Press release: Eindhoven’s unique citizen’s way to address air pollution and human health
Eindhoven August 14th and 15th
http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/en/2013/08/14/J001.htm
These days world’s first ever multidisciplinary worldwide organisation without budget, personnel or buildings, dedicated solely to creating healthy cities, AiREAS, will install world’s most advanced low cost, real time, intelligent air quality measurement system across the Dutch city of Eindhoven.
35 Airboxes in a network will deliver real time air quality information into a cross reference database. Unique about this is not just the technology used or the desire of this city to do something about the world’s most alarming problem, air pollution. It is the way AiREAS has come about, works and takes integral responsibility for human health, something none of the individual partners can do by themselves. AiREAS is unprecedented, developing itself as a true contribution for sustainable progressive democracies and well worthy to be made know to the world now. Let us sum up some of the uniqueness of AiREAS:
1. The high tech installation of a fine maze intelligent measurement system (ILM) in Eindhoven is the first accomplishment of AiREAS as a cooperative venture initiated by citizens and involving the complete set of institutional members from the key operational disciplines in a modern society, such as the local government, technological innovators, local city quarter citizens for social innovation and scientific research specialists and universities to prevent the cooperation to try to invent the wheel again and provide true progress.
2. The data obtained through the ILM network will be used for multiple purposes. Ideally instant feedback is given to the local city’s citizens and enterprises for immediate air quality and health improvement actions. AIREAS is going to experiment with communication in different ways, with different content presentations, using scientific insight on human perception to see what results into best health support effects among the local population.
3. The detailed data about air particles, measuring PM 10, 2,5 and (ultra) fine dust as well as NOx and Ozone, is being instantly cross referenced with information from different sources and content, such as historic health data, traffic information, etc. Scientific specialists define research objectives including the specific contribution of their studies to the healthiest city objective. They also help define and optimize the ILM infrastructure, modulation patterns and measurement locations to ensure the effectiveness of data collection using present day knowledge.
4. Local citizen’s participate in AiREAS in order to be able to take entrepreneurial action in their private and professional life’s and take their own responsibilities in their neighborhoods. Or directly negotiate health related infrastructure priorities with the local government. The fact that government participates directly in AiREAS too makes human result driven interaction and decision making direct and instantaneous. Local citizen’s complaints to government officials about air pollution went down by 100% since the announcement of AiREAS.
5. The local government participates among other reasons to back up costly infrastructure decisions with heath indicators as well as the measurement of the results of policy decisions according to norms and objectives of the establishment.
6. Local and multinational technological enterprises bring in their technologies and innovative ideas together. They each add a fragment to solutions that are assembled to contribute to the healthy city objectives. These contributions, when they indeed provide integral health improvement results, receive the AiREAS case reference and living lab proof of concept. These companies can expand their contribution on a world wide basis with these references. Expansion occurs through traditional sales channels of all international participants contributing in this way to a healthier world. Another option is to help establish Local AiREAS ventures elsewhere in the world by taking Eindhoven as an example.
7. Eindhoven has become a true purposes driven living lab with enthusiasm of all involved.
8. Organisations and entire regions are invited to come to Eindhoven to get acquainted with AiREAS, consider accepting the invitation to participate in the venture through their own talented inclusion, or undertake steps to create a Local AiREAS of their own with the help of AiREAS.
9. Even though AiREAS itself has purely a complex human value objective, without relating directly to economics, the individual partners represent their own self interest which can be expressed in many ways. They translate the values obtained to their own (economic) goals. In a way AiREAS feeds a new health driven economy based on addressing human values world wide.
10. AiREAS is a new citizen’s way of taking responsibility for complex key sustainable human values. It is called Sustainocracy, an evolutionary step in our democracies. It refers to the acceptance that some key issues, such as human health, security, wellness, applied knowledge, environmental conditions and self sufficiency are no political or economized options nor democratic choice that can be delegated. They are common self aware responsibilities of any person, organization and community.
11. AiREAS was initiated in 2011 by two local citizens of Eindhoven, Jean-Paul Close (definer and initiator of Sustainocracy) and Marco van Lochem (specialist in transforming idealism into practical reality through projects). They invited the local population and cooperative members to its sustainocratic mission, asking for the multidisciplinary commitment covering the entire society, expressing the results in technological, social and organisational innovations, regional sustainable progress and measurable human values.
12. AiREAS has no personnel or buildings of its own and works entirely with the combined result driven resources of its partners. The two initiating citizen’s are not on the pay roll either to ensure their independence and impartiality. Both are just as result driven as the rest of the cooperation.
13. AiREAS has no initial budget. It starts with the healthy city objective and all the necessary partners to make it happen. When priorities are discussed and projects defined also the issue of investment is raised, related to reciprocity. Every member than contributes according to its own means and expectations. Money is only part of all the means that can be invested to support the venture.
14. The partners in AiREAS represent the four operational pillars of a modern (sustainocratic) democratic society and economy: the local government (territory), technological innovators (tools), scientists (knowledge) and the local citizens (culture).
15. The inner cooperative values of AiREAS are: the commitment to the higher cause of AiREAS through membership, mutual respect and integrity, equality and trust. The membership is free of charge, not free from responsibility.
16. Any region or city in the world can now create a Local AiREAS with the assistance of AiREAS. AiREAS offers the experience, structure and objective with certain key partners already involved. All that is needed is a commitment from the local government, a local independent “sustainocrat” and the willingness to allow the region to developed itself through value drive public participation and cooperation.
Note: On September 20th Jean-Paul Close hosts an international seminar in Eindhoven to explain Sustainocracy.
The Local AiREAS Eindhoven consists of:
* Government: The local city council and the province of Noord Brabant.
* Innovative business enterprises: ECN, Imtech and Philips. Also many local small and medium sized businesses participate.
* Scientific and educational institutions: IRAS (Utrecht University with expertise on respiratory and lung research), ITC (Twente University with expertise on modulation and measurement infrastructures, space observation around climate and allergies), Academic Medical Center (Amsterdam University adding heart and vascular medical expertise and research). Various other universities and disciplines are already participating awaiting their own institutional authorization for formal membership.
* The local citizens of Eindhoven.
“The world upside down” a city official said when the two initiating locals citizens walked into the city hall two years ago. They had invited the local government to take co responsibility with them for a healthy city. “Unprecedented!” and “My first time in 25 years of executive work” top R&D executives of participating leading multinationals said. They referred to the way the top of local governance, acknowledged scientific experts and high tech industrial multinationals were challenged by these two citizens to take responsibility together, and accepted, for one of the most serious problems of the last century, air pollution and human health. As a result the citizens of Eindhoven soon receive their own high level real time data on air pollution as a very first step in co-creating the healthiest city of the world. For AiREAS this is just a start. The healthy city is the goal and so is the challenge to show the rest of the world how it can be done, helping other cities to do the same.
Note for the journalist and editors:
AiREAS website: http://www.aireas.com
More information on Sustainocracy and AiREAS as citizen’s challenge: Jean-Paul Close T:+31 654326615 E: jpclose@aireas.com
More information about the ILM measurement infrastructure: Marco van Lochem T:31 655712874 E: mvanlochem@aireas.com
More information about the measurement technologies used in the ILM: René Otjes (ECN)
More information about the database management system: Carl Wolff (Imtech)
More information on the government implications and commitment to the venture:
City of Eindhoven – Hans Verhoeven
Province Noord Brabant – Edwin Weijtmans
More information on the various scientific cross referenced research programs and participating universities: Marco van Lochem and Jean-Paul Close (contact details above)
More information on citizen’s program: Jean-Paul Close
Where in life do you stand?
Let’s do a little exercise. A bit of awareness development does no harm. Feel free to interact when you are done.
4 clear phases
4 unique phases
There are four universal phases in the cyclic patterns of life that have been identified. Each affects the way we perceive and deal with life’s circumstances. The phases are reflected in the drawing above. For the sake of awareness and understanding I have given them simple names that can be replaced by many other with a similar significance as you can see in the brackets:
1: Change (also: a new life, pioneer, awareness, young, renewal, hope, innovation, space, birth, adaptation, spring)
2: Balance (also: harmony, togetherness, adult, co-creation, trust, love, peace, construction, optimism, wellness, equality, stability, summer)
3: Stress (also: fear, bureaucracy, control, hierarchy, systems, old, growth, automation, speculation, greed, negation, pressure, autumn)
4: Crisis (also: break down, death, depression, competition, confrontations, theft, criminality, hate, distrust, individualism, discrimination, chaos, winter)
These four phases have also teased many economic, philosophical, mathematical, spiritual, anthropological, biological, etc analysts that you may have heard about. I am going to ask you to define where you stand and where you find your surroundings to be? Please decide at first sight where you feel you stand personally today as an individual? If you have difficulties with the bold names to identify your own status you may find it easier to refer to some other word in the brackets. You may feel in winter (referring to a cold spell in your life with crisis, problems, etc) or maybe a new period of passion and idealism (number 1)…
The four situations are not static. They follow each other up in the chronological, numerological order with 4 jumping into 1 again: 4.1.2.3.4.1.2.3.4….. It does not always start at 4 nor 1 of course. It starts when you become aware of the cycles and start to use it for guidance. Your own starting point today is the number you chose at the poll.
So if you chose 2 (balance) you know that 3 (stress) will follow. This will lead to a crisis (4) and eventually to some kind of change (1). The cycle begins than again with a new moment of balance (2) for you. One situation always leads to the other. Sometimes slowly, sometimes very fast. Out of all four situations we always desire balance (2) most yet no matter how hard we try there is never a status quo in life. To achieve balance we need to accept the other three states also.
Life is on the move
Our life is far from static. We are influenced and challenged all the time by a large variety of impulses. Life is an adventure. We need to act to provide ourselves with the (primary) resources to stay alive. There are moments of abundance and scarcity. When abundance occurs we fear loosing it. When scarcity happens we become inventive to try to get back to abundance. We never really have balance because living life is by definition a permanent search for it through adaptive interaction with our surroundings. The amount of personal security we find in our surroundings determines also the amount of willingness we display to challenge it through change. When there is abundance we react relaxed to change, when there is a situation of crisis we are likely to suffer one too.
Where does your surroundings stand today?
If your surroundings influences our situation, behavior and decision making by providing abundance or shortages, opportunities or threats, how would you judge the current situation? You may take your family life as a benchmark, your job, the society you live in…..whatever determines your current situation today most? Don’t worry, the polls are anonymous. They are simply for the sake of awareness building while showing that you are not alone, what ever your specific situation would be.
When you compare your personal answer with that of your surroundings, how do they relate? Do they coincide (1 -1, 2 – 2, 3 – 3, 4- 4)? Are you ahead in the cycle (1-4, 2-1, 3-1) taking a crisis as a breaking point? Or are you lagging behind?
What are you going to do about it?
With this simple exercise of two projections on a universal cycle you make up your mind on how to deal with the situation. The exercise adds the cyclic view to your awareness, a kind of predictability that can be influenced by your level of self awareness and acceptance of these universal realities. So far it has just been a rational exercise of interpretation of these realities through a model by picking a number. The question “what are you doing about it?” draws you into the field of emotions.
Just imagine that you are happily living a harmonic life in the stability of situation 2 (balance). You suddenly now become aware that this situation may not last for ever. This may already be enough reason to enter the phase of stress (3). You will blame me for causing this stress and may want to get back into the dormant state of satisfaction.
Maybe you are in stress (3) of having to work in a job that you intensely dislike simply because you need to pay your mortgage. Your family is living in harmony (2) thanks to your salary. You may not dare to go out to find something else out of fear for a financial or relationship crisis (4). Many risk a burnout like this and enter a mental or physical crisis instead.
There are plenty of other situations thinkable in which you voluntarily or involuntarily have to deal with choices. At hindsight you often say “if only I had known” or “if I had done this or that”. This “if I had…” is of course frustrating but even more complicated is to take action with foresight when at first sight no action seems to be needed. We may call this leadership but we also often call it obsessive worries. Where the differentiation lies has to do with your own wisdom, vision, determination and guts. You are considered crazy or stupid by others when you fail and a hero when you succeed. Does that prevent you from considering action?
As an individual you determine your own life’s adventure. It becomes a different emotional story when you have responsibilities over other people. How do you deal with all this when you are a father or mother taking care of young children? Or the CEO of a large company with many employees? How does a city council deal with this responsibility or the country’s president? Or me, a person who wants the current societies to convert into sustainable human progress with Sustainocracy?
Harmony can be a place to be even when you are elsewhere in the cycle.
Conclusion
Understanding where you are is very helpful. Awareness about the cycle is key to take proactive action when time has come. Many organizations invest in a R&D to produce position 1 opportunities of change but find that the world has grown too complex and fast to come up with novelties alone. A good understanding of the psychology of human complexities is key, not just for business or political structures but for humankind as a whole.
Unique collection of expertise in AiREAS
On June 18th 2013 the second membership encounter took place of the world’s first Sustainocratic venture known as AiREAS. AiREAS is committed to “human health in relation to (air) environmental quality in cities”. It is based on co-creation, a value driven cooperation between business, science, government and the local population of, in this first case, Eindhoven. If fact all key fragmented puzzle pieces of society take responsibility together for a key issue of sustainable progress. Health in this case in relation to the complexity of a dynamic city and environental symbiosis s.a the quality of the air we breath.
The venture applies state of the art technology together with scientific knowledge on the city’s population and current functional reality, introducing all kinds of innovations that should improve the local environment and human health. The first step was to design in an Intelligent Real Time measurement system (ILM) “to make the invisible visible” throughout the city which is also unique in the world. It measures finedust and ultra fine dust while policy makers and scientists make cross reference analysis between pollution and all kinds of other data. In the process transparant interactive communication process takes place with the population to trigger proactive health related social innovation and entrepreneurship. A new culture should gradually appear in which sustainable progress is as important as the economic development of the region. According the high level expertise in science, business and governance, such combined commitment is unprecedented in the world.
The member’s meeting was about the forthcoming installation of the ILM, the next steps to get into profund analysis phase of all the variables, how to communicate with the city and how to present the values created to the rest of the world?
After the meeting an informal barbecue created a first common view of what level of multidisciplinary expertise had been gathered with a commitment to health. Many others are involved too but could not come to the gathering due to professional or other commitments. Those who were there give you an idea with what multidisciplinary force the “healthy city” ambition is addressed as minor step before up the ambition to “healthy planet”.
Membership AiREAS
On the picture:
Local government:
- Edwin Weijtmans (Province, air quality policy)
- Hans Verhoeven (City of Eindhoven, environmental policy)
- Sandra van der Sterren (City of Eindhoven, air quality specialist)
Multinational business, technological innovation:
- Marco van Lochem (Director Imtech) – Marco is also partner initiator AiREAS
- Ronald Wolf (Director Philips Research)
- Carlo Wolff (Imtech – cross reference database specialist)
- Rene Otjes (Program manager at ECN)
- Ernie Weijers (ECN)
Scientific research:
- Nicolas Hamm – scientific researcher Geo-climate and allergies – Univ Twente
- Gerard Hoek – scientific researcher lung issues around ultra fine dust – Univ Utrecht
- Rene de Groot – medic and researcher heart and vascular around fine dust – Univ Amsterdam
Civilian initiatives present:
- Wen Spelbrink – Environmental Defense and policy influencer
- Rianne van der Zanden – Social Media
- Debbie Langelaan – Journalist and writer, AiREAS website
- Koen Kneppens – regional entrepreneurship
- Nicolette Meeder – schools and education
- Jean-Paul Close – creator of Sustainocracy and initiator of AIREAS
Also present during the encounter were partners and children of the team.
Formal cooperative memberships of all parties gave been signed for 3 to 5 years. In Juli 2013 the ILM will be installed and real time dat will be collected for cross referencing with other data for scientific research. Meanwhile 220.000 of the local population are gradually being involved through initiatives around living green, mobility, energy cooperations, awareness games, etc. This is sustainocracy in action.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 