These are the people who are not deterred by vinegar whiners or ghosts and bears. These are the people who are making a difference now for the future.
People are the engine of change. By believing that things can be done differently and acting accordingly, space and time are set in motion. These are the people who are not deterred by vinegar mongers or ghosts and bears. They don't let themselves be stopped by, it's too difficult, they'll never do it, it's too expensive or this is how we've been making our money for centuries. These are the people who are making a difference now for the future.
In collaboration with journalist, filmmaker and publisher Serge Ligtenberg, a series about these circular frontrunners will premiere starting this month. In a completely contemporary way, the why of these inspiring people is portrayed. Who are they, what drives them, what do they do, the up side, the down side and the lessons learned. Each month an interview is published that can be followed via the TRIBOO website or the newsletter. We share our knowledge! Everyone can get ideas and get moving themselves. Together we will make the circular economy a reality and realize the waste-free society.
Creating beautiful things, with an inspired group of people and close to nature. That is perhaps what drives me the most. Whenever possible I am outside and enjoy nature and the presence of animals.
At first I wanted to be an architect, to create beautiful buildings. During my internship, realizing something beautiful and being part of a team that, along the way, solved all those complex and less complex issues of realization, turned out to be an even more beautiful challenge. Mostly outside, experiencing construction and smelling the concrete, wood, steel, mortar, I can still enjoy it.
Creating something beautiful together, the craftsmanship and each time in a different team composition, is very beautiful. For example, I started out as a work planner and helped think about other details that were more practical in terms of execution and still fitted in with the desired image. As you grow to become a project leader for small to very large projects and then end up in management positions, you can exert more and more influence at the front end if you continue to be amazed at the choices large and small and discuss them with each other.
As much as I love construction as a craft and as a profession, I still dislike it as simply continuing with old systems with blinders on. While there have long been new insights. It really can't go on like this. Raw materials that are running out, high CO2 emissions, creating volumes with irresponsible compositions of materials that, if you look at the big picture, may no longer be needed. We must break free from these old systems.
The indiscriminate disposal of unused, mostly leftover building materials has puzzled me from the start. Beautiful materials just in the construction and demolition container. Such an unbelievable waste and a chance taker, keeps thinking about it. Throughout my career I have always been concerned with waste. Whether it was about separating waste, reducing waste in the chain, a plan to house unused building materials in a sort of marketplace environment at the materials department, I was always there. Unnoticed, I was often part of groups of people who wanted to make a case for thinking more and more in terms of raw materials.
From my company Ertoedoen I received an assignment in 2017 to reduce complaints at Construction Company Trebbe. When drawing up the business plan of the Service Department, we forced ourselves to think about what the department would do if there were no more complaints. A logical follow-up to realization is resource management. With this in mind, we were allowed to realize together the canteen, which would be implemented anyway, as a circular canteen. TRIBOO put us on the track of the modular space and circular furnishings. Without the use of glues and screws, the space can be moved again in no time and each unique part can easily be reduced to usable raw material by the end of its life. It has become truly beautiful. An environment that inspires, encourages different thinking, different kinds of conversations and different ways of interacting.
I am convinced that beautiful things whether it is a building, a piece of furniture, music, a photo, a beautiful text, a beautiful gesture, genuinely beautiful, always leads to connection and the core of (being) together. And as an industry, we need that in my opinion. That combined with the strength that the construction industry has shown during this corona crisis, proves that the construction industry can also handle this upheaval.
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