Belgian professional with a passion for sustainable development
In August 2017, I will be participating in the first UNLEASH event. Talents from all over the world come to Denmark for nine days to create real, scalable solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals.
I am very thrilled to participate and to be surrounded by talented people with a common goal, that is finding scalable solutions to the SDG’s. In this post I will introduce myself and a few of the things I did over the past few years.
I am a 27 year old Belgian working in the Netherlands as a Project Leader. After I graduated as a Master in Industrial Engineering in (Bio)chemical Engineering. I wanted to work only for companies that truly believe in a sustainable business approach. Over the years I was lucky enough to get the chance to not only work for businesses with a sustainable approach, but also to contribute to their goals and to develop my personal skills in terms of safety, engineering and innovation. Some of the projects I worked on were the construction & start-up of turn key installations for recycling and waste(water) treatment, developing new and existing technologies waste(water & gas) treatment, developing innovative pilot installations in nutrient recovery and improving safety & training methods in chemical plant. At the end of the post you can find a few examples of projects I worked on.
Working in a lot of different places, departments and disciplines at various clients, allowed me to really experience the approaches that work. By doing this I achieved one of my dreams by working and delivering industrial scale installations. On a daily basis I try to implement the solutions I experienced in diverse industries, such as the metals recycling, pharmaceutical, food, gas & wastewater treatment and manure treatment industry. What is central for me in my work is, that I always try to find the most sustainable solution. I am currently working as a project leader and try to keep the broader picture in mind to find client specific solutions and more importantly a sustainable approach in terms of waste. In the coming years I am looking to develop my business skills, which are essential for making change happen.
One of the things that always has surprised my most, are the amounts of waste we generate and the lack of knowledge, care or interest we show to change this. Luckily I have seen a change in attitude in recent years and I would love to use my skills as a engineer to become leader to further drive this change towards a circular economy. I truly believe everybody has a part to play in this change. Housing, industry, agriculture and transportation can become a lot more sustainable with some minor adaptations. All it takes are a minor change in mindset and a bit of political courage to stimulate the right iniatives, although this last point might not even be necessary. So what I hope to achieve with UNLEASH is to provide these sustainable and affordable solutions towards a more circular economy/life.
Value from manure:
Sewage mining: Resource and energy factory in communal wastewater treatment
Biologically removing metals from wastewater:
Recyling of electronic scrap and complex metal wastes:
