FEB MAR
2018
BOTANICA
the roots and branches of sustainable ideas
HEAT
botanicalnu botanica_lnu
This publication is made possible by Linnaeus University
Feb/Mar 2018 N.3
HEAT
Every issue of "BOTANICA" follows a different theme. Students of LNU are free to interpret it in their own, creative way: diversity of opinion is celebrated. INDEX Hot topics for 2018 (p. 1-4) Hot or cold lighting, Sir? (p. 5-8) It's not easy streaming green (p. 9-14) Hot tips for your hot dishes (p. 15-20) Let's reconsider warm atmosphere (p. 21-26) A rush of heat (p. 27-30) List of collaborators (p. 31-32)
HOT TOPICS FOR 2018
author
Greta Mabilia
Interview with the Sustainable Development coordinators of LNU on the university's sustainable goals and visions for the year 2018. BjĂśrn Idlinge and Johan Ă„lvgren work with sustainability goals at LNU and are available to help students with their sustainability related projects, with guidance and, at times, financial support. If you have an idea, contact them at johan.alvgren@lnu.se
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FACE TO FACE
Every year Linnaeus University aims to achieve a number of goals in order to reach a higher level of sustainable development. For the year 2018, Bjรถrn and Johan summarise new targets in the following list. Environmental certification The university will hopefully receive an environmental certification in the spring of 2018. This means that LNU has a systematic environmental work that fulfills a certain number of requirements. Our next step is to be top 5 among Swedish universities regarding sustainability, within two years. New sustainability goals LNU will, during 2018, develop new goals with certain targets for the next three years (2019-2021) within sustainability. The process will start in the spring and students will be invited to give input. Conference on equal rights and opportunities In November 2018 LNU will host a national conference on equal rights and opportunities. The conference will bring up issues related to gender equality, discrimination, harassment and more. Development of new educations in sustainability Six departments work together to develop a future master education: Transdisciplinary Practice for Societal Change.
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A new education in sustainability for employees at LNU is being developed in 2018, with the aim to connect the global challenges to their work and everyday life. Linnaeus University to be equality-integrated The integration of equality is a way to plan the work in an organisation to make sure that all decisions take into account how the decision will affect the power (in)balance between women and men. The plan is in place, the implementation starts 2018.
As mentioned in previous issues of Botanica, Johan and Bjรถrn strongly believe in collaborative work with students, as we are those who make this University the strong institution that it is nowadays. There are numerous student-led and sustainability related projects on campus today and, if you have an idea, you could start a new one. Campus is a perfect ground for testing and developing projects for the kind of small, yet complex, community that characterizes the area. Feel free to contact the board of Botanica if you need any guidance!
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Illustration by Greta Mabilia
A better university for everybody
Striving for sustainability
Involvement of students
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HOT OR COLD LIGHTING, SIR?
author
Luisa Leroy
Capitalism, Linear Economy to be more specific, led the industry into a fast changing environment. The problem of this economical philosophy is that nobody feels responsible for their actions whereby one clasp of the chain gives the responsibility, as fast as possible, to the next clasp in line.
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FROM THE SOURCE
On the 27th of June 2001, a couple of hundred people gathered for a birthday party. There wes a cake, drinks and live music, all organized to celebrate this important day. All the guests, even George Bush senior was attending, sung, chattered and cheered to honor its one hundred birthday. Who was the lucky one? An incandescent light bulb. The next party is planned in Livermore in 2021, to celebrate his new achievement of age and resourcefulness. If you are interested, write this special happening all in your calendars, agendas and I-cloud supportive apps because this, one and only, light bulb is an impressive piece of engineering. What is so special about this bulb? Since its existing, 1901, the bulb has never been turned off, no matter the circumstances (storms, earthquakes, etc.) After its 100th birthday, the bulb has been supervised by a webcam, 24 hours a day, just for safety reasons. While the light bulb has, nowadays, more than one million hours on its counter, the webcam has been replaced three times since its integration. Why don’t today's products live as long as this particular light bulb? How it is possible that products cannot last for long, despite the increase in the knowledge and techniques? As they say in business-terms: “Time is money� and thereby qualitative products are too time-demanding whereby the capitalistic system was testing their possibilities and economic barriers. It resulted into
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high waves of change, marketing strategies and revenues models. Capitalism, Linear Economy to be more specific, led the industry into a fast changing environment. The problem of this economical philosophy is that nobody feels responsible for their actions whereby one clasp of the chain gives the responsibility, as fast as possible, to the next clasp in line. Even when the end-consumer is done using their product. He/she will give the responsibility to the next one… with the final step: the garbage mountain. To offer a solution to this waste and heated problem: Circular Economy The European Union has set a deadline that by 2050 the whole economy system has to change its philosophy. Many companies are changing their mindset and business strategies already… from selling products/goods to offering services instead. “Light as a Service” (LAAS) is a result of this change in philosophy, created by Philips Lighting. The client doesn’t pay for bulbs (LED) but for the whole service which includes the lighting calculation, installation, maintenance and so on. They contribute cold lighting in the broad sense. This new business strategy creates an even more appealing revenue model for them and many other organizations. As all human beings are living temporarily on earth, the treatment of products and materials should be maintained the same because everything has a rhythm, and each rhythm has certain laws in itself. Better serve cold lighting instead of heated problems.
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Illustration by Luisa Leroy
LED
IT’S NOT EASY STREAMING GREEN
author
Arne Guthknecht
Maybe you are holding the print BOTANICA in your hands right now, asking yourself: why does a sustainable publication still gets printed out? Well, but how do we know that online is better for the planet?
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FROM THE SOURCE
Whether you get heat up by hot chocolate, a fight with your boyfriend or just by watching a cute cat video on the internet, pretty sure energy is behind that heat. It is the oven that makes chocolate hot - it is also your own energy, used more or less efficiently on a decent fight. However what we tend to forget is the energy used for what connects us every day: starting with the #wokeuplikethis Instagram post, asking Google Maps for the way and ending up procrastinating with the mentioned cat video at the library - online means being in a permanent need for energy. As thoughtful and environmentallyconscious citizens, we are used to switching off lights and for sure we know, that the power bank charging our smartphone during the day does not help saving energy. There is just so much more invisible energy that we do not even know is consumed when we swipe right on Tinder. In 2012, the IT sector consumed almost as much energy as Russia and India combined, according to the CIA World Factbook. As a publication concerned with sustainability, also Botanica contributors have to consider how to publish. When we discussed this topic, the first intention was clear: We have to go online to save on paper, ink and other productionrelated resources. But how do we actually know whether a blog would be more sustainable? All the articles need to be stored in a data center, every connection requires energy and every user needs a device that requires energy when accessing the Botanica blog. The users’ devices however only
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account for 34% of the electricity consumption related to the Internet. Data centers, manufacturing and the networks use most electricity according to Greenpeace. Heat is one reason, why Facebook in 2013 decided to open two data centers in the Swedish arctic north of Luleü: the energy savings from the natural cooling of servers can be a corporate social responsibility greenwashing measure, but there is no doubt it saves the social network money previously spent on air conditioning. But nonetheless - how can we actually measure how much we heat the planet with our online behavior? According to Greenpeace’s Clicking Clean Report 2016, the energy footprint of the IT sector accounts for 7% of the world’s electricity. The report also indicates data about the energy structures of leading tech companies. Here, Apple is clearly leading as a green role model, mainly due to the highest share of renewable energy in their mix. However data is only provided for Apple software and services (like iTunes and iMessage). The hardware suppliers for iPhones and Macs are not taken into consideration - probably the picture would look differently. Facebook (including Instagram and WhatsApp) and Google (including YouTube) also receive very good ratings. The Chinese tech companies like Baidu, Tencent with WeChat and Alibaba fall behind mainly because they still rely on coal as their main resource and have not committed to renewable energy yet. But before you start judging: Twitter surprises with a bad rating as well. This is mainly
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due to their lacking transparency when it comes to energy consumption, but also because they rely on natural gas and only hold a 10% share of renewable energy in their portfolio - compared to a 83% share at Apple. Pinterest is even worse, obtaining energy mainly from coal. There is also room for improvement for the Swedish streaming giant Spotify: especially transparency is missing according to the Greenpeace report. The next time you plan a Netflix & chill night and actually plan on watching a movie, think twice: The streaming service mainly powers on coal - and Amazon Video is not any better (watch more YouTube videos instead, their servers are powered with 56% renewable energy). In general, video streaming is rapidly increasing energy consumption due to the high amount of data involved. When I went through the energy report, I experienced a moment of shock when I read that WordPress is mainly running on coal and gas as well. The blogging website was actually Botanica’s choice - now we need to reconsider our selection for going digital and might choose Google’s blogger.com service. As you can see - it’s not really easy being green while taking advantage of the Internet. And it’s almost impossible to assess the amount of energy consumed by opening a website, searching on Google or sending a WhatsApp message. Website operators should therefore be transparent about the impact, one user has and declare the amount and source of energy, we are consuming while we watch a video or read an
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article to make it easier for us to relate. This is not supposed to suck the joy out of the internet - instead, it should put providers under pressure to deliver their services in a sustainable way. As for Botanica, the scale probably makes the difference. While a blog post is only stored once and is accessible to everyone, many issues would need to be printed to reach the same amount of readers. Digital probably is more sustainable in the end - but for now, we encourage you to share your print version with more people to spread the word and lead heated discussions on hot topics.
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Illustration by Arne Guthknecht
Binge-watching
Green fellow
HOT TIPS FOR YOUR HOT DISHES
author
Greta Mabilia
How can we become more sustainable when cooking our meals?
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FROM THE SOURCE
How can we become more sustainable when cooking our meals? Surely the diet we follow plays a huge role in the impact we have on the environment, but what about the cooking methods we choose? Whether you are omnivore, pescatarian, vegetarian, or vegan... we all have one thing in common: we heat up and cook plenty of food. And if you eat raw, congrats! Energywise, you are not impacting the environment as much, but I personally could not survive the harsh Swedish winter without my beloved soups and cups of tea. So here it goes: a handful of tips and tricks on how we, as students, can make sustainable choices when cooking our delicious, home-cooked, meals (even if your evergreen, go-to choice consists of a dish of pasta and ketchup - I don’t judge); as well as save some money on the electricity bill. My first tip would be to get to know your stove. When it comes to electric stoves, as most of us have in our student apartments, make sure that you use the appropriate size pan on the burners. For example, a 6-inch (~ 15cm) pot used on an 8-inch (~ 20cm) burner, wastes more than 40% of the burner's heat. Put simply: the pot or pan you are using should cover the whole burner, or even be slightly bigger. Note that keeping your burners clean will assure their best efficiency!
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Another tip for using electric stoves is to learn to turn off the burners some minutes before the cooking time for your food is over, as it will remain hot and you will be using its passive, residual heat. One more tip is to use those lids! I know it can be hard to get pots and fitting lids when buying second hand, but if you have them, use them. This will help you reduce cooking time and reduce heat dispersion. Don’t forget to use the lid also when you’re waiting for your water to boil. And talking about water: use only the necessary amount! Not only not to waste water, but also not to need extra cooking time when boiling or steaming your food. If you happen to own a pressure cooker, it can help you reduce cooking time by up to 70%, which also obviously results in energy savings. Talking now about ovens, start by considering to cook many dishes at once. This will save you time and energy. If you are not cooking particularly sensitive foods (like, for example, souffles) you might not need to preheating, as when doing so it is easy not to notice when the chosen temperature is reached, which ends up in losing precious cooking minutes and energy wasting. As well as when cooking on your stove, consider turning off your oven some minutes earlier, to use the residual heat for the last five to ten minutes of cooking time. Remember that every time you open your oven the temperature drops of about 25 degrees! So, even if you feel a little bit impatient and want to quickly take
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a closer look at those golden roasted potatoes, try to stick to the suggested cooking time and open your oven only if really necessary. Plus, specifically when baking foods that rise while in the oven, experiencing a temperature drop can compromise the consistency and fluffiness of your masterpiece. Now, I know there are a lot of stigmas around microwaves, but it is actually proven that using a microwave or a toaster instead of an oven when it comes to heating up foods, can save up to 80% of cooking energy! If it is possible for you, invest in high quality, long lasting cookware, which results in making an environmentally friendly investment as well as assure a more eco-friendly cooking experience. For the oven, try to purchase items made of cast iron, ceramic or glass, as they retain more heat and speed up cooking time as well. A general tip when it comes to prepping your ingredients, consider slicing them thinly so that they can cook more quickly and reduce energy consumption, for example by making stir-fries. Or if you’re boiling rice - or other cereals - you can use a pot big enough to steam some veggies on top at the same time. Now, the biggest tip I can give you for making sustainable choices when it come to cooking foods is‌ not to cook at all! Always remember to eat your
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fresh fruits and veggies, as they will provide you with the best vitamins, minerals and fibers content. I hope this helped you and that it inspires you to become a more sustainable chef ! Stay cool and eat your fresh veggies ;)
Sources https://www.treehugger.com/htgg/how-to-go-green-inthe-kitchen.html https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edibleinnovations/10-tips-eco-friendly-cooking4.htm https://greatist.com/health/healthy-cooking-methods
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Illustration by Greta Mabilia
Sustainable use of resources
Awareness
Research Understanding
LET’S RECONSIDER WARM ATMOSPHERE
author
Magdalena Schwarzenlander
A candle light talk to excite the Sheldon Cooper in you. Superficial knowledge, some deadpan life advice and a bit BAZINGA!
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FROM THE SOURCE
Did you ever wonder if the candles that did float in mid-air over the tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts were environmentally friendly? Yeah, me neither. Candle light is a great way to create a warm atmosphere (no pun intended). One could assume that by switching electric light with candle light from time to time it has even a positive impact on the environment. To understand why this might be a misconception here comes a short journey to the dark side. You don’t have to be Sheldon Cooper to understand that candles make light by creating heat, but you probably need to share some traits with him to get excited about that. Candles are little chemical factories that convert the hydrocarbons in wax into carbon dioxide and water. The official term for this chemical reaction is “combustion”, but enough about the process. For further interest ask your nerdy friend or google it. According to statistics by the European Candle Association (ECA, 2018) every EU citizen bought 1.45 kg candles in 2017. What does surprise you more, the number of candles bought or that there is actually an European Candle Association? Anyhow what you can’t see is more interesting than what you can see. Since stalking the social media profile of a candle is in most cases not an option the life before it did enter your life does remain a mystery. Candles come in all shapes and scents and therefore contain various components, but the main ingredient is wax (the fuel that keeps the candle burning). In most cases cheap paraffin wax, a from crude oil derived petroleum by-product, is used. The crude
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oil business is a dirty one. In addition researchers at the Maastricht University in the Netherlands have discovered extremely high levels of potential carcinogenic substances inside of churches and have connected these to the extensive use of candles there (Radicals in the church, 2004). While you probably expect several things to happen after attending church service, getting lung cancer is probably not on the list. Instead of paraffin wax, some candles use palm oil and unless you did live under a rock the last few years you probably realized by now that the palm oil business is not less dirty than the crude oil industry. In order to create farm land for oil palm plantations big areas of untouched nature have been destroyed by deforestation and arson. The deforestation of big parts of the rainforest on for instance Borneo and Sumatra already lead to several irreversible events far bigger than what could be restored by humans. Illegal fire did not only destroy crops and plants that have not even been discovered by modern society but also the natural habitat of various wildlife. Amazing animals like rhinoceros and orangutans had to be put on the list of endangered species and the likelihood of them becoming extinct in our lifetime has grown rapidly. Additionally burning areas bigger than several football fields not only reduces the natural green blanket of rainforests that helped to absorb carbon emissions for a long time but also the labor conditions of many palm oil plantations are way below any human rights standard. As an alternative to paraffin wax and palm oil some companies use soy wax. Soy wax which is made out of
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soybean oil is however not free of consequences either. Critics argue for example that the crops used for soy wax are genetically modified and from conventional farming that uses fertilizer, pesticide and insecticide. Despite soy wax being marketed as a renewable and clean alternative non-certified soy is actually quite harmful to the soil it grows in and it is not possible to grow soy on the same field over and over again. Not to kill any passion but candles might heat up the planet more than one would expect. The road to full illumination is still long and bumpy but staying neutral is almost worse than being ignorant. What are sustainable options for those that are not interested in a (romantic) dinner in the dark? From only looking into how the wax is produced, beeswax is a clear winner. Since it is produced by bees without any external help it is as sustainable and natural as it can get. Although shrinking biodiversity, extensive use of fertilizer and other external influences do have already a huge impact on global bee population and might suggest not to exploit more. There has been effort in the industry to improve sustainable palm oil sourcing, but it is still a long way to go. According to Eco-Business (2018) around 19% of the global palm oil market is made up by certified palm oil. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) provides further information on specific companies and their engagement in sustainable palm oil sourcing on its palm oil scorecard. It is up to the consumer to raise the demand for certified palm oil, rather than boycotting palm oil at all. A boycott would only harm small scale farmers in countries like Indonesia
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and Malaysia that are financially dependent on it and eventually lead to more destruction of nature. Against public opinion and (fake news) media, the oil palm itself is better than its reputation and in fact the most efficient oil-bearing crop worldwide (better than soy, sunflower and rapeseed). It requires relatively small space, provides several harvests throughout the year and continues to do so for up to 30 years. The Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) supports sustainable farming practice, bans use of certain fertilizer and among others does ensure to combat arson.
Sources, Further Readings and Watchlist Eco-Business (2018) http://www.eco-business.com/news/ what-does-sustainable-palm-oil-mean-to-smallholders/ European Candle Association (2018): http://eca-candles. eu/ Woodford, C. (2017): http://www.explainthatstuff.com/ candles.html More Than Honey (2012): https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=2NT05qEJxUk Radicals in the church, 2004: de Kok, T.M. et al., 2004. Radicals in the church. European Respiratory Journal, 24(6), pp.1069–1070. WWF (2018): http://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/ Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (2018): https://rspo. org/
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Illustration by Magdalena Schwarzenlander
Palm oil
Oil palm
Fire
A RUSH OF HEAT
author
Moumita Griffith
Recollection from Kent’s final concert 17th of December, 2016.
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FROM THE SOURCE
Shoulder to shoulder. Body to body. Arm to arm. Hand to hand. Feet on the ground. The heat is rising. People are entering. The room is filling. A dark arena slowly becomes more colourful. Echoes vanish. An arena grows crowded. Clear paths are vanishing. People are teetering. A timer shows up. Half an hour left. Screams resound. Fear stirs in everyone’s hearts. Strobe lights ignite. Hearts pump faster. Chills ripple along spinal cords. Red light bathes the arena. The display ticks to 7:47. Shouting erupts. Seats are filling. Screens turn on. People run for the stage. The strobe lights change colour. Clear voices become mumbles. The arena is full. Nervousness pervades. Hands tremble. Feet stir restlessly. Bottles litter the ground. The display flickers. 0:00. A drumming girl dominates the screen, her face painted a skeletal white. Beats reverberate through air and bodies alike. Tension increases. The heat is rising. A choir is singing. The drumming girl vanishes. A band shows up. More screams erupt. The sound is deafening. An arena is roaring. Stockholm is blanketed in snow but the arena is on fire. The singer mounts the stage. Tears flow freely. He reaches for his guitar. There is no
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hesitation. The final concert begins. People sing along. The band dominates the displays. Artwork fills the screens. Music drowns out everything. Love is all there is. And passion. People are happy. People are sad. People are scared. Because this is the last time.
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Illustration by Moumita Griffith
This month's issue waas made possible by
Greta Mabilia
I am a student of the program "Design + Change" at LNU. I work with design and sustainability, focusing most of my energy on the social aspects of it. I am also the founder and curator for Botanica.
Luisa Leroy
Master student, from Belgium, in Innovation through Business, Engineering and Design. Topics as Architecture, Lighting and Urban Infrastructure are my everyday keywords which keep me busy and up to running. Excited for the future but critical for the upcoming dangers. But now, to you: How would you like to live?
Magdalena Schwarzenlander
Besides being an innovation master student, I am an imaginative storyteller and conscious tree hugger. I am driven by making existing things better rather than creating new products and services that lead to mindless consumption
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exploitation of raw material and waste. Arne Guthknecht
Apart from writing for Botanica, I am in the struggle of writing my thesis within the business field in the Innovation Master program. I am really excited about new concepts in the sharing economy, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and all kinds of ideas that help creating greenwashing-free businesses with a purpose other than just making money.
Moumita Griffith
Moumita Griffith, or simply Mou, is an addlebrained photographer and mechanical engineer who loves cats, potatoes, and tea. She has a fascination for the peculiar and surreal, such as her cat Merlin. He is too fluffy to be true!
BjĂśrn Idlinge & Johan Ă„lvgren
Sustainable Development coordinators at LNU and financial support for Botanica.
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Thank you
what is
BOTANICA BOTANICA is an independent publication for students at LNU. It is run by students, for students. Here sustainable* ideas are shared, by giving space to student's works, thoughts and projects and putting them out there, for everyone to be inspired by. BOTANICA uses the metaphor of growing plants to represent growing ideas, which are rooted in the multicultural ground of LNU. BOTANICA wants to empower students, because we have the tools to plant the seed of knowledge. BOTANICA is your platform to change society, the environment, the world.
*our sustainability is social, economical and environmental
botanica.lnu@gmail.com