Sustainable residential environment
Improving sustainability has an impact on our residential environment. National goals require specific implementation in municipalities, villages, neighbourhoods, and streets. Various parties are working there to make homes more sustainable, make cities climate-proof, make agriculture more nature-friendly, integrate renewable energy technologies, and improve water quality. All this often takes place under enormous time pressure.
Plans for renewable energy, such as geothermal energy and wind turbines, frequently clash with other wishes, such as for housing, nature protection and spatial quality, and as a result lead to conflicts with and among residents. To do justice to different aims, local authorities – together with individuals and businesses – increasingly apply democratic procedures to achieve environmental sustainability. Innovations in environmental and energy technology help to foster sustainability. But digital and social innovations also offer opportunities – for example energy cooperatives organise and finance the supply of energy in a new way.
The Rathenau Instituut will investigate how increasing sustainability takes place within the residential environment and how this can be organised both effectively and democratically. We shall investigate cooperation between national and local authorities and the involvement of the public. We shall learn from the obstacles citizens face and how innovation can be deployed responsibly in that regard. We intend sharing the lessons learned with authorities and citizens so as to contribute to sustainability at the local level and to improve the national debate on this issue.
Photo: Cyclists at the IJsselmeer (T.W. van Urk / Shutterstock)