Our global society is not sustainable. We all know about the challenges we’re facing: waste, climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity. At the same time, we want to sustain our economies and offer opportunities for a growing world population. This course is about providing solutions we really believe in: a Circular Economy.

In this course we explore the Circular Economy: how businesses can create value by reusing and recycling products, how designers can come up with amazingly clever solutions, and how you can contribute to make the Circular Economy happen.

Around the world, major challenges of our time such as population growth and climate change are being addressed in cities. Here, citizens play an important role amidst governments, companies, NGOs and researchers in creating social, technological and political innovations for achieving sustainability.

Citizens can be co-creators of sustainable cities when they engage in city politics or in the design of the urban environment and its technologies and infrastructure. In addition, citizens influence and are influenced by the technologies and systems that they use every day. Sustainability is thus a result of the interplay between technology, policy and people’s daily lives. Understanding this interplay is essential for creating sustainable cities. In this MOOC, we zoom in on Amsterdam, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Nairobi, Kampala and Suzhou as living labs for exploring the dynamics of co-creation for sustainable cities worldwide. We will address topics such as participative democracy and legitimacy, ICTs and big data, infrastructure and technology, and SMART technologies in daily life.

In this activity students make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil and develop a presentation based on their lab experience. Parts of the activity include creation of bio-diesel from clean vegetable oil, creation of bio-diesel from waste vegetable oil, chemical analysis of biodiesel, purification of biodiesel, and creation of soap from glycerin.

DASHlink is a virtual laboratory for scientists and engineers to disseminate results and collaborate on research problems in health management technologies for aeronautics systems. Managed by the Integrated Vehicle Health Management project within NASA's Aviation Safety program, the Web site is designed to be a resource for anyone interested in data mining, IVHM, aeronautics and NASA.

In an increasingly data-driven world, data and its use aren’t always all it’s cracked up to be. This course aims to address the critical lack of any or appropriate data in many areas where complex decisions need to be made.

For instance, how can you predict volcano activity when no eruptions have been recorded over a long period of time? Or how can you predict how many people will be resistant to antibiotics in a country where there is no available data at national level? Or how about estimating the time needed to evacuate people in flood risk areas?

In situations like these, expert opinions are needed to address complex decision-making problems. This course, aimed at researchers and professionals from any academic background, will show you how expert opinion can be used for uncertainty quantification in a rigorous manner.

Various techniques are used in practice. They vary from the informal and undocumented opinion of one expert to a fully documented and formal elicitation of a panel of experts, whose uncertainty assessments can be aggregated to provide support for complex decision making.

In this course you will be introduced to state-of-the-art expert judgment methods, particularly the Classical Model (CM) or Cooke’s method, which is arguably the most rigorous method for performing Structured Expert Judgment.

CM, developed at TU Delft by Roger Cooke, has been successfully applied for over 30 years in areas as diverse as climate change, disaster management, epidemiology, public and global health, ecology, aeronautics/aerospace, nuclear safety, environment and ecology, engineering and many others.

Mitigation of climate change is one of the most important challenges of our times. To prevent irreversible damage to human societies and the environment, it was agreed that world countries should limit the global average temperature rise. To avoid the dangerous impacts of climate change, it is needed to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 °C or even to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.

This requires cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to near-zero levels in the coming decades. Especially for the energy system, a drastic transformation is needed.

We know that such a transformation is possible, but it will require virtually every organization, whether it is a steel company, a hospital or a municipality, to tackle climate change challenges. The question that often arises is – where to start?

This course is designed for the professionals that might be the leaders of this transformation in their organization - policymakers, sustainability consultants or professionals from other fields -who want to familiarize themselves with climate change mitigation strategies so theycan apply it to their projects.

In the first part of the course, you will obtain basic knowledge including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the various types of GHG (CO2 and non-CO2), their emissions and about the Paris Agreement. You will also learn about current energy systems, electricity generation and the energy demand of various sectors.

Next, we will focus on courses of action and methods that will assist in selecting the best options in any type of project or organization. We will present methodologies for measurement of emissions reduction and calculation of costs. Here we will introduce you to the concepts of “marginal abatement cost curves” which will help you analyze alternatives by comparing emission reduction potential with the costs involved. Finally, various options such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and electrification will be discussed as the emission reduction strategies.

We invite you to join this journey and to bring your own experiences and challenges to your organization.

Explore the role of national governments, municipalities, companies and the international community in climate change mitigation. Learn to set reduction targets yourself and translate them into action plans.

“Every action matters
Every bit of warming matters
Every year matters
Every choice matters.”

This was the brief summary of a 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific advisory board of the United Nations.

But who should take action?

In earlier courses, we already set out what is needed to limit the impact of climate change. In this course, we will explore the role of national governments, the international community, companies, and sub-national governments, like cities, municipalities, provinces, and regions.

We start from the idea that climate governance is polycentric. None of these parties can mitigate the dangers of climate change all by themselves. Each of these types of organization has its particular strength. If you work – or plan to work – in or with any such organization, then through this course you will learn how to be successful and effective in playing your part in mitigating climate change.

Important elements that will be discussed for the various players in the field are:

What roles can the different organizations play?
How can emission reduction targets be set so that they are both ambitious and feasible?
How can meaningful emission reduction plans be developed that actually result in emission reduction on the ground?
Examples will be presented by professionals who have been successful in their own organization. They are willing to share the failures and critical success factors in their strategies.

What You'll Learn
Understand how international climate agreements work.
Assess the sphere of influence of your own organization.
Learn how to develop national climate policies and evaluate the relevance of existing policies for your organization.
Be able to set ambitious and feasible GHG emission reduction targets for companies and discover how to translate these into a climate action plan.
Design approaches to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in supply chains.
Be able to set ambitious and feasible GHG emission reduction targets for cities and municipalities and learn how to translate these into climate action plans.
Decide in which areas the greatest acceleration of climate action is needed.

The En-ROADS guided assignment challenges participants to use the free online En-ROADS simulator (https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/) to create a scenario that successfully addresses climate change while considering implications across the economy, environment, and society. The En-ROADS assignment is used in classrooms, ranging from middle school to graduate level students, and comes in short and long forms. It can also be adapted as an exercise for non-academic settings. Often, the assignment is given following an En-ROADS workshop or Climate Action Simulation role-playing simulation game (https://www.climateinteractive.org/en-roads/).

This video is from the Energy 101 video series. It explains the process for converting micro-algae into fuel and makes the case that algae-based biofuels hold enormous potential for helping reduce our dependence on imported oil.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Left unchecked, excessive CO₂ emissions have the potential to significantly warm the planet in the coming decades. One way to curb this trend is to develop more efficient power electronics, which can channel electricity from clean energy sources to the global grid, with minimal energy losses. A new study reports one device that could help make this clean future a reality. Losses in traditional power electronics can be traced to the relatively sluggish movement of the charge carriers that carry current through them. That translates to slow switching speeds and overall inefficient device performance. This new device takes advantage of a phenomenon called bulk conduction, where charge carriers are generated (in this case, with light) and controlled nearly simultaneously throughout the device. Results showed that the device, made from silicon carbide, could perform 6 times faster than existing solid-state devices. That speed improvement alone could help reduce global CO₂ emissions by more than 10%..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This set of three videos illustrates how math is used in satellite data analysis. The videos feature NASA senior climate scientist Claire Parkinson. Parkinson explains how the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice covers are measured from satellite data and how math is used to determine trends in the data. In the first video, she leads viewers from satellite data collection through obtaining a time series of monthly average sea ice extents for November 1978 – December 2012, for the Arctic and Antarctic. In the second video, she begins with the time series from the first video, removes the seasonal cycle by calculating yearly averages, and proceeds to calculate the slopes of the lines to get trends in the data, revealing decreasing sea ice coverage in the Arctic and increasing sea ice coverage in the Antarctic. In the third video, she uses a more advanced technique to remove the seasonal cycle and shows that the trends are close to the same, whichever method is used. She emphasizes the power of math and that the techniques shown for satellite sea ice data can also be applied to a wide range of data sets.

For the first time in history, the number of world citizens without access to electricity services has dropped below one billion, but still more than 2.8 billion people lack access to clean and affordable cooking fuels. Access to clean, affordable and reliable energy services for all world citizens is a precondition for the achievement of many other Sustainable Development Goals, such as health and economic development.

The provision of sustainable energy services for all is not just a technological challenge or one confined to developing countries. Industrial and post-industrial societies also need to address issues of energy poverty and energy injustice.

Rather than tackling the technological dimension of the formidable challenge to provide an inclusive energy system with renewable and climate-neutral energy resources, this course will focus on its social and institutional dimension. Introduction to the principle of the 4 As of energy services – Accessibility, Availability, Affordability, and Acceptability (environmental and social) will enrich your perspective as an engineering professional. Balancing these four critical and interdependent criteria is a recurrent challenge for individuals and society as a whole, as the characterization of the four As evolves with economic development and changing societal preferences.

You will learn how the rules of the game as defined in laws, regulation and market designs impact the balance between the 4As. Using a wider socio-technical systems perspective you will discover new solutions for the inclusive provision of energy services beyond the purely technological solutions.

After this course you can engage in a richer, more informed debate about how to achieve an inclusive energy system. You will be able to translate this knowledge into strategies to serve society’s future energy needs. The cases presented from developed and developing countries will help you to develop and test your analytical skills. Interviews with industry leaders shaping the energy system will challenge you to reflect on the position these leaders take and the interests they serve.

Lastly, you will put yourself to the test by demonstrating your newly acquired knowledge and skills as a strategic policy advisor, in writing guidelines for a strategic action plan for the energy system and institutional context which are relevant for you, in your company, your city or your country.

As fossil-based fuels and raw materials contribute to climate change, the use of renewable materials and energy as an alternative is increasingly important and common. This transition is not a luxury, but rather a necessity. We can use the unique properties of microorganisms to convert organic waste streams into biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels.

This course provides the insights and tools for the design of biotechnology processes in a sustainable way. Five experienced course leaders will teach you the basics of industrial biotechnology and how to apply these to the design of fermentation processes for the production of fuels, chemicals and foodstuffs.

Throughout this course, you will be challenged to design your own biotechnological process and evaluate its performance and sustainability. This undergraduate course includes guest lectures from industry as well as from the University of Campinas in Brazil, with over 40 years of experience in bio-ethanol production. The course is a joint initiative of TU Delft, the international BE-Basic consortium and University of Campinas.

Water is essential for life on earth and of crucial importance for society. Also within our climate water plays a major role. The natural cycle of ocean to atmosphere, by precipitation back to earth and by rivers and aquifers to the oceans has a decisive impact on regional and global climate patterns.

This course will cover six main topics:

Global water cycle. In this module you will learn to explain the different processes of the global water cycle.
Water systems. In this module you will learn to describe the flows of water and sand in different riverine, coastal and ocean systems.
Water and climate change. In this module you will learn to identify mechanisms of climate change and you will learn to explain the interplay of climate change, sea level, clouds, rainfall and future weather.
Interventions. In this module you will learn to explain why, when and which engineering interventions are needed in rivers, coast and urban environment.
Water resource management. In this module you will learn to explain why water for food and water for cities are the main challenges in water management and what the possibilities and limitations of reservoirs and groundwater are to improve water availability.
Challenges. In this module you will learn to explain the challenges in better understanding and adapting to the impact of climate change on water for the coming 50 years.

Many of today’s global challenges require tech-driven solutions — climate change, the growth of the world population, cyber security, the increasing demand for scarce resources, digitalization, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. With this in mind, it is no surprise that one fourth of the CEOs of the world’s 100 largest corporations have an engineering degree.

Solving these global problems requires leaders who, in the first place, are comfortable with technology, models and quantitative analyses — Leaders who see systems instead of isolated problems. However, simply understanding technology is not enough. Successful leaders today must have both the ideas and the know-how to put these ideas into action by working collaboratively with others, winning their hearts and minds.

We need leaders who know how to seize opportunities in a networked world, and can mobilize people and other stakeholders for large-scale change. Leaders who lead fulfilling lives and who are able to move themselves and others from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’. Leaders who are long-term oriented and who deliver economic profit, while also making positive contributions to society and the environment. We call these leaders ‘sustainable leaders’.

How can ecosystems contribute to quality of life and a more livable, healthier and more resilient urban environment?

Have you ever considered all the different benefits the ecosystem could potentially deliver to you and your surroundings? Unsustainable urbanization has resulted in the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of habitats and has therefore limited the ability of ecosystems to deliver the advantages they could confer.

This course establishes the priorities and highlights the direct values of including principles based on natural processes in urban planning and design. Take a sewage system or a public space for example. By integrating nature-based solutions they can deliver the exact same performance while also being beneficial for the environment, society and economy.

Increased connectivity between existing, modified and new ecosystems and restoring and rehabilitating them within cities through nature-based solutions provides greater resilience and the capacity to adapt more swiftly to cope with the effects of climate change and other global shifts.

This course will teach you about the design, construction, implementation and monitoring of nature-based solutions for urban ecosystems and the ecological coherence of sustainable cities. Constructing smart cities and metropolitan regions with nature-based ecosystems will secure a fair distribution of benefits from the renewed urban ecology.

This course forms a part of the educational programme of the AMS Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and will present the state-of-the-art theories and methods developed by the Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University & Research, two of the founding universities of the AMS Institute.

Instructors, with advanced expertise in Urban Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Urban Planning and Design, will equip designers and planners with the skills they need for the sustainable management of the built environment. The course will also benefit stakeholders from both private and public sectors who want to explore the multiple benefits of restored ecosystems in cities and metropolitan regions. They will gain the knowledge and skills required to make better informed and integrated decisions on city development and urban regeneration schemes.

Infrastructures for energy, water, transport, information and communications services create the conditions for livability and economic development. They are the backbone of our society. Similar to our arteries and neural systems that sustain our human bodies, most people however take infrastructures for granted. That is, until they break down or service levels go down.

In many countries around the globe infrastructures are ageing. They require substantial investments to meet the challenges of increasing population, urbanization, resource scarcity, congestion, pollution, and so on. Infrastructures are vulnerable to extreme weather events, and therewith to climate change.
Technological innovations, such as new technologies to harvest renewable energy, are one part of the solution. The other part comes from infrastructure restructuring. Market design and regulation, for example, have a high impact on the functioning and performance of infrastructures.

This project was funded by the MHCC Foundation OER Grant Program and published by MHCC Library Press. MARC record available at the end of the book.

After conducting an assessment that showed their building’s vulnerability to wind damage, the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami looked for a way to improve safety for patients and staff.

The electric grid are networks that carry electricity from central power plants to our homes. But how exactly is electricity generated and brought to our door? And what needs to change if we’re going to transition to generating “clean” electricity? In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), Harvey Michaels, lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to explain the history and perhaps surprising features of the electric grid, and what changes are in store for the future.