About Wageningen Environmental Research
Clearly, challenges such as food supply, climate change and the sustainability of our economy are increasingly demanding attention. These challenges are about the quality of life on Earth in general. The solution to many problems is anchored in the domain of the research of Wageningen Environmental Research, the leading research institute for our green living environment.
Wageningen Environmental Research offers a combination of practical, innovative and interdisciplinary scientific research across many disciplines related to the green world around us and the sustainable use of our living environment. Aspects of our environment on which Wageningen Environmental Research focuses include soil, water, the atmosphere, the landscape and biodiversity ‒ on a global scale as well as regionally, from the Dutch polders to the Himalayas and from Amsterdam to the Arctic.
Wageningen Environmental Research in five programmes:
Biodiverse environment
Everything we eat is directly or indirectly derived from either wild or domesticated biodiversity. The bulk of what we build with, make medicines from and use as industrial raw materials comes from biological resources. Many forms of tourism revolve around nature. Biodiversity represents enormous economic value, and at least 40% of the world economy and 80% of the needs of the world’s poorest depend on biological resources.
Green Climate Solutions
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of the present time. The impact of climate change and the subsequent risk of floods, droughts and heat waves on society will only increase in the coming decades. Urgent action to combat climate change and it impacts is required by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) as well as reducing the impact of climate change (adaptation).
Metropolitan solutions
In 2050, about 70% of the global population will live in cities. As a result, problems concerning sustainability and quality of life are becoming increasingly urgent for these urban areas. Wageningen wants to achieve metropolitan solutions with the aim of realising cities and metropolitan areas that – in close relationship with the surrounding rural areas – are liveable, healthy and resilient, and have circular economies. We address aspects such as heat islands, flooding, food supply, air quality, urban agriculture and liveability, as well as urban policy and urban planning.
Sustainable Land Use
Sustainable Land Use ensures a fair and balanced distribution of land, water, biodiversity and other environmental resources between the various competing claims, in other to secure human needs now and in the future.
Sustainable Water Management
The daily impact of droughts and flooding is felt by industry, businesses, farmers and civilians around the world. Extreme weather events, natural disasters, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, water crises, and large-scale involuntary migration are amongst the most likely and impactful current global risks. By delivering innovations and strategies, Wageningen researchers increase the economic, social and environmental values of water for our partners.
Making sustainable contributions
To meet the environmental challenges of today and tomorrow, our focus on science allows us to unite our skills in cooperation between teams of subject specialists. Our 400 staff members are divided over 11 teams, each focused on a particular topic to develop innovative solutions that are practical, efficient and cost-effective. We execute research in the field of flora and fauna, soil, water, climate, vegetation, land cover and land use, the use of geo-information and remote sensing, environmental risk assessment, landscape and spatial planning, forestry, recreation and governance.
Matching your challenges
Wageningen Environmental Research engages in integrated research to support design processes, policy-making and management at local, national and international levels. We have given ourselves the clear aim of strengthening our position as a leading institute for innovative strategic research and its practical application. We provide wide-ranging consultancy and advisory services, matching our wealth of environmental expertise to the needs of the society, policymakers, academia, industry, government and the research community.
Collaborating in business and research
Wageningen Environmental Research has always taken pride in our knowledge exchange and training activities and our links through collaborations with external partners, both in business and with research institutes. Among our national and international partners are the Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER), Global Water Partnership (GWP), World Water Council (WWC), Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP), Landscape Europe, Climate Change and Biosphere (CCB), the European Centre for Nature Conservation (ECNC), the European Forest Institute (EFI) and many others.
Close cooperation with Wageningen University
Wageningen Environmental Research is unique in the way we fulfil our assignments. We are a scientific research institute with a high level publication record, that also gives advice to policy institutions, business and societal organisations. We work in close cooperation with Wageningen University and focus on strategic and applied research, which makes our work both scientifically sound and practically applicable. The art of our work is to offer our clients the expertise needed tailored to their situation.
Clients and partners
Wageningen Environmental Research clients and partners are large and small, international and national organisations, governments and companies. We provide them with knowledge, advice, suggestions and designs, based on a wide range of research disciplines. Our client and partner list includes the European Commission, the Dutch Government and the World Bank, APP, Heineken, WWF, BASF, Arcadis, Rabobank, UNEP and many others.
Aspiring highest standards
We aim to achieve the highest standards of service by developing quality skills in our own people. Our research drives our activities on modelling studies, assessments and capacity building, keeping them up-to date and accurate. The information we gather from real-life experience in the field is funnelled back into our research and advisory work. The challenges we encounter in consulting activities inspire us to pursue new research and to refine our methods and models.
Wageningen Environmental Research maintains an ISO certified quality management system, according to the standard ISO 9001:2008 that ensures that the quality aspects of all our assignments are planned for and managed in a systematic and measurable way. Wageningen Environmental Research works with an environmental management system that satisfies the requirements of ISO 14001:2004. In addition we adopted the international standard NEN-EN-ISO 26000 ‘Social responsibility of Organisations’ to shoulder our social responsibility in a positive and transparent fashion.
CO2 footprint
Graphic representation of the CO2 footprint in tons of CO2, of the Department of Environmental Sciences of Wageningen University and Wageningen Environmental Research. The larger a theme in this diagram, the greater its contribution to the emissions of greenhouse gases. No CO2 figures have been assigned to waste. Since 2011 we have compensated our CO2 emissions as much as possible; the compensation amount is in the orange columns.
