The lunch-lecture is taking place on the 23rd of March 2016 from 12:30 in the DesignLab at the University of Twente. Its main goal is to promote sustainability in all its forms. Even posters for the event are completely sustainable - they are made out of 'growing paper', which contains flower seeds. After its use as a poster, it can be planted in the ground and literally turn into flowers.
Presentations and waste food
'You don´t have to do much to contribute to a better world,' says Bas Coenen. 'We want to inspire students by stories of their fellow students, who will share their experience with sustainable projects and explain that it´s actually easy to do something for the greater good. The event will therefore involve short presentations by UT students and student organizations that have worked on sustainable projects. It´s made by students for students.'
And then there is, of course, the free lunch, which will be available for the first 60 visitors. In order to make the event itself as sustainable as possible, the organizers decided to use food that would otherwise be thrown away. 'A local supermarket is going to donate food that expires soon, but is still perfectly fine to eat. However, due to regulations it would have to be wasted the next day,' explains Lisanne de Weert. 'It´s exciting, because we don´t yet know what products we will get, so we don´t know what we can cook. We will have to improvise on the day of the event. In any case, we will make sure that it´s safe to eat and nobody gets sick.'
Doing something just to help others
What even inspired two students of Industrial Engineering to arrange such an event? 'As bachelor students, we both studied the minor program of Sustainable Development in Developing countries and we took a field trip to Mexico,' says De Weert. 'There we met a lot of students, who were volunteering on water management projects. They didn´t do it for their own benefit or pay, only to help out, which was very inspiring. That is why we decided to organize this event. Sustainability is not officially related to our study, but it is applicable to many fields, including engineering. We want to encourage students to think about the impact of their work, be aware of the consequences of their choices.'
