rond gebruik van de Sustatool. Leuk! Nu kan ik met jullie ook aan de slag om de Sustatool te gebruiken in jullie bedrijf of organisatie. Ben jij het duurzaam bedrijf die niet alleen 'check' wil doen op papier, maar ook met ambitie vooruit wil kijken en doelstellingen vastleggen die

(Dutch) Een algemene vergadering online? Oei daar begin ik niet aan.

  De wetgeving evolueert en sinds 24 december 2020 werd de wetgeving voor vzws, ivzws en vereniging van mede-eigenaars aangepast. Het artikel van Scwitch geeft u de hoofdlijnen van deze aanpassing in wetgeving en wat dit concreet betekent voor uw associatie.  Online te vergaderen met een grote groep kan lastig zijn, waardoor velen enkel op het strikte minimum blijven wat nodig is en uitstellen.  Een AV is echter ook het uitgelezen moment om de dynamiek van de associatie te bestendigen.  En ja ook online.  Online vergaderen en zeker bij grote groepen mist een dynamiek, mede door de technische interface en de manier van vergaderen die niet mee geëvolueerd is.  Beroep doen op een online facilitator, die de organisatie ontzorgt op technisch en procesmatig vlak kan de leden volop doen deelnemen aan de inhoud.  Zo wordt zelfs een online AV een participatie moment waar ook de bestuurders volop aan kunnen deelnemen en in hun comfortzone blijven.  Wist je dat een facilitator met de organisatie

Transition de société : arriver à un nouvel équilibre sociétal

Le choc provoqué par la crise du corona virus s'étend et touche d'autres aspects de la société. Le pendulum de Newton nous apprend  qu'il va falloir arriver à un nouvel équilibre et que cela prend un certain temps. Il va falloir envisager une sortie de crise, et oser réfléchir cette sortie, car ne rien faire est également un choix qui mènera à un durcissement et à de la violence. Cette sortie devra nécessairement passer par une réconciliation, un deuil de la période passée. Les modes de pensées et structures existantes malheureusement ne vont que répéter les erreurs du système par compartimentage. Pour arriver à cet nouvel équilibre il faudra faire appel à un processus de dialogue facilité, pour reconnaitre les clé de cohesion de la société déjà existante, mais pas partagée ou reconnue. Un dialogue qui libère la créativité peut avoir lieu pour aider à trouver cet équilibre sociétal et traverser avec bienveillance la période de turbulence des deux années à venir. Plus d'

End of year - blueprint inspirations bundled

 I leave it to the main press to try to make conclusions of 2020, to find the buzzword that catched the atmosphere of a pandemic. I will however draw up some blueprints that I have seen coming up in reflexions on corporate sustainability,on public sector innovartion partnership discussions, on project assignments about smart city, during physical and digital facilitation sessions: - a systemic stress has shown the outdated back-office organisational structure of public sector organisation - there is no fatality: a human approach, and one with a facilitation more than a management posture has proven effective - the financial world has been dematerialised for years; it has been a good wake up call for other sectors to make a catch-up with digital technology so as not to be eaten for lunch - a great reset is in the make, with large economic sectors like cruise shipping industry to evaporate; a 'Treuhand" East German style organisation will emerge to decide what to do with toxic a

Why do sustainable models fail? (webinar and reflexions)

 This article further to 15/12 presentation online Why do sustainable models fail, a presentation online by ass professor Rick Middel.(https://www.gu.se/node/39410)   In this article  - a small recap - some reflexions - a way forward As a sustainability advisor, I was really curious about this title coming from a Swedish business school.  So I took the time over lunch indeed to listen to it. In essence in 45 minutes, he went over  - a number of definitions of a sustainable business model; - several types of business models: with social, environmental and economical focus; - failure happens in sustainable business models, and this should be taken as a learning lesson. - he finally scratched the surface of the title, explaining that innovation is not easy in a company, and that sometimes one overlooks certain areas because they are more easy to look at. Reflexions: - this was a good recap that explained a difference between an 'normal' and a 'sustainable' business model(

B-model reflexions on peak demand, load balancing and peak demand- the Bpost case

First, let me provide you with the definition of load balancing, I am referring to, it is coming from the electric power grid to avoid crashing of the network during peak demand. There are several techniques on an electric grid  that are used, I will not go into detail.  However I want to make the clear analogy with Bpost/PostNL  current situation, where it is having a peak demand in parcel delivery and is having difficulties to cope with it, and a logic explanation will follow why Bpost reacts the way it is doing. When u have normal electricity usage in an electricity grid this works fine.  The issue comes with peak demands (from industry or from households in winter for example)  where u have the highest cost as a network manager. So you have a lot of costs to manage these loads.  This is also the case for water usage during a world cup soccer half time by the way. In electricity terms, the highest cost is when you have peak demand, as supply falls short.  In case of emergency of pea

Facilitation - bikenode.brussels

 This autumn follows a series of online events, facilitated by myself.  You can find the series of blogs on the site www.bikenode.Brussels  about organisation model, slow tourism and signage. At this moment, the online community of followers is expanding organically with the growth of interest in biking - twitter bxldotnode 126 followers - facebook channe l 381 likes, and 427 followers; champaign with 500! - blog: some subscriptions  - newsletter over 50 subscriptions

crosspost TOKVIL: Public innovation: the Belgian scene on #govaftershock Belgian day

  What does the Belgian public innovation scene look like? NIDO labs from BOSA, as the contact point for the OECD, organised a session last Tuesday. https://governmentaftershock.be/ The aim of the event was to look at different administrations and the way they had coped with Covid-19 and their inroads into innovation. Beforehand the three following questions were taken centrally: - what do we leave behind as habit? - what is no longer usable in the current world and should we better stop? - what do we need to change? - what new innovations should we cherish, but ask adaptations of the organisation? Noted: - inovation and foresight, not easy because of the timeline (often after a political cycle and even an administrative one) - innovation and working togehter with external organisations often practiacl bottlenecks in procurement, budget, internal approval by finance responsible, writing of legislation. - innovation and taxpayers money: are we allowed to do that? (risk - innovation)