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  • Climate

    Investing in climate knowledge

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  • Priorities

    • Distributing the heat transition costs 
    • Improve sustainable mobility 
    • Enhancing the protein transition 
    • Stop greenwashing and free green halo’s  
    • 'Trash-dating’ for a greener and more social Wageningen  

  • Context

     As Connect Wageningen we think that everyone should take his/her/their responsibility infighting climate change, which includes the municipality. Therefore, we chose to use Triodos Bank as our bank, which is one of the most sustainable banks on the globe. In politics everyone is in favour of sustainability and its discussed a lot. Sadly, most of these conversations are about in who’s backyard won’t be used to generate energy, instead of in which backyard we can use. It all comes down to the fact that we do need solar panels on roofs and place solar parks and build windmills and make our homes more sustainable in order to achieve the average temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius. Because the 1.5 degrees Celsius is almost reached already. Therefore, in the coming years Wageningen will build houses and buildings that function without gas in mind of the warmth transition. Moreover, the RES will definitely be a topic that we will come across.  

     

    In Wageningen approximately 8 million euros is used for climate purposes. Thiscounts for 7.5% of the total budget of the municipality. Adding to that, there are many sustainability measures included in different other programs. Our plans are that these investments should increase, but this will be repaid later via a region group. The money from the capital without destination, see chapter about finances. 

  • Priorities further explained

    Improve sustainable mobility 

    Wageningenis a city that cares for sustainability. Therefore, it is important to thinkabout transport. We want designated parking spots for communal cars, in order to make car sharing more accessible. In order to achieve this, we have made concrete plans. Additionally, we want to make the city centre car scarce. And lastly, we want to encourage the citizens of Wageningen to use public transport.  

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    Enhancing the protein transition 

    A research by the Vegetariersbond has pointed out that Wageningen is the most vegetarianfriendly city of the Netherlands. This indicated that Wageningen is doing great regarding the protein transition. However, there are still steps to be made if we want to reduce out carbon footprint. For example, this could be done by buying more local food or do your groceries in a plastic free grocery store, such as the Gieterij in the city centre.  

     

    Stop greenwashing and free green halo’s  

    Wageningen as a municipality has 53 climate partners, including organisations andbusinesses. Sounds great, right? Because reaching all those climate ambitions requires everyone’s involvement. However, you can become a climate partner without making a real effort. Therefore, we are against green halo’s without content! In 2018 Wageningen was proclaimed as greenest municipality of the Netherlands. This was a competition with four other municipality and a participation fee of ten thousand euros, again a green halo without content. According to the university Wageningen should have ended in the 62th spot. The municipality said that it wanted to be climate neutral by 2030, but this ambition has already been economized. In short, another green halo without content. Connect Wageningen cares about the climate and wants honestly about that.  

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    Distributing the heat transition costs 

    Additional to the Regional Energy Strategy (RES) every municipality is involved in the heat transition, for which we aim to abandon gas-heated houses and buildings by 2050 and heat sustainably. This is a big challenge, but not unfeasible if the government frees money for it. However, a part of the transition depends on us, citizens of the Netherlands, and what changes we make within our households. Not everyone can afford these changes, but we want to include everyone in this energy transition. Therefore, we refuse the idea for subsidizing the high gas prices, but do the opposite and make sure people can switch to sustainable energy sources instead. As the gas prices should become an incentive to change. 

    You can think of subsidizing isolation of housing, but also smaller things such as replacing old refrigerators. Furthermore, we as municipality can make sure new construction projects are done by project developers that already put an effort in making their existing houses more sustainable. 

     

    ‘Trash-dating’ for agreener and more social Wageningen  

    If you ask people why they have chosen Wageningen to live, most of the answers include thefact that it is a pretty green city. By making waste grabs and garbage bags available to hikers they can easily meet, hike and keep the city a clean place. We as Connect have participated in many Trash-dates already, so you can easily invite us to come along!  

  • Achievements 2018-2022

    Commissioner for the research into participation in the regional energy strategy 

    Everyone isin favour of using the knowledge coming from the university, but nobody iscritical on how the municipality uses this knowledge. By being the client of different researches we have gained new knowledge and put the bar lower in other researches where the municipality acts as client. For example, we have asked two master students to look into the participation of youngster in the regional energy strategy. The outcomes were that the municipality came short, which is a point for improvement.   

    Pleaded for a city ecologist

    Perhaps our most extraordinary and least recognized result of all. In the coalition (of which we are not part), it was decided that Wageningen will have an urban ecologist. What is special about this is that this was not mentioned in any of the election programs of other parties. An urban ecologist was only mentioned in our election manifesto. While others take credit, you can't read their election manifestos on it. At the end it doesn’t matter whose idea it was, it matters that Wageningen is becoming a bit greener again.

    Amendment of the ecological 0-measurement at the first Haarweg solar park. 

    The first solar park will be built in Wageningen, places next to the Haarweg and surrounded by a large green hedge. We have submitted a motion to investigate the impact of the solar park on the local ecology. This research included questions related to the influence of placing height and space between the panels on the local ecology, animals and plants.  

     

    Motion on the ban of releasing balloons 

    InWageningen anyone can release helium balloons, as long as it isn’t done by 100people at the same time. We and Hilmar Derksen, ecology student, thought this was peculiar. Therefore, we submitted a proposal to completely ban the releaseof helium balloons. Unfortunately, the motion did not come through, because toolittle other parties agreed.  

    Client of the preliminaryresearch into alternative energy resources for the regional energy strategy.  

    Everyone isin favour of using the knowledge coming from the university, but nobody iscritical on how the municipality uses this knowledge. By being the client ofdifferent researches we have gained new knowledge and put the bar lower inother researches where the municipality acts as client. For example, we have asked a team of bachelor student to research alternative energy sources for the regional energy strategy. The outcomes were that using alternative sources will be difficult to achieve before 2030. However, it should be feasible for 2050.  

     

    Sustainability committeemeetings  

    Five timesa year we speak with all the sustainability committees of the major studentassociations that are located in Wageningen. Here, we get inspired to makeWageningen even more sustainable. We have a connecting role in this, as we canconnect the sustainable ideas from the committees with the right civil servant.

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