Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. However, in this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating individuals on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. This paper exemplifies an educational practice …

Valuation of heritage buildings is usually performed by architectural-historical experts, who use a typology of heritage values based on conservation philosophy. Increasingly, social and spirituality values are included in heritage assessment frameworks. What happens to valuation systems when external …

The third day of the RRAU congress 16-18 April 2018 consisted of a city walk. On behalf of the RRAU congress, Maarten Vieveen (Research Centre NoorderRuimte) and Bart de Boer (BLG - Special Locations Groningen) provided a tour through the Der Aa-church. Summary: The Der Aa-church is a listed Gothic church …

This study was conducted to investigate dairy farming practices and gross margin at smallholder dairy farmer level to design a business model for scaling up climate-smart dairy in Ziway-Hawassa milk shed. 80 sample dairy farmers from five districts (which then categorised as urban and peri-urban dairy …

Ecosystem engineering research has recently demonstrated the fundamental importance of non-trophic interactions for food-web structure. Particularly, by creating benign conditions in stressful environments, ecosystem engineers create hot beds of elevated levels of recruitment, growth, and survival of …

The actual non-sustainable way of living has to be changed fundamentally. Despite all efforts to create a better environment, to improve building designs and to ameliorate existing buildings, often contradictory factors are faced which make it difficult to decide what the best solutions are. The discussion …

In order to achieve more impact and efficiency on the route towards a circular economy, new business models are introduced in the value chain of construction. It is suggested that lease and performance contracts will stimulate producers to improve quality and lifetime of building products, thereby ameliorating …

The dairy sector in the Netherlands aims for a 30% increase in efficiency and 30% carbon dioxide emission reduction compared to the reference year of 1990, and a 20% share of renewable energy, all by the year 2020. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) can play a substantial role in achieving these aims. However, …

An enormous challenge has risen regarding our existing housing stock, as the result of ambitious agreements to reduce global carbon emissions. Until now the focus has been mostly on improving energy efficiency technically by ameliorating the energy performance of the building envelope. Insulation, controlled …

The future energy system could benefit from the integration of independent gas, heat and electricity infrastructures. Such a hybrid energy network could support the increase of intermittent renewable energy sources by offering increased operational flexibility. Nowadays, the expectations on Natural Gas …