'TU Delft must be transparent about climate gain'

The restaurant of the Architecture facility of TU Delft has been completely vegetarian since May of this year. "This was chosen in the context of climate action," coordinator Andy van den Dobbelsteen said in an interview in mid-May. The university has set itself the goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. But the figures it communicates are not correct, according to the Agrifacts Foundation. And a 'disappeared' literature reference does not make the research more reliable.

Agrifacts Foundation has an official complaint submitted to the Scientific Integrity Committee of TU Delft. The restaurant of the Faculty of Architecture of the educational institution uses since the beginning of May a full vegetarian range. This makes climate gains, but according to the Agrifacts Foundation, not as much as claimed. "TU Delft writes that switching to a vegetarian or vegan range saves more than half of the emissions due to food," says investigative journalist Geesje Rotgers on behalf of the Agrifacts Foundation. According to the foundation, this is an unrealistically large climate gain, after which it was decided to check the substantiation.

Lost literature reference
However, the latter did not go without a struggle, as Agrifacts describes. "A report with substantiation was available, but it did not clearly describe what exactly it was about. Reference was made to a literature reference, but it turned out to be unavailable," explains Rotgers when asked. "Even after nagging, we did not receive that literature reference. In the end, we did receive another substantiation, which was an Excel file."  

In that Excel sheet, however, foods of vegetable and animal origin were treated differently. "TU Delft arrives at the major climate difference by including products of animal origin in detail. At the same time, a number of plant-based foods have been forgotten, such as drinks, biscuits, pastries and some vegetables. This makes the difference greater. a number of non-food groups are not included." The Agrifacts Foundation has shared these findings with the educational institution. "Despite all the efforts of the spokesperson, who deserves kudos, unfortunately there was no substantive response."

Transparency is desired
The Agrifacts Foundation hopes that the literature reference will be made public after all. And that the things that are not right are adjusted. "What universities say, that is taken for granted by everyone. It is important that what is communicated is also correct. We also expect public and transparent substantiation for these kinds of figures." It is unknown whether TU Delft will respond to the allegations in the short term.

Kimberly Baker

Kimberly Bakker is an all-round editor at Boerenbusiness. She also has an eye for the social media channels of Boerenbusiness.

k.baker @boerenbusiness. Nl

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