Our Masters group of 120 individuals was diverse and included many people from developing countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, the Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, India, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey. I also connected with American, Canadian, Australian and Chinese friends.

UMD Party Evening

The shift from Uber commuting in Johannesburg to cycling and public transportation took a while to get used to. Luckily the Dutch have some cool alternatives for bicycle hire and maintenance such as Swapfiets where you can choose the bike you like at a low monthly subscription. So, pretty soon, I had my own bicycle and I travelled around the city carbon-free and at low cost. Cycling in the Netherlands is easy as roads are pretty flat and the dense urban environments make it easy to get from point A to point B. The drawback, however, is the weather. With the South African climate, it would be bliss (especially for a Greenie like me)!

Kraligen Lake

Due to the colder weather, the traditional Dutch food is mostly starchy in nature. The food includes kroketten (beef or vegetable croquettes), bitterballen, sandwiches, burgers and frietes (fries). The Dutch are also known for their sweet stuff including stroopwafels, speculaas (biscuits), sandwich spreads and chocolate sprinkles. By comparison, South Africa has a wealth of well-priced meat, wines and tasty spices.

Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam

The Masters course itself comprised 3-month course work and 3-month specialization periods. The course-work period included subjects such as Urban Theory; Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs); and Urban Governance and Finance – at which point I had to deduce whether a Waste-to-Energy plant in the City of Cape Town would be a feasible investment. Unfortunately, no further time was dedicated to the broader socio-economic and health impacts of this feasibility study.

Ghent Study Daytrip

The climate specialization period included a broad range of adaptive and mitigative strategies for urban resilience and vulnerability planning. The interesting thing was discovering just how well-developed South Africa is in terms of sustainable building construction projects and expertise. In a 6-month period, I learned that South Africans and, in particular, the experts in the local green building industry, are very knowledgeable and professional.

With the current 2030 climate action planning goals, it is now absolutely critical for us to work on climate adaptation in South Africa, which is experiencing ever-increasing temperatures and a continued reliance on coal as its primary fuel-source. My thesis, titled ‘Embodied Energy aspects related to Low Carbon Construction in South African Policy Instruments’, took a critical look at the C40 Net Zero Construction Program – examining whether the industry is geared towards achieving the operational carbon reductions goal by 2030, and embodied energy carbon reductions during construction goal by 2050.

Rotterdam River

The project case study that I cited, 4 Ruby Road, is the first project in South Africa pursuing the Living Building Challenge (LBC) rating, which requires a material embodied carbon calculation, giving me the opportunity to conduct my very first embodied carbon calculation.

After thesis hand-in and graduation on 20 September, the year came to a bitter-sweet end and everyone returned back to their home countries. My year connecting with industry experts, both in the Netherlands and South Africa, brought me to a point where I realized that the green construction industry globally, although diverse, is not big enough and knowledge transfer is critical to help us all achieve carbon neutrality. Now back in South Africa, I look forward to applying my knowledge to getting some more carbon neutral construction projects off the ground.

UMD Climate Specilization Graduation

The post Jesse Hamman on a year in the Netherlands appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

Educational programs for building-occupants and learners are not only important from a resource-efficiency point of view, but also from a social-awareness and behavioural-change point of view. In line with this approach, a Sustainable Education Awareness Program has been developed at Streetlight Schools – Jeppe Park Primary, with a specific focus on the wellbeing of young learners.

Streetlight Schools

Left to right: Warren Gray, Jesse Hamman, Melanie Smuts and Thulani Kuzwayo

Streetlight Schools is the first school in South Africa to achieve a 4-Star Green Star SA Interiors v1 As-Built Rating, demonstrating ‘Best Practice’. It’s the first Green Star SA certified school and 250th Green Star SA certified green building! The primary school is built on the floor of an old shoe factory in inner city Johannesburg. Streetlight Schools focuses on high-quality, low-cost education, and puts the wellbeing of its students first. Education of students in all areas of development and sustainability is evident when you visit the children at the school.

As the building is naturally ventilated with many windows, the students have access to healthy indoor spaces. Clever use of locally sourced materials allows for acoustically designed spaces such as classrooms, libraries, play and social areas suited to educational purposes. School-ground greening allows for various outdoor activities, as well as the inclusion of nature as an integral part of learning and development.

The Educational Framework

The educational framework allows learners to follow staff and teachers’ examples, to transform behavioral change from an early age. Quarterly reports are prepared for learners’ report cards on various educational topics such as energy, water, waste, transportation, the emissions associated with resource depletion, materials and recycling, as well as nature and indoor plants. Each topic is linked to an activity in the learner’s immediate environment that has a positive impact in terms of sustainability and early childhood development.

Activities include making artwork made from upcycled materials, gardening on the rooftop, and daily waste education from the recycling initiatives implemented in the school. These activities allow the students to understand where resources come from, usage depletion and how to work towards using resources sustainably. This creates awareness of sustainable learning from an early age to allow for future behavioural change in society on a larger scale.

The educational framework is under development, and annual updates to the framework will be made to keep the learning modules up to date and current. Streetlight Schools is a positive example of creating awareness in sustainable education that could be implemented in any school across South Africa.

The post Streetlight Schools: Sustainable Awareness in Education appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.