Commonland

Commonland is a high-profile organisation, specialized in large-scale landscape restoration to counter the worldwide processes of deforestation, overexploitation, overgrazing and pollution. Commonland’s method is based on the idea of 4 returns: Return of Inspiration, Social Capital, Natural Capital and Financial Capital.

This sustainable type of landscape restoration will eventually lead to a restored biodiversity and water quality, increased business activity and long-term sustainable profit. Commonland’s approach is thus perfectly aligned with international environmental policies.

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The main goal of the project is to investigate the sustainability of current practices of farmers and other stakeholders located in the peat meadows of the Vechtplassen-region around Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The project team will be tasked to interact, study and develop possible initiatives towards making farmers and stakeholders combine the wishes to engage in more sustainable farming with the wish to uphold financial certainty. Example activities could be the development of a comprehensive research plan identifying best practices and a list of criteria, the production of multiple development ‘concepts’ for the designated environment, and the set up a test phase and pilot for the first concepts. Thus, this project clearly combines the study of Business and Economy on the one hand, and Agricultural Sciences on the other hand.

As with all our projects, the first step of the project will be the formation of a multidisciplinary team of excellent and highly motivated students. After the formation, the students will prepare themselves for their Implementation Phase in the Vechtplassen around Amsterdam. This will be done in cooperation with AFDU and Commonland. Since the project will take place in the Netherlands, there will be a less clear distinction between the Preparation and Implementation Phase compared to the other projects.