In 2010 we hosted one of our preparation meetings with all the invited institutions in the Province of North Brabant. Our program was to develop local air quality and health through the multidisciplinary community of AiREAS. Every thinkable institution (government, science, NGOs, technology) was present. They all had the opportunity to present their own programs. But at the end of the meeting everyone was packing their stuff again to go home. This is the moment when the sustainocrat was born. I jumped in the center of the meeting, looked around and asked: “Is that it? Do we have a healthy region now?”

The bags were unpacked again and everyone went back to their seat. That is when the real discussion started. “Who does what?” It was then when we decided that the provincial challenge was to big and complex, that we needed a smaller but complex region where we could look each other in the eyes and take decisions together. The city of Eindhoven stood up and suggested that they could be that initial region. And that is how it started. I have not left that position in the middle of the circle ever since and keep repeating the same questions, over and over again.