1 July 2025 | 19:30–22:00 | University of Antwerp – Stadscampus (S.C.003)
The University of Antwerp strives to be an inclusive, engaged, fossil-free and biodiverse university. Sustainability is a core value across education, research and service, as well as internal operations. This lecture is inspired by multiple Antwerp Summer University programmes centred on sustainability and highlights the shared commitment of the university, its programmes and research groups to contributing to a more sustainable future.
During this evening lecture, Hans Bruyninckx, professor of Environmental Governance at the University of Antwerp and former Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, will address the role of cities in times of planetary crisis and global turbulence.
In his lecture, he will reflect on how human societies are increasingly challenged by the triple planetary crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution), or otherwise framed, by the consequences of an economic model that has surpassed planetary boundaries and thus has left the so-called ‘safe operating space’ for humanity.
This context requires fundamental transitions at the scale of core societal systems such as the energy, the food, the mobility, and the built environment system. In addition to socio-technical innovation, a critical rethinking of socio-ecological systems that define our relationship to the environment is essential for long-term sustainability.
With most of the global population living in cities, these challenges have some of their most explicit expressions in the urban context. At the same time, the urban social metabolism is also a sphere of innovation, contestation, experimentation and cultural exchange: all elements of a necessary systemic transition towards fundamental sustainability.
The lecture will be in English, and will be introduced by vice-rector Valorisation and Sustainability Steven Van Passel and followed by a Q&A session and a reception.
- 19:30–21:00 Lecture with Q&A
- 21:00–22:00 Reception