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Join us for an insightful evening exploring sustainability from multiple perspectives: corporate discourse, individual well-being, and environmental conservation.
Our lineup of speakers will guide you through key sustainability challenges: “Greening or greenwashing? Big Tech & the climate crisis” by Dr. Rianne Riemens, “Saving the planet and being happy – Can we have it all?” by Pr. Laura Weiss, and “Protecting Elephants in the Hardware Store” by Pr. Joeri Zwerts.
The evening will conclude with a fun and interactive pub quiz, giving you a chance to test your knowledge and win some prizes!
Don’…
Our lineup of speakers will guide you through key sustainability challenges: “Greening or greenwashing? Big Tech & the climate crisis” by Dr. Rianne Riemens, “Saving the planet and being happy – Can we have it all?” by Pr. Laura Weiss, and “Protecting Elephants in the Hardware Store” by Pr. Joeri Zwerts.
The evening will conclude with a fun and interactive pub quiz, giving you a chance to test your knowledge and win some prizes!
Don’…
Greening or greenwashing? Big Tech & the climate crisis
Rianne Riemens
(Postdoctoral Researcher)
Companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft play a large role in our everyday lives and are central actors in the digital economy. The operations of these “Big Tech” companies, from streaming videos to training AI models, are very energy intensive. In this talk, Rianne Riemens discusses the multifarious role of Big Tech in the climate crisis. Showing several examples, the talk will address how they present themselves as climate leaders through their “green” marketing and operations. Which tactics do they use to present themselves as green as possible? And how to assess their claims?
Saving the planet and being happy – Can we have it all?
Laura Weiss
(Assistant Professor)
Prof. Dr. Laura Weiss is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University and Extraordinary Professor at North-West University, South Africa. Her field is positive psychology, the scientific study of well-being. She will advocate that well-being and positive emotions have a role in climate change communication. She will present her research on the relationship between feeling happy and living in a way that is climate friendly. She will also show why creating fear to get people to behave sustainable might not be the best solution, and that hope could be a good alternative.
Protecting Elephants in the Hardware Store
Joeri Zwerts
(Assistant Professor)
As global populations grow, resource demand rises, putting biodiversity under pressure. Meanwhile, conservation commitments are becoming more ambitious. How can we balance resource needs with nature conservation? In my presentation I will explore the case of tropical timber, as over a quarter of hyper-biodiverse tropical forests are logged. FSC certification aims to reduce biodiversity impacts, but its effectiveness remains uncertain. I will share the findings of an ambitious research project that explores this question and takes you through the process of obtaining the results.
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