The energy transition is an essential shift towards sustainable and renewable sources, mitigating climate change. However, a large bottleneck arises in this transition as the electricity grid struggles to transport all this renewable energy, resulting in grid congestion. Energy hubs (e-hubs) are local collaborations between stakeholders, where energy supply and demand are locally coordinated. This thesis focuses on the development of e-hubs on business parks.

However, the development of e-hubs faces challenges. Many emerging e-hubs are stuck in the initial orientation phase, where groups and collaborations need to be formed, and the possibilities for configurations are explored. There is a low level of organisation on business parks, and a limited support capacity of supporting roles.

Research and design towards e-hubs is complicated due to their socio-technical multi-actor complex systems nature. Existing literature lacks usable and actionable methods and tools to stimulate the orientation phase of e-hubs.

This thesis addresses this gap by adopting a systemic design approach, consisting of two phases. The first phase, ‘Solving the Right Problem’, focuses on systems thinking and ethnography in order to pinpoint the most effective point for intervention. The second phase, ‘Solving the Problem Right’, focuses on design thinking, open and participatory innovation to effectively design interventions to stimulate the orientation phase of e-hub development on business parks in the Netherlands in 2024.

By first investigating the paradigm of e-hubs, their societal context, challenges, gaps in current practices and academic context is explored. Consequently, the system is framed; system boundaries are defined and assumptions are stated. The roles involved in the system are defined and their engagement into the development of e-hubs is analysed. Consequently, a key role is defined.

Next, focus is put on understanding the system, including understanding the thoughts and experiences of the key role, underlying drivers and barriers, and the causal relationships between as well as the rootedness of these drivers and barriers are researched. This leads to the identification of leverage points, places within the system to intervene.

By means of weighing the multiple leverage points based on multiple criteria the key leverage point is defined, representing the Opportunity for intervention within the system. Intervening in this Opportunity will result in cascading effects that will affect the system’s behaviour at large and thus stimulate the orientation phase of e-hub development. The Opportunity is translated into a Design Statement. This marks the end of the first phase of this thesis (‘Solving the Right Problem’), and the beginning of the second phase (‘Solving the Problem Right’).

In order to design an efficient and effective intervention, first the possibility space is explored by learning from success factors in e-hub pilots and Industrial Symbiosis, a system with similar characteristics and a similar scope as to e-hub development. Lessons learned are translated into Design Cues, that are used for participatory innovation by including the key role, stakeholders and experts into the design process.

This results in the design of a new Proposition that will stimulate the orientation phase of e-hub development by focussing on its organisational dimension. The Proposition comprises four interventions in this orientation phase:

Energy Knowledge Hub
Participant Procurement Protocol
Energy Coalition Building Workshops
E-hub Facilitator Forum

Implementing these four interventions will have cascading effects on the stimulation of drivers and mitigation of barriers experienced by the key role, which results in cascading effects within the multi-actor system, which results in cascading effects within the socio-technical system of e-hub development. Therefore, the Proposition will jumpstart systemic change towards the integration of e-hubs in a decentralised energy system.

2Ping is a local currency created by the social cooperative Lokaal Geld U.A. The objective of 2Ping is to stimulate social and economic benefits through the means of a digital local currency in Amsterdam South-East. Since October 2022 the social cooperative had made significant steps into realizing this local currency and is currently working with 17 local businesses.
The local currency was merely thought as a tool to encourage social good. However, instead of highlighting the social impact that people can provide, the emphasis was made on the economic benefits of the currency. This emphasis on economic benefits turned into a lack of motivation to do social good, as the economic benefits were too low in terms of self-interests due to its comparison with the Euro.
And so, the positive attitude of doing social work for the greater good was neglected, and the spotlights were shined bright on the function and relatively low benefits of the local currency. A shift of purpose was needed to change the perception of 2Ping.
Together with 2Ping this project tackles the following challenge: How can we reframe the purpose of a local currency system to a platform for doing social good?

By taking an anthropological stance and gaining insights through the lens of reciprocity a new purpose for 2Ping has been proposed together with a redesign for the 2Ping platform. The concept of reciprocity is a key concept which forms the foundation for community building and providing local transactions. It focuses on the dynamics of exchanges and underlying values, which can result in community building, social innovation, and sustained engagement between people. The concept of reciprocity was particularly relevant in the context of this design challenge, but also relevant in the field of design.
As designers we are often lost in the complexity of societal issues due to diverse contextual environments, needs of stakeholders and the goal-oriented approach of tackling social issues.
But with this goal-oriented approach we often lose the importance of the dynamics in relation and exchanges between actors and the underlying values for collaboration and shared interests.
Alongside the redesign of 2Ping this project proposes a Design for Generalized Reciprocity booklet that fills the gap of practical tools to guide fellow designers and pioneers of social change to design for reciprocity.
The booklet aims to introduce a process-oriented approach of searching for insights through observing exchanges between actors and accomodates template exercises to be familiarized with different types of reciprocities.

The urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels due to their contribution to climate change and environmental degradation has become increasingly evident. The global emissions must be reduced to zero within the next few decades to avoid severe consequences. The recent invasion of Ukraine has further highlighted the importance of clean and affordable energy technologies to address economic, climate, social, and security priorities.
While the energy transition is often approached from a technical standpoint, this thesis recognizes the significance of social dimensions in shaping behaviors, attitudes, and governance structures. By adopting a cultural perspective of energy consumption behavior, the study aims to provide a holistic understanding of the transition process.
This thesis investigates the shift from a passive to a proactive energy relationship, taking into account the influence of changing context factors. It begins by framing energy relations through extensive literature research and research methods, resulting in the development of an energy relation framework. This framework emphasizes the role of individual autonomy and integration in shaping energy relationships. Historical research and trend analysis are conducted to examine the evolution of energy relations and identify potential future scenarios.
Building upon the understanding of energy relations, the thesis proposes the design of an intervention that enables individuals to experience a proactive energy relationship. The Forekast is based on a redesign of a transformer box into an interactive intervention that increases energy awareness and highlights the interconnectedness of energy, weather conditions, and consumption patterns.
The effectiveness and desirability of the intervention are evaluated through tests conducted at Energie Lab Zuid-Oost and a street test in ArenApoort. The evaluation assesses the impact of the intervention on residents’ engagement, knowledge-sharing, and adoption of sustainable energy practices. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications and value of fostering a proactive energy relationship, contributing to the acceleration of the overall energy transition.
In conclusion, this thesis sheds light on the relational aspects of energy in the context of the energy transition. By examining the shift from a passive to a proactive energy relationship and proposing an intervention that serves as a catalyst for dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and empowering residents to actively engage in sustainable energy practices.
Keywords: energy relationship, context factors, intervention design, proactive approach, energy transition.

With the rapid development of society, complex problems are becoming increasingly visible such as climate change, energy shortage, poverty, and migration. Many organizations are cooperating together to solve these problems because it is impossible for one organization to handle all the different expertise and skills. The projects that consist of lots of organizations working together to solve problems can be called multi-stakeholder projects. It appears aiming to solve complex social challenges of sustainable development. With multiple stakeholders, the stakeholder management becomes more difficult. It is essential to know what does each stakeholder desires for enhancing collaboration and satisfying stakeholders. Among these desires, stakeholders desired values are crucial to identify because values are the reason behind stakeholders’ actions and decisions.
The LIFE project is a typical multi-stakeholder project initiate by the City of Amsterdam and AMS Institute as the leader of Stakeholder Engagement and Inclusion. As an important part of stakeholder engagement in multi-stakeholder projects, this project aims to make contributions in identifying stakeholders’ desired values in the multi-stakeholder project.
The Barrett Model about organizational values is the key academic support of this project. It’s used as materials to build the concept structure and as the basic for developing details of concepts. Literature from some other fields has been studied in this project to generate insights for eliciting desired values from stakeholders.
This project ends with a final strategy concept, the Stakeholder Value Identification (SVI) Process, which applies various intervention to increase stakeholders’ willingness and ability to express their desired values and uses a closed-ended task as the core of the concept. The concept could be used not only in this stage of the LIFE project but also other stages, as well as other multi-stakeholder projects.

This project is in collaboration with a start-up company: Thrivey. The product produced by Thrivey is an automatic tracking application (mobility tracker), also named Thrivey, that can track the movement of the user when they carry their smartphone with them. Furthermore, the future vision of Thrivey is to expand its user group and promote more sustainable mobility activities.Global warming and climate-changing are topics that raise many concerns at all levels in society. Many aspects result in the extreme condition we are facing now. Among them, mobility contributes to significant pollution on the air quality due to the emission of carbon dioxide and other substances, such as SO2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s mobility activities have been reduced significantly. However, how people will travel after the pandemic ends is still unknown. Therefore, it creates an opportunity for this project to investigate how to support people toward more sustainable mobility decisions during and after the pandemic.The main objective of this project is to use self-tracking travel data to support people toward more sustainable mobility decisions.A series of literature research and qualitative user research was carried out. Through the research, the design goal and the final design direction were refined. The design also went through iterations, inspired by insights gathered from user-involved sessions. The final design presented four features that support users toward sustainable mobility decisions. These four features are: personalized advice & indicating restrictions (see chapter 5.3.1), community (see chapter 5.3.2), challenges (see chapter 5.3.3), and informed infographics (see chapter 5.3.4). Through the final design evaluation, the four features were evaluated. The community (with group challenges) feature was found out to be the most motivating feature that can keep the users engaged with the mobility tracking application and hold on to their sustainable mobility goals. Moreover, personalized advice was found out to be the most supportive feature that enables and guides users to travel more sustainably. Additionally, the “indicating restrictions” feature provides a feeling of being understood by the mobility tracker.Furthermore, the informed infographic provides users with insights about their travel behaviour they usually do not aware of. By showing how much restriction the users were facing and what keeps them from travelling more sustainably, users were given a new perspective into their travel behaviour. As a result, this supports, motivates and inspires them to make sustainable mobility decisions.

Within the Energy Transition, citizen involvement is essential. In the end, we have to change together to succeed within the Energy Transition. Because of the local character of the Energy Transition and a responsibility shift, the municipalities have got the challenging task to increase citizen involvement. Local energy initiatives can be a promising solution for the Energy Transition. Therefore, the local energy initiatives can be interesting for municipalities when increasing citizen involvement.
The aim of this research is to find a way for the municipality to make use of these local energy initiatives when trying to increase citizen involvement in the Energy Transition. The specific context of this research is the city of The Hague. The following research question has been formulated for this purpose: How can the municipality of The Hague increase citizen participation in the Energy Transition through local energy initiatives?
In order to answer the research question, a collective case study and a design process are executed. In advance, preparatory research was conducted to explore relevant theoretical concepts for the research and to analyze the stakeholder ecosystem of the local energy initiatives. The collective case study was performed by conducting nine in-depth interviews with local energy initiatives based on a research framework. This research framework was substantiated by the Transformative Social Innovation framework. Furthermore, the design process is based on the Double Diamond approach using divergent and convergent thinking. Within this design process, multiple participatory elements were included like workshops and prototyping sessions with local energy initiatives and civil servants of the municipality of The Hague.
From the research, it appeared that the local energy initiatives in The Hague fulfill a basic role and five specific roles, namely ‘awareness creation’, ‘action perspective creation’, ‘collaboration with the municipality’, ‘voice at the table’, and ‘execution and ownership’. It also came forward that the potential of the contribution of the local energy initiatives to the Energy Transition is not reached. This has three reasons. Firstly, there is no shared vision among the stakeholders. Secondly, the relationship with the municipality is undefined and inconsistent. Thirdly, there are several small challenges as keeping the initiative going, reaching out to people, and not being representative for the neighborhood. When looking at the relationship, the core challenge seemed a way to prioritize and choose the municipal support to provide, to which initiative, and at which moment.
Based on this, a final concept was developed to create a strategy and action repertoire for the municipal support per neighborhood and initiative. The strategy is created based on three main questions regarding which roles to support, which support to provide, and how to provide the support. These questions are answered through the three perspectives of Design Thinking (desirability, feasibility, and viability) to cover the multiple aspects to consider when creating the strategy. Possible further research could focus on the development of the final concept in real-life cases and on the applicability of the five initiative’s roles and final concept in other contexts.

Mortality is the fact of life, yet we as collective human species relate to it in (multidimensional) fearful ways (Cozzolino et al., 2013). Subsequently, in an attempt to proof ourselves from this death induced anxiety and fear, we have adapted to denying or avoiding our mortality to us, thus living in a death-buffer system. (Cave, 2013)However, emerging experimental evidence suggests that if we relate to our mortality such that we do not deny or avoid it, but are aware of it, it can result in human enhancement in many possible ways. It can lead to substantial benefits such as bolstered important positive components of the self, greater well-being, and stronger, personally valued self that is conceived with clarity and that has inner meaning and purpose. Besides that, it can also lead to positive existential growth, enhanced meaning in life and can generate a recalibration and prioritization of life goals (Cozzolino et al., 2013). Hence, it was inferred that even if we as individuals have been living well up till now within the death-buffer system, being able to tweak our relationship with mortality in the possible & appropriate directions can help us leverage its benefits and further the enhancement of our life quality we are living presently. Thereby, it was deemed as a relevant topic to explore, and a promising upcoming opportunity to design for in this project.As mentioned above, there are many possible enhancement opportunities that come forth with mortality awareness. However the one that was identified and finalized for this project (through field exploration) was ‘to evoke reflection on life regarding recalibration of life goals’. Hence, the concept and the final design is an attempt to create such reflection on life in the light of mortality awareness.

The energy grid is transitioning from a centrally controlled demand response system to a decentralized supply response system. There are multiple reasons for this, but the main one is the need to transition to a low carbon energy system to tackle climate change and decrease our dependency on non-renewable energy sources. Next to this consumers become active consumers (prosumers) and increasingly take control over their local (energy) situation. As a result this transition creates a multitude of challenges and demands a re-design of the energy system. Stedin, the Netherlands 3rd largest Distribution System Operator (DSO), set out to find a solution to the challenges posed by the energy transition. The concept they came up with was a design for a Layered Energy System (LES). By running two pilots LES is fully developed and almost ready to be made available for the larger public in the form of a re-branding of LES to Lokaal Energy Flexibel (LEF). However, how LEF should be made available remains unknown. So in order for LEF to be launched to a larger public a new service needs to be designed. A service that sets out to communicate the information which is needed to start your own Local Energy Community (LEC) and collaboratively with Stedin and a service provider of choice set up a LEC. Designing this service is the task set out to solve in this project. One other task is determining what the role of Stedin should be in this process of setting up a LEC. The dilemma is Stedin wants to facilitate LECs and the market but on the other hand should not in turn take over responsibilities of the market. The methodology used to solve the aforementioned problem is service design. A concept service design is made that sets out to help communities explore how to set up a LEC. The design is centered around a community dashboard that shows the current energy situation within a community. All the data found in this dashboard can then also be used in a community configurator to create an ideal design for the local situation and community vision. This design is then communicated to Stedin in the form of a project sketch. Stedin can give feedback or a ‘go’ on the project sketch. This ends the explore phase, after which a LEC can turn to the market for materializing the design. The concept service is communicated with a future service scenario and a service blueprint. Out of this service blueprint the LEF landing page and the community configurator are prototyped and tested with potential users. After testing the solution and direction proved to be in the right direction. However a ‘dumb’ configurator as tested was found challenging for the typical community leader. This result vouches for a more data driven and automated configurator as proposed in the future service scenario. The thesis is concluded with a roadmap for implementation and advice on how to create an MVP as the first step towards implementing the service design.