University of Twente opens Green Hub

Green Hub Twente was officially opened last Monday, with a presentation and a debate on resilience in the interconnected climate and corona crises. The Green Hub, a “green office” largely run by University of Twente students, is a central place where all knowledge and initiatives concerning sustainability come together. All students and professionals involved have a passion for sustainable development, and they are working on a portfolio in teams of two. The teams are building op a network that will allow them to connect people and help implement new ideas. Suzanne Nijhuis, one of the students involved in Green Hub Twente: “Our vision is being a reliable knowledge centre that is the connecting factor for all movements concerning sustainability, both within and outside the university. We want to be approachable and open to all curious students, staff and citizens who want to contribute to development and change in a sustainable way, or want to learn more about it.”

Green Hub Twente’s mission goes beyond just making the university more sustainable. “The University of Twente wants to be a catalyst for making society as a whole more sustainable”, says Suzanne. “We are trying to make as much impact as possible with the Green Hub by producing and supporting professionals who can steer future developments in a sustainable direction. We want to make it easier to learn about and discuss sustainability, to gain experience with it and to apply sustainability in everyone’s work and personal life. This is not something we can achieve alone, as Green Hub Twente, so we are working together with the university and other partners from the region of Twente. We are a role model as a university and as an innovative region, so expressing sustainability in our infrastructure, education and management, among other things, is very important. We want to contribute to this.

Over the past few weeks, our team has been very busy organising the Sustainability Week. An essential part of this is building and maintaining a network of stakeholders, and we have already started doing this. We also want to create an accessible platform where a lot of information is available. You will find articles about sustainable energy published by the university on this platform, among other things, and information about educational opportunities such as a minor focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals. Advice on  acting sustainably as an association, for example, will also be available here. It is essential to generate awareness if we want to achieve our goals. We will be able to reach more people who would like to do more with sustainability and support them in achieving their sustainability goals.”

Currently, there are talks with several organisations about collaborating in the Green Hub. Rosan Verbraak, a Green Officer with an entrepreneurship portfolio: “We are talking to the Centre for Energy Innovation of the UT itself. We are also in contact with Novel-T, EnschedeLab and Eshuis. We are also involved in B-Corp together with Eshuis to start an impactful business. Also, we are now in contact with active companies on the Kennispark to create the best possible collaboration and improve sustainability in Twente. We are still at a starting point, of course, but we are making good progress in creating a great network!”