Shellfish reefs increase water storage capacity on intertidal flats over extensive spatial scales

Ecosystem engineering species can affect their environment at multiple spatial scales, from the local scale up to a significant distance, by indirectly affecting the surrounding habitats. Structural changes in the landscape can have important consequences for ecosystem functioning, for example, by increasing retention of limiting resources in the system. Yet, it remains poorly understood how extensive the footprint of ecosystem engineers on the landscape is. Using remote sensing techniques, we reveal that depression storage capacity on intertidal flats is greatly enhanced by engineering by shellfish resulting in intertidal pools. Many organisms use such pools to bridge low water events. This storage capacity was significantly higher both locally within the shellfish reef, but also at extensive spatial scales up to 115 m beyond the physical reef borders. Therefore, the footprint of these ecosystem engineers on the landscape was more than 5 times larger than their actual coverage; the shellfish cover approximately 2% of the total intertidal zone, whereas they influence up to approximately 11% of the area by enhancing water storage capacity. We postulate that increased residence time of water due to higher water storage capacity within engineered landscapes is an important determinant of ecosystem functioning that may extend well beyond the case of shellfish reefs provided here

Social Capital in Organizations.

In my belief the effectiveness of organizations has more to do with managing people in a more ethical, sustainable and effective way than what is common these days. For example employees values like trust, respect and commitment are rarely considered as values that can contribute to social capital in organizations as an important and critical success factor. I will present the hypothesis that social capital in organizations exists and that is formed out of employees values like trust, respect and commitment and the process of creating social capital is influenced by leadership style and the way of decision making. A conceptual model to describe the relationships is shown in chapter 3. Chapter 4 defines social capital as dependent variable and presents important theoretical considerations from Putnam, Bourdieu, Coleman and Fukuyama leading to the conclusion that social capital is about a network sharing values and norms to cooperate freely and therefore effectively. The value of social capital derives from basic values like trust, respect and commitment, so is made clear in chapter 5 where these values are theoretically introduced and commented on. The process from basic value to social capital is influenced by leadership style and participating in decision making as is illustrated in chapter 6, that leads to the conclusion that it is profitable to invest in a proper way of leadership style and a proper way of decision making, causing the best amount of social capital. Another conclusion is that this field is empirically not well explored, but interesting

Consumer (co-)ownership of renewable energy sources in the Netherlands

n 2017 over 500 projects were counted in the Netherlands, aiming at creating a joint ownership structure for local renewable energy utilities; the number of energy cooperatives has substantially increased. There is not only potential for consumer activism and (co-)ownership, there is also societal momentum. Although these developments have not escaped political attention and distributed energy was emphasized in the Energy Agreement, a wide legal operationalization has not yet taken place. There is, however, one exception: the Decree of 2014 concerning “Experimental de-central sustainable energy production” which defined experimental energy projects, aimed at the production and self-supply of energy for a period of 10 years. With respect to onshore wind energy, a soft-legal instrument outlines that onshore wind farms should be open to financial and non-financial participation of residents. Furthermore, consumer (co-)ownership received explicit recognition of its crucial role in the 2018 recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) as part of the Clean Energy Package. Most collective RE projects are cooperatives; others opt for a foundation or a limited liability company. Many of the cooperatives that have emerged in the Netherlands aim at the collective purchasing of solar panels, with 14 MWp installed capacity of solar panels realized in 2016. It is estimated that 3 per cent of wind turbines on land were cooperatively owned in 2016. The role of municipalities in RE generation and supply is one of facilitation and collaboration. Many collective RE projects are sited on communal property such as schools or libraries. Local authorities also provide advice and support in the planning phase of collective projects

Organizational Innovation and its Facilitators: A brief overview of work in progress

This paper presents four research projects on organizational innovation in the Netherlands. These projects are still in a design and theoretical investigation stage, but the authors find it useful to share their findings and insights with the research community in order to inspire them with their ideas and research agenda. In the paper four constructs are explored that focus on the human factor in organizations and that may have a positive influence on organizational innovation. Shared leadership: It is often thought that, for innovation, only one brilliant mind with a break-through idea in a single flash of enlightenment is needed. Recent research, however, shows that most innovations are the result of team-flow and sharing and alternating leadership tasks. Social Capital: through leadership and decision making, by influencing trust, respect and commitment, the organizations social capital and thus its innovative power is increased. External consultancy: deployment of external consultants will add to knowledge and skills necessary for innovation. IT and workflow management: if handled correctly, the human factor can add substantial quality to the design and use of IT in organizations. The paper shows that the way these constructs are managed is crucial in influencing and motivating members of an organization to attribute to innovation and make use of the facilities that are offered to them