Sustainability Dialogue - Facing the Global Resource Crisis: Your Role as a Change Maker

What does our way of living cost to the planet? Do we have the resources to feed the world, build our cities, or get from A to B? We will gather to discuss the Global Resource Outlook, with Hans Bruyninckx, lead author of the GRO 2024. It was developed by the International Resource Panel of UNEP to which some of our UU colleagues contribute. 

We encourage you all to come to this event as it speaks to some of the core challenges we face. In the first round we will discuss the content of the report, introduced by Hans Bruyninckx. He will introduce the use of ‘provision systems’ as a lens to connect resource statistics to the world of social activities and policy making. After the introduction by Hans, Afke van Rijn, Director-General of the Environment at the Ministry for Infrastructure and Waterworks and Ernst Worrell, professor of energy and resources at Copernicus Institute, will respond and reflect on the intro.  

In the second round Hans, a political scientist by training and a former director-general of the European Environment Agency (EEA), will reflect on his strategy and tactics to make the report performative: what did he run into? What are his reflections on how to organize the science-policy interface? Niki Frantzeskaki (Scientific Director of Pathways to Sustainability, lead coordinating author at IPBES and lead author for the upcoming IPCC report on Cities) and Detlef van Vuuren (professor of Global Climate Change and winner of the Spinoza Prize, and who has worked for IPCC, IPBES and IRP) will pick up on Hans’ reflections. 

This is an excellent opportunity to discuss how we see our role as academics and policy makers in a rapidly changing political context. Moreover, we hope to help create better bridges with the world of policy making and politics to work towards sustainable futures.