The holidays are over, the days are getting shorter and the to-do lists longer. It is September, so the calendars are again full of appointments, albeit still mainly digital, which is a bit less fun. After all, it remains human work if you want to save the environment and that goes better if you have real contact.

It has been fourteen years since Triple E was founded in September by Tom Bade with the aim of making a significant contribution to making our society more sustainable. But as a real company, because it is always more fun if you have colleagues with whom you can save nature. Triple E has been at the forefront for fourteen years. That is still the case today. But to stay at the forefront you have to bring in the best of the best. From 1 September, Dagmar Bade will therefore also be working within the company and will mainly focus on the sale of trees and the coordination of all scientific activities. This is in line with her sister Erin Bade who, in addition to her studies, has also been working in the company since 1 September last year. Because colleagues are fun, but family is even more fun.

But quality is also the result of working with the right partners. In the coming period we will work a lot with Rob Wolters and his new company Seven Waves with regard to the Brickz  (see also  https://sevenwaves.eu/). Rob and Tom have known each other for a long time and will work together in the coming period on the rollout of the Brickz. In the coming months Rob will focus, among other things, on organizing the symposium for the project ‘Dredging, clippings and heath scrapings as a regional soil improver based on Brickz’. The project is coming to an end and it is time for us to propagate the results. Unfortunately, the meeting will probably be digital and therefore a bit less fun.

In the meantime, the Conpax research setup has been set up within Phytorefinery the Growing Place (see also: https://www.conpax.nl/). As part of the project ‘Easily sustainable’ (Met gemak duurzaam), we are going to try to convert the disposables that are collected into useful raw materials and use the material that remains in substrate. This means that now employees of Conpax actually walk around the Growing Place and not digitally. And that is a bit more fun.

It is really late summer at the Growing Place. In the mycoretum the hops are in bloom and dozens of kilos of grapes are hanging in the air and it is buzzing with life. The miscantus that we grow on a substrate of sewage sludge makes another ultimate attempt to grow out of the window and the trees bravely try to keep their green beauty for as long as possible. For work, the temperature is back to normal and not 51.3 degrees, as during the heat wave. And that also translates into a significantly lower consumption of fruit juices and Diet Coke. For those who walk around among all the foliage at the Growing Place it is completely clear: we have started the long final sprint of 2020.