Assessing the residential energy rebound effect by means of a serious game

Residential energy efficiency improvements often have a smaller effect than expected. Although there is agreement on the existence of this effect, called the rebound effect, there is no agreement on the size of the effect. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of using serious games to assess this effect. We used a game...

Environmental contestation in China: Motives and impact

Environmental legislation in China prescribes Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment to be arranged by the initiator of a project. Nevertheless concerns of effected citizens are often neglected and not addressed in the impact studies. The rising public environmental awareness and realization of health risks related to the...

Nile Basin Scenario Construction

The Nile river traverses eleven countries in Africa. It is the source of life for millions of people and its aquifers, tributaries, lakes, and surface waters provide valuable nature (wetlands), drinking water, hydropower and it provides large areas of arid soils with irrigation water. Rapid urbanization, overexploitation and the construction of...

Risk-aware roadmapping for city logistics in 2025

This paper proposes a scenario based, multi-stakeholder, adaptive pathway approach, with an application for city logistics policies in 2025. The context of our application is the problem of limited sustainability of current freight transport practices in cities towards the long term future. We develop a multi-stakeholder roadmapping approach for...

Measuring the benefits of open standards standards: Beyond the motion Gerkens and the Dutch Court of Audit report1

In 2010 the Dutch Parliament (motion Gerkens) requested the Court of Audit to measure the benefits of using open standards and open source software for government IT. In its report of 2011 the Dutch Court of Audit concluded that there were hardly any benefits to be gained. The Court's underlying research was widely and harshly criticized,...

New institutional assemblages for borderless customs control in the European Union

This article is based on a use case proposing a Single Window implementation for borderless customs control in the European Union (EU). This EU e-Customs initiative proposes to combine trade facilitation from a customs perspective with secure trade based on supply chain risk analysis. To achieve this, government authorities would require access...

Traditional Technology and Cost-reduction As a Major Driver in Business: Can Outsourcing Relations be Redirected by Smart Manufacturing?

Traditional technologies can have an extended lifetime if companies use various cost-reducing strategies. One of these strategies employed in Western European countries in the past decades has been low-cost outsourcing in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), mainly derived from low wages. Specifically, Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are prime...

Bringing real-world problems into the classroom

Real world problems are a challenge and a motivator for students to learn understanding and using the concepts of systems and actors. But using real world problems in the classroom is not without challenges and dilemmas. In the paper we explicitly address the issue of the need for quite intense support for the students when tackling real life...

Social Media to Facilitate Public Participation in IA

Social media are web-based and mobile technologies that facilitate interaction between organizations, communities and individuals. Important characteristics are that the technologies are ubiquitous, communication instantaneous and that they enable the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google...

Five strategies for adaptive governance of Jakarta’s Urban Delta: Lessons from Jakarta’s Eastern Flood Canal’s evaluation

Flood defense in Jakarta is a critical activity especially in the light of climate change that will increase the vulnerability of this low-lying metropolis. Despite the urgency for action, flood defense policy making and project implementation have been lengthy and strenuous in the past. Climate change creates urgency for action and requires...

Co-Production In Planning And Design: Finding A Balance Between Collective And Individual Responsibility

Worldwide, the trend in policies and legislation is towards wider citizen participation. This development coincides with a move towards more government deregulation and market liberalization as well as an exponential growth of the Internet and an increasingly better educated and equipped citizenry. These developments together result in a...

Trapped between institutions and politics: The role of politics and social dynamics in institutional performance for flood defense management in Jakarta, Indonesia

Flood defense management in Jakarta is a critical governmental activity given that Jakarta is a low-lying delta metropolis and trade center which relies on its safety for the continuity of the economic activities. Despite the urgency for action flood defense policy implementation was a lengthy and strenuous process that lasted 30 years (1973...