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Dutch construction and infrastructure sector works on Sustainability Challenge 2020
Perspectivity is involved in the Sustainability Challenge 2020 for the Dutch construction and infrastructure sector. Perspectivity partner Elien Rogaar facilitates and organises this challenge as part of the LEF future […]
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Perspectivity is involved in the Sustainability Challenge 2020 for the Dutch construction and infrastructure sector. Perspectivity partner Elien Rogaar facilitates and organises this challenge as part of the LEF future centre and in collaboration with NeerlandsDiep.

Seven teams of Rijkswaterstaat (State water management), ProRail, Water Boards and Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (State real estate management) are participating in the sustainability challenge, an intensive development trajectory during which project leaders, policy advisors, programme managers and technical managers work on concrete sustainability challenges from their own practice.  For example, team BOKS of Rijkwaterstaat works on the improvement and widening of the main waterway Lemmer – Delfzijl aiming to make the management and maintenance of bridges, locks and channels energy neutral, circular and climate neutral. The sustainability challenge of the Reinkade challenge team is to realise a green and lively quay in Arnhem with ambitions for sustainability, spatial quality, health and climate adaptation. And the E-team of ProRail has the sustainability ambition to introduce reuse of electrical components for installations, when adapting to larger transformers, in order to supply sufficient power to the Dutch railways in the future.

The awareness of the urgency of sustainability has fully penetrated the public construction and infrastructure sector. It is one minute to twelve: something has to happen soon.

Directors of various organisations in this sector have recently received a manifesto in which the authors argue in favour of accelerating sustainability in public construction and infrastructure projects. The offering of this manifesto has started a joint learning process to actively contribute to elaborating this sustainability ambition. The Sustainability Challenge has been set up to give concrete substance to this. A unique learning experience to contribute to a more sustainable world.

During the challenge, the teams receive guidance from an organisational and systemic perspective for half a year. After all, their sustainability challenges ask for a different approach than the technical approaches they are used to. The sustainability questions ask among others for connection and collaboration with different stakeholders with different interests, ideas and solutions and ask for involving the environment and market parties. For example, on the question of how you combine the realisation of sustainability goals with the requirement to operate soberly and efficiently and to stay within budget and planning?

With the help of Perspectivity’s Complexity Navigator the teams are handed different methods and ways of working and practice with multi-stakeholder dialogues. This has inspired and stimulated: a few teams have subsequently organised multi-stakeholder sessions to not just design ambitions and action plans as a project team, but to involve stakeholders, go into dialogue with them and make sure that the sustainability ambitions and solutions are widely supported.

On the 16th of June there will be the final meeting. Then the teams will show what they have accomplished.

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Photos by Jorrit ‘t Hoen commissioned by NeerlandsDiep