Today we held our workshop, Cities to Nature, announced earlier on the UT website and Facebook. As mentioned in a previous post, the VU Amsterdam and UTwente have co-organized this workshop as part of the funding received for our joint program titled 'Towards climate-proof cities with innovative blue-green infrastructures'.
The workshop included case study descriptions by first of all myself, on the LILa project and its goals to measure green roof performance; Michiel van de Bunt and Jacques Matijssen from Zinco and Solar Freezer; Tom Lentferts from Wavin; and Aurelio Wijnands from Green Panels.
Aside from presentations, this workshop specifically aimed at giving participants the opportunity to interact with each other. Our participants included several companies, municipality Enschede, a housing corporation, a nature organization, students and researchers. These participants were approached through the help of Het Groene Brein, an organization specialized in connecting scientists with sustainable and circular stakeholders. This paid off well for everyone involved. Multiple participants commented it was an excellent chance to really discuss blue green infrastructure developments in detail and loved to have the chance to talk with stakeholders from these diverse backgrounds. Other feedback from professionals in the field even included 'cool' and 'awesome', and most participants wanted another meeting to repeat what we experienced today, and to stay in touch with other participants.
For this we have good news. We have gotten extended funding for this project for the coming year, and both the VU and UT are expanding the project team members to jointly continue our research on blue green roofs. Our next workshop is being planned in October 2023 at the VU Amsterdam, where hopefully we can visit some of the blue green roofs already installed. Hope to see you there!
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