ACAN Netherlands

Last week Sonja and Jasmine spent the evening at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft, where we had co-organised and were invited for a discussion titled “Pedagogies of Climate Action”. We were joined on the panel and in the audience by students, activists and educators to unpack the question of how can students be prepared to face challenges of climate breakdown, systemic inequality, resource depletion and housing crises in their education. Before hearing the heartfelt words and provocations from Jeremy and Caroline, we raised some questions to the students and made our call for action: is what you're being taught preparing you for operating in a climate emergency? Who is teaching you your agency? Are your tutors up for the task? We invited the students to talk about the crises with everyone, to allow themselves to be angry, to ask for help and, above all, to organise to demand for curriculum change. We hope the discussion will stay with the students and the teachers for a while, to break the "ivory tower" that academia feels like for now, so that students can be empowered to ask better questions & radically reimagine a way forward. The discussion could have continued for many many hours, and you can watch a recording of it here: https://lnkd.in/erpt5pnS Students and educators: we’d love to continue that conversation - reach out to us, let’s talk, let's organise. Very grateful to Javier Arpa Fernandez and the whole team for organising this moment together, and for giving us a platform to voice our call for action. Thank you for sharing your diverse perspectives Irene Luque Martín Caroline Newton Jeremy Till Remon Rooij and Jacob Steinberg. 📸 thanks so much for the photos Jesse Verdoes!

🚨 Stop Demolishing, Stop Building for The Elite and Start Renovating for the people 🚨 I had the honor of participating in a panel debate for *HouseEurope!* on how we can shift from demolishing buildings to prioritizing renovation. It’s time to rethink our approach to the building industry and ensure it serves people, not profit. Here’s the reality: “Europe needs to renovate 146 million houses to adhere to the Paris Accord.” This isn’t just about climate goals—it’s about creating a fair, sustainable future for everyone. Here are 5 ways to make renovation the new norm, based on the insight from last night: 1️⃣ **Ban speculative new development** – Housing is a fundamental human right and shouldn’t be financialized. 2️⃣ **Ration new building permits** – Construction should only happen if it’s based on actual need and sufficiency. 3️⃣ **Adhere to core system boundaries** – Every renovation or new build must align with climate stability (CO2 reduction) and functioning ecosystems (biodiversity loss). This means following a carbon roadmaps aligned with the 1.5°C Paris Accord and compensating for biodiversity loss caused by on-site and off-site impacts. 4️⃣ **Disincentivize demolition** – If a building is demolished, the plot loses 50% of its density permit. This encourages owners to maintain and renovate existing structures. 5️⃣ **Implement a vacancy tax** – Tax unused spaces heavily to push for better utilization of existing buildings. Renovation isn’t just about preserving buildings—it’s about reducing pressure on our planet’s core system boundaries and ensuring a livable future for all. We need to stop building for the elite and start renovating for the people. 🌍 HouseEurope! Is the first step to achieving the points above. 👉 Help them make this a reality! * HouseEurope!* is aiming for **1 million signatures** to push for these changes. Let’s make renovation the new norm and stop the unnecessary demolition of buildings and start a renovation wave. Sign, share, and spread the word! https://lnkd.in/e9A6gcpT

#STOPDESLOOP - THE MOST SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS ARE THOSE ALREADY BUILT! ---NL in comments--- Markets, land speculation, regulations, taxes, old myths, public perception: it's all working against our aims to urgently decarbonise, build healthy buildings & just communities. In 2025, we are changing this. We are proud to collaborate with 🚧 HouseEurope! 🚧 and many other international parties, working together to collect 1 million signatures across Europe, with the aim to build EU law that ends the era of demolition, facilitating renovations and retrofits. We are now one of HouseEurope!'s national Dutch partners, and from the 1st of February, a 1-year petition with the goal of collecting at least 22.320 signatures in the Netherlands has started. Once accomplished, the EU Commission will need to create a working group for the topic and review the law. The main points of the HouseEurope! proposal are: 1. reduced VAT on renovations - economic incentives 2. fair, standardised and mandatory demolition audits and assessments - only demolish if no solution is proven to exist 3. expanding LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) to account for existing building's embodied emissions - to be linked to the EU taxonomy and climate targets Let's FIX IT together! Let's show what direct democracy can do. ✒️ VOTE now via https://lnkd.in/eaeUdguk or visit https://lnkd.in/eMkiXrq9 to know more about the initiative. ACAN Sverige ACAN Spain (Architects Climate Action Network) Saskia van Stein Janna Bystrykh Olaf Grawert Alina Kolar Architects4Future Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) Lucas Roekens Jasmine Montina Ivan Avdić Margaux Humbert Sonja Draskovic Erica Chladová Christina Papadaki Wiktoria Mrozek Emma Lubbers

#today #upcoming BK TALKS. Pedagogies of climate action. TODAY - January 28th, 2025, 17:30 Oostserre (Orange Hall), Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft How can we prepare future architects and designers to confront the urgent challenges of climate breakdown, systemic inequality, resource depletion, and housing crises? This edition of BK Talks, organized in collaboration with Architects Climate Action Network NL (ACAN NL), explores how design education can be reimagined to build ecological awareness, promote social justice, and drive systemic change. The session will explore how pedagogy can reshape traditional architectural practices, integrate ecological knowledge, challenge outdated methodologies, and uncover pathways for design education to inspire both hope and responsibility in addressing global crises. Focusing on rethinking design education in the context of today’s interconnected challenges, the session poses critical questions: How can we equip students to navigate such complexities? Should design education adopt a more activist stance or remain anchored in detached scholarship? Most importantly, how can we empower future architects and designers to overcome feelings of powerlessness and drive meaningful change? We will examine how education can deepen connections to ecological systems, amplify diverse perspectives, and challenge entrenched industry norms, advocating for a regenerative built environment. Design is inherently a call to action. This session will emphasize the urgency of transforming it into a regenerative and adaptive force. Together, let’s envision an educational framework that not only prepares designers to minimize environmental impact but also empowers them to champion a more just and sustainable built—and unbuilt—world. Moderator: Javier Arpa Fernández Panellists: Sonja Draskovic Jasmine Montina Caroline Newton Remon Rooij Jacob Steinberg Jeremy Till #bktalks #bkpublicprograms #bkpublicprograms2024 #architecture #urbanism #landscape #buildingtechnology #geomatics #studentslife #buildings #bouwkunde #design #builtenvironment #BKPublicPrograms #BKExpo #BKTalks #Bouwkunde #BK #TUDelft #Exhibition #BuiltEnvironment #pedagogy #education #ClimateAction

Next week ACAN UK is holding a session on how to conduct LCA's with confidence. Join in via link below! ⬇️ *Remember time is UK time*

🚀 Accelerating Social Tipping Points: What Can I Do? The change we need isn’t small—it’s systemic. To make it happen, we must enable collective action on a massive scale. But where do we start? Over the next two days, I’ll share two powerful lists: 💡 5 Individual Actions to Enable Collective Action for Systemic Change 🤝 5 Collective Actions to Enable Collective Action for Systemic Change These aren’t just feel-good tips—they’re practical steps to help us push the world closer to critical tipping points for a just and sustainable future. 💡 5 Individual Actions to Enable Collective Action for Systemic Change 1️⃣ Educate Yourself 📚 Equip yourself with knowledge about systemic issues to bring valuable insights into collective discussions and efforts. 2️⃣ Talk to Others 🗣️ Share what you’ve learned with friends, family, and coworkers to inspire conversations and expand the collective understanding. 3️⃣ Process Your Emotions 🧠💚 Seek therapy or community support to navigate feelings of eco-anxiety or grief, enabling you to show up with resilience in collective spaces. 4️⃣ Contribute Resources ⏳💡💰 Use your time, skills, or finances to support movements, whether through volunteering, fundraising, or offering expertise. 5️⃣ Focus on Well-Being Over Consumer Culture 🌿💬💞 Shift your priorities toward personal and collective well-being: reduce working hours if possible, spend more time in nature, and strengthen bonds with friends and family. These actions model alternative values that challenge the consumer-driven status quo and create space for deeper participation in collective efforts. Only contribute within your capacity—burnout helps no one. 🌱💡 Sustainability transformation requires us to be rested and resilient, not exhausted. 💚✨ Change happens best when we care for ourselves too. 🌟💪 Hope you find these points helpful Stay tuned and let’s create change together. ✊ - happy holidays - thanks to Charlie J. Gardner for inspiring this post

𝗕𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝘁 𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘂𝘄𝗲 𝗷𝗮𝗮𝗿 𝗴𝗼𝗲𝗱: 𝘇𝗲𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝘄 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗽 𝗱𝗲 𝗸𝗮𝗮𝗿𝘁! 🏡✨ In 2024 zetten we biobased RENOVATIEprojecten in Nederland in het zonnetje. Inmiddels kennen we al bijna 100 mooie voorbeelden van hoe biobased materialen worden ingezet in renovaties. Maar we willen méér! 💡 Werk jij ook aan een biobased renovatie? Begin het nieuwe jaar met impact: laat jouw project aan ons weten door het formulier in te vullen via https://lnkd.in/eBzn-H-T. Wij zorgen ervoor dat jouw werk zichtbaar wordt in ons overzicht en inspireert anderen in de markt. 📩 Wil je jouw project ook op deze kaart? Vul het formulier in en bouw mee aan een toekomst met minder CO₂ en meer circulariteit. Samen laten we de impact zien! #BiobasedBouwen #Renovatie #biobasedrenovatie 🎯 Cirkelstad Marjet Rutten Stan Migchels Sjoerd Klijn Velderman Isovlas

ACAN NL's movement support needs help! 🌍⬇ As the movement is growing, we have realised we need more hands on deck in our Social Media group, to spread the message & update our community with the campaigns and news of the network. So far, 3 active members have been working in the background to keep our posts flowing, but as we increasingly focus to coordinate our thematic groups and campaigns, it's become hard to take good care of our socials. We therefore are reaching out to our community to ask for help in supporting us. What ACAN needs for creating our posts: 👉 occasional or regular help (approx 1h per week) 👉 basic graphic design using Adobe suite 🎨 👉 to craft relevant captions ✍️ 👉 to connect with our audiences in honesty and solidarity 💬 If you know how to work with the algorithm and have some storytelling skills that's a super bonus & would love to hear from you! Being part of the social media team is a great way to tangibly contribute to the movement when time is limited. Whether it’s creating a post, writing a caption, or sharing ideas, small tasks can have a BIG impact in spreading awareness and driving action. Message us or email us on @info@acannetherlands.org - & thank you in advance 💚 #ACANNL #ClimateAction #Architects #movement #support #SocialMedia #Sustainability

One of the measures the Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening Mona Keijzer thought of, to reduce "contradictory and unnecessary regulations" (under the "STOER" initiative) around housing construction, is to scrap the requirement for housing & nesting facilities for protected animal species (such as the house sparrow, swift and bat) for all new construction and major renovations. In the official statement (link below), the Ministry also states that no new sustainability requirements will be imposed on housing construction. This is a clear sign that the vast majority of our society still sees humans detached from nature (even though we are partly run by a party for farmers), and that we are prioritising profit (of new construction) over biodiversity. Gideon - Building Transition Tribes thank you for organising this letter to the Minister in short time - we stand in solidarity. ACAN Netherlands calls for ecological regeneration, and the implementation of regenerative practices now! Adding housing and nesting facilities to protect endangered fauna & help it thrive alongside humans should be the norm, not seen as an option beyond basic regulation. Also, it's really not so hard to make space for these animals in buildings & masterplans, we just need to involve ecologists more in conversations. https://lnkd.in/eQrYdm7T

🌟 Relive the energy of ACAN NL’s Launch Event! 🌟 🎥 The wait is over – our very first YouTube video is LIVE! If you missed our launch event on last September 19th at the Nieuwe Instituut with the IABR or want to revisit the presentations by ACAN NL, Charlie Clemoes, Catherine Koekoek, Javier Arpa Fernández, Peggy Deamer from The Architecture Lobby, you can now finally catch the highlights. 40+ passionate professionals and students in the built environment came together to tackle the question: How do we effect meaningful change? 🌱 You can watch the 5-part launch film now and join us in creating a brighter future by creating connections & campaigning together, towards the systemic change of our industry. Let’s keep the conversation going! 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ePB8_J8W 💬 You're invited to like, subscribe to the channel, share your thoughts in the video comments and share it with peers and colleagues you think should see it. Movies filmed by Marcus Grosveld and edited by Allard Meijer 🔮 #ACANNL #ACAN #ClimateChange #Action #architectsclimateactionnetwork #Architecture #Architectuur #Sustainability #SustainableArchitecture #Duurzaamheid #Nederland #ArchitectsUnite #CoCreation #ClimateAction #JoinUs