A plan for a circular campus (TU Delft) in 2030

A plan for a circular campus (TU Delft) in 2030

In our master program, we have a course called Interdisciplinary Project Group (IPG) where the aim is to prepare us as industrial ecologists to the "real world".

It is a common feeling in our master and in the student population of IE that we live in a bubble. We take for granted that every other human being in our society thinks like us and we are always surprised at how can we not for once just solve climate change and etc! I was listening to a podcast this morning called the Hidden Brain in NPR and for the 100th episode they invited the Nobel laureate and author of "Thinking, fast and slow" Daniel Kahneman. He said that our minds are not ready for tackling climate change and that the only to solve would be to send preachers everywhere that people would listen to. A bit like religion. Maybe that's the only way to solve the problem!

Coming back to the aim of this post, we were asked to provide a plan on how to make the TU Delft campus circular in 2030. The campus wishes to be circular by 2030 and it has been written in their strategic framework 2018-2024 document. Therefore the willingness and legitimacy are there.

Me and my colleagues Micky, Carina and Coen believe that we did nice work by taking a holistic approach to the campus system and thinking how to make it circular.

Here are our (long)conclusions:
The TU Delft has stated its intent of becoming a circular campus by 2030 in the Strategic Framework 2018-2020. This report aimed to address this ambition and answer the question “How can TU Delft as an educational institution implement the principles of CE in order to reach its circularity target by 2030?” To answer this question, we posited sub-research questions, and answered them through interviews and desk research.

The first sub question was “What are the principles of CE, and how do they apply to TU Delft as a system?” We saw that the main principles of CE consist of managing material resources through a Refuse-Reduce-Reuse-Recycle hierarchy of priority in both their procurement as End-of-Use treatment. This is done to ensure the regenerative capacity of these resources and alleviate environmental pressures. The TU Delft as a system was then defined as consisting of a supportive and productive layer, where the supportive layer provides services to the productive layer so it can produce research, patents and education. Since the supportive layer is responsible for the procurement and disposal of resources, this layer is where the principles of CE apply most.

Through investigating the next sub question, “What is the CE context and what does a vision for TU Delft look like?” we established that both the European Union and the government of The Netherlands have developed quite extensive policy for transitioning to CE and that the goals of these institutions and those of TU Delft are very well aligned. We also articulated a vision based on the principles of CE and the TU Delft’s intention to be a leading university.

Having formulated this vision and having spoken to several key stakeholders we constructed a division of the complex problem of CE into nine Priority Areas, with the intent of facilitating the transition. We defined these as Operational EoU Material, Non-Operational Material, Construction & Demolition Material, Energy, Water, Land Use, Transport, Leadership and Communication. This answers the third sub question, “Into which Priority Areas can future work for a circular campus be structured in order to facilitate a CE transition?”

Since the initial project proposal emphasized the topic of waste, the first Priority Area was analyzed in depth both qualitatively and quantitatively. The quantitative assessment of the current situation showed that the current operational End-of-Use material generation per FTE is lower than of the frontrunner Wageningen University and Research center. However, since WUR makes use of the EcoSmart services its fraction of residual waste is much smaller, decreasing from 70% to 45% in 5 years. This is largely due to a 32% increase in organic waste from food and swill collection, which is partly composted on site. As this fraction is currently not collected separately in TU Delft, and a pilot at 3mE has shown an average potential for 16,9% organic collection even without food outlet, it is thus clear that separate organic waste collection and composting has the potential to significantly reduce the fraction of waste that is incinerated.

With regards to PMD we saw that there is a bottleneck for private waste processors such as Renewi in the form of the public Afvalfonds Verpakkingen, driving the need for these parties to charge high PMD collection prices. We also saw how paper is already collected quite intensively since this flow is easily recyclable in a profitable way for both disposer and processor. We proposed Living Lab strategies for testing and upscaling separate waste collection infrastructure and composting installations on campus.

Non-Operational Material was analyzed qualitatively. The life cycle of this material was described and from this we identify several bottlenecks that hinder the implementation of circularity principles.
Firstly, the departmental structure of management prevents life cycle thinking, for which we proposed the Material Life Cycle Management structure. Besides connecting stakeholders throughout the TU Delft internal life cycle and keeping track of indicators for this PA, this structure would also have the function of providing guidance and decision support for FM, procurement and CRE staff.
Secondly, it became clear that the European tendering regulations prevent implementation of innovation developed at the TU Delft and thus keep the gap between the supportive and productive layer open. It also prevents the purchasing from small innovative start-ups from elsewhere. Our recommendation was therefore to purchase in smaller amounts below the budgetary threshold of 75,000 euros. From the best practices of other universities it emerged that a large number of universities make use of the Warp-It system to facilitate the reuse of products and materials which we thus recommend implementing. Lastly, we observed the absence of a repair team, which could greatly increase the lifespan of furniture. Establishing a repair team helps to expand the lifetime of material in the system and therefore decrease material output and the need for input into the system of TU Delft.

Furthermore, our research shows that Leadership is a relevant Priority Area for the TU Delft, which is one of the eight Pioneer Universities of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2018b), and its goals are very well aligned with the larger systems (The Netherlands and EU) its embedded in. We defined this Leadership as consisting of Research, Education and Valorization, and concluded that while Research on CE is already rapidly growing within the TU Delft, Education could benefit from taking Kolb’s experiential learning style into account by including students into the implementation of Living Lab experiments. Valorization, being the external component of Leadership, further supports the importance of gaining practical experience. From this reasoning, we established the recommendations to provide room for CE initiatives among students, for example in the form of challenges or by involving them in the implementation of measures.

Our last discussed Priority Area was Communication. This Priority Area emerged as important from both our interviews as well as from literature. From our analysis of the current situation we observed that the online communication on CE or sustainability in general in the TU Delft campus needs to be improved. We also observed that Green Offices from other universities make use of Instagram, and recommended this to the TU Delft Green Office. Our further recommendations included using the net presenters and posters for basic information on new CE measures, and making videos for more in-depth descriptions. A Circular TU Delft house style would also help to increase visibility of CE-related measures.

Having discussed these Priority Areas, we had then answered “What is the current situation of selected Priority Areas, what are best practices of other universities for them, and which measures are required to realize the implementation of those within TU Delft’s roadmap to circularity?” The question that then remains is: “How can the circularity performance of investigated material based Priority Areas, Priority Area I and II, be measured in order to include it in a monitoring system?” For this, we used the framework by Elia et al. (2017) in order to come up with a set of indicators for the Operational Material PA, specific for a campus context. We refrained from establishing a decisive set of indicators for Non-Operational Material, although some recommendations were included.

Overall, we conclude, that further research is needed in the here not discussed PAs and especially also for the PAs of Leadership and Communication which are analyzed in less detail. To bring about a transition towards a circular campus, more effort and changes in the TU Delft system are required. Thus, we recommend to actively promote further student projects or theses on this topic to support the implementation of circular practices on campus.